Fordite, also known as Detroit Agate or Motor Agate, is an artificial substance made out of enamel paint layers that collected over decades on the tracks, racks, and floors of paint booths in automobile plants.
How is Fordite formed?
Layers of paint overspray would accumulate on the walls and floors of paint booths at auto assembly plants, eventually transforming into Fordite. As more paint was sprayed on top, the previous coats would dry and solidify. This method would result in thick layers of multicolored, patterned material that could be gathered and fashioned into a wide range of objects.
What makes Fordite special?
The distinctive and vibrant patterns of Fordite are the product of years of paint overspray accumulation. Since the majority of automakers no longer produce it, it is an uncommon item.
Fordite, often known as “Ford stone,” is an artificial mineral made by layering and hardening automotive enamel paint. Detroit agate, also known as Motor City agate, is a kind of agate mined from the site of a defunct car plant in Detroit, Michigan, United States. “Fordite” was so named because it was first found in the 1940s at the Ford Motor Company’s car painting facility in Michigan. However, that automaker wasn’t the only one that produced it. Today, they are still considered an “ore,” and the raw Fordites continue to rise in value.
History and Formation of Fordite
When the Fordite is sliced open, it may reveal a variety of designs. (Credit: Robert Weldon/GIA)
Automobiles were once painted by hand or sprayed with a spray gun which was invented in 1888 in the United States. Therefore, the work site’s hallways, spray booths, and loading platforms were contaminated with oversprayed paint in those automotive factories.
Since automobiles were often painted in highly vivid colors in the 1960s and 1970s, the Fordites from those decades tend to have more vibrant, psychedelic hues. A cabochon of a very uncommon kind of Fordite, with big metal flakes, dating from 1972, sold for $400.
Among the sources of factories for Fordite are the Corvette Assembly Plant in Kentucky, the Ford Motor Company in Michigan, the Harley-Davidson motorcycle plants, and the Lincoln-Mercury painting plant in Canada. The Fordites from the latter plant even hold a specific name: “corvetteite”.
This practice continued from the 1930s all the way to the 1990s. And as the years accumulated, the factories were covered in a rainbow of paint hues.
Since the paint was subjected to high heat treatment hundreds, if not thousands of times, the accumulated layers of paint became harder over time.
This paint buildup got too thick over time and needed to be scraped away since it was getting in the way. Some creative souls in Henry Ford‘s Ford automotive factory then realized that this layer of paint could be sliced and polished to create a beautiful agate-like gemstone, cabochons, and beads, which could then be recycled and sold as eco-friendly jewelry.
The finished product was visually spectacular and distinctive, with swirls and patterns in vivid colors that emphasized the industry’s long and storied past in automobile production.
Fordite is a Time Capsule
The color of Fordite, and, by extension, the development of the automotive industry in the United States can be deduced from its distinctive color.
According to Fordite, for instance, most automobiles in the nation in the 1940s were painted in black or brown enamel—industrial paint that dries to a very hard, glossy finish—but by the 1960s, brighter lacquers were in favor.
Current automobiles are painted with electrostatic coatings that adsorb paint granules to the steel plate by Coulomb force, or “electrostatic force”, almost eliminating the need for unnecessary spraying.
Consequently, the formation of Fordite has halted since powder painting has been replaced by hand spraying.
That’s why we no longer see new Fordites around, and the raw ones that are still around continue to rise in value. There is actually a small market for Fordites today.
What Makes Fordite Valuable?
Fordite is prized for its one-of-a-kind, multicolored patterns that have developed through many years of paint overspray accumulation. This artificial ore is actually quite uncommon because the majority of car companies no longer produce it.
Fordite finds its most widespread use in the jewelry and automobile industries. Collectors and those with an interest in automobiles often buy them.
Experienced cutters can bring out striking layers of color and design in polished Fordite. Paint is a fairly light substance because of its composition. During the cutting and polishing procedures, safety equipment like a dust mask is required.
Similarly, several generations of Jackson Whites in Sloatsburg, New York fell victim to this same paint when contractors hired by the defunct Ford factory in Mahwah, New Jersey dumped poisonous vehicle paint waste dangerously close to the communities’ houses.
Where Can I Find Fordite?
Today, Fordite is a very uncommon man-made mineral. But you may be able to find some residual Fordite in a few classic automobile assembly plants in the Detroit region. However, internet vendors and gem and mineral exhibitions are the most typical places to find Fordites.
Fordite is a colorful tribute to the American workers whose creativity and resourcefulness transformed a byproduct of the auto industry into a piece of art. The workers at the American auto factories saw value where most others would see waste, much like how older vehicles have long been admired for their beautiful looks.
Type 1: Characterized by consistent gray banding of primer layers in between distinct color layers (Color on Color).
Type 2: Opaques and metallics make up Type 2. Lacking variety. Miniature quantities and limited-edition colors (Distinct Colors).
Type 3: Drippy and/or striped, with several overlapping layers of solid colors and metallic accents define this type. Patterns of lace and orbits appear on the surface, and there is some channeling on occasion (Distinct Colors).
Type 4: Opaques and metallics of Type 4 have color layers that flow into one another and may have pitting from air bubbles that developed while the layers solidified (Distinct Colors).
She fixed the car with a hairpin and a garter and got gas from pharmacies. Bertha Benz, Karl Benz’s wife, drove the first cross-country car trip with their newly developed automobile in 1888. It was quite the ordeal, what with the nighttime fog and everything. Also, there was the risk of law enforcement, for the simple reason that what Bertha Benz was doing was dangerous and strictly illegal.
When writing his memoirs in the autumn of 1885, Karl Benz was already certain that his motor vehicle was more than just an abstract concept with no real-world significance. The “Satan’s vehicle,” as its detractors dubbed it, traveled for kilometers with ease at speeds of up to 12.5 miles (20 km) per hour. To protect his idea, Benz filed for a patent. The patent was received by him on January 29, 1886.
The Benz Patent Motor Car Model III that Bertha Benz drove on her historic 66-mile run in 1888. (Image: Alamy)The 2.5-horsepower @ 500 rpm engine of the Model III. (Image: Alamy)
Almost overnight, the “horseless carriage” gained widespread attention. There was little question that this motorized velocipede would quickly amass a large fan base. However, the detractors’ opinions were more widely heard. They called the gasoline automobile a joke and insisted that the road should be reserved for horses.
There were just no takers for the three-wheeled motor vehicle. The expected growth in the economy never happened. At this point, Karl Benz was ready to throw in the towel for good: “Now I realized that I was at the bottom, at the very bottom, and had to knock like a beggar at the doors of humanity and its culture.”
Bertha Benz, his wife, had had enough of waiting around. She was confident in the future of the “self-propelled vehicle” and set out to show its viability to everyone, even her cynical husband. But he was unaware of Bertha’s intentions. He was too timid to take such a risk, and there was no way Karl would have approved it. Early in the morning of August 1, 1888, Bertha and her two boys, Richard and Eugen, together with the automobile, vanished.
Time to leave
Bertha Benz in 1870.
Bertha Benz, then 39 years old, became the first person to drive an automobile for a long distance on August 5, 1888, when she and her sons Richard, then 13, and Eugen, then 15, traveled from Mannheim to Pforzheim in a Model III without informing her husband or obtaining permission from the authorities.
They had quietly left on the very first cross-country car journey in the history of the automobile. An unexpected window of opportunity had presented itself. Sister Bertha Benz of Pforzheim, Germany, had just given birth. Bertha Benz was keen on paying her a visit. When you could just get in your self-propelled car and head on the road, there was no use in taking the train. Immediately, her boys set off on the reckless journey that would make Bertha Benz famous. As she later reflected on her life, “I was probably the first woman driver in the world.”
When they finally got the vehicle onto the road at night, they still had around 60 miles (100 km) to go. The beginning was rocky. The automobile wouldn’t start until the third try. Sighing with relief, the trio settled into the driver’s seat and sped out into the semidarkness, giddy with anticipation. That was the furthest distance any automobile had ever traveled in the history of cars. It was possible that they just wouldn’t make the 66-mile (106-km) trip. The car was not expected to last on such a long-distance trip.
Bertha Benz Memorial Route Monument (Image: Travelingboy)
Also, there was the risk of law enforcement being able to prevent them since what they were undertaking was illegal. The authorities had maintained a close eye on Karl Benz to ensure that he adhered to the terms of his driving permits and only tested his motorcars on designated roads and at certain hours.
The vehicle was restricted from leaving the city limits of Mannheim. For good reason too, since many incidents might have been avoided if the horses hadn’t been so afraid of this clattering, smelling monster of a car. The factory gate was guarded 24 hours a day by the police to prevent any unauthorized exits.
Prior to this landmark journey, motorized drives were often trial runs of a few miles that ended back where they started. This adventurous journey, taken in one direction over wagon tracks, spanned a total distance of around 106 kilometers (66 mi).
The world’s first gas station
At 1888, Bertha Benz and her sons Eugen and Richard were driving through Germany from Mannheim to Pforzheim when they stopped in Wiesloch to refuel the car at the pharmacy. (Image: Mercedes-Benz Group Media)
After just a short distance, though, the first difficulties began to surface. White clouds of steam were billowing out of the copper water tank above the cylinder. There was an immediate demand for cooling water. Bertha Benz and her boys located a well and refilled their water supplies. Then, not far from Wiesloch, they had emptied the gas tank.
Apparently, Karl Benz hadn’t realized how enduring his car would be. The residents of Wiesloch circled the car out of curiosity. One kid approached Bertha Benz and said, “Are you part of the vanguard of a circus?” A greengrocer cried out, “Holy sandbag!” “There’s a woman above!” One of them asked if they had lost their horses.
Despite all the comments, mom and the boys kept their cool. They were perplexed at the empty tank. Then they came up with a fantastic plan. The car’s fuel, Ligroin, was also offered as a cleaning product in drugstores. As a result, they pushed the vehicle to the Wiesloch drugstore. The proprietor was taken aback, but he sold the adventurers all of his Ligroin nevertheless, making him the world’s first gas station attendant.
Mother and sons, taking turns driving, traveled several miles between water sources and drugstores. And every time they tried to use it, they had problems with the technical aspects. However, every issue had been resolved. The automobile stopped working shortly after Weingarten due to a congested fuel supply. Bertha Benz quickly removed her hat pin, inserted it into the clogged hose, and the obstruction was removed. The “horseless carriage” had another breakdown near Söllingen. The short circuit was produced by a cable that had worn through. Instead of just letting the insulation fall apart, Bertha Benz replaced it by using her garter.
Dirty with oil but proud about it
The route Bertha Benz took on her legendary trip. (Image: Mercedes-Benz Group Media)
The next unforeseen difficulty arose not far behind Wilferdingen. The combustion engine car’s meager 2.5 horsepower rendered it unable to scale the steep inclines. This hill was ironically called “See You For.” To get the car up the hill, they pooled their efforts and then raced down it at breakneck speed since the brakes weren’t made for such speed. As Bertha Benz acknowledged, they were lucky to escape any harm.
Oily, dusty, and perspiring, the three explorers arrived in Pforzheim’s central square after midnight. Bertha Benz sent the unknowing Karl a telegram that said, “Happily arrived in Pforzheim.” His anger at the “plot of the three family members” was too much for him to process at once. As Karl’s memoirs reveal, “after the initial shock,” he felt “a secret pride.”
Despite popular belief, Bertha Benz’s first long-distance car journey did not get the massive amount of media attention that she hoped for. But it spurred Karl Benz on to greater things and is now seen as a crucial step on the road to commercial success for his revolutionary motorcars. A few weeks later, Karl Benz unveiled the automobile at the Motor and Working Machines Exhibition in Munich, where it won the prestigious “Great Golden Medal.”
25 Benz automobiles were sold between 1886 and 1894, with the majority going to the countries of France, England, and the United States. By 1899, Benz & Cie had grown to employ over 430 people and was making four-wheeled automobiles in large quantities.
Henry Ford spent millions in the Amazonian model city Fordlândia ages before other brands did, and the city had amenities like a golf club, or a burger joint. Insurrection broke out among the workforce, the military was called in, and Ford’s utopian plan was scuttled. Henry Ford represented the best of the American Dream: A man who rose from little to achieve phenomenal success while maintaining his humility. Ford implemented the assembly line in his facilities, which streamlined the manufacturing of automobiles. He did this to make the automobile accessible to the masses, transforming it from a symbol of wealth into a commodity. His employees could all afford Fords.
Henry Ford was a control freak who oversaw every aspect of his plants and the employees’ daily lives. As a car manufacturer, he also desired autonomy from parts suppliers. That’s why he proposed establishing a rubber farm in the South American jungle, called Fordlândia. There was also supposed to be a community there that shared his values. The contemporary metropolis, according to Ford, was “a pathological tumor.”
One of his goals in life was to establish a tiny city where everything ran nicely. This, he hoped, could be accomplished on his Fordlândia rubber plantation deep in the Amazonian rainforest.
The farmer’s son from Michigan, Henry Ford, like many ideologues of the day, including communists, fascists, and Zionists, envisioned the “New Man,” and himself as a reformer and pioneer of a “better society,” one in which the hum of machinery and the calm of farm labor could coexist.
When spring arrived in 1928, Henry Ford sent a crew of Michigan lumberjacks to the Amazon. His new Fordlândia property included hills covering around 5,500 square miles (around 14,250 sq km) on the eastern side of the Rio Tapajos, an Amazon River tributary. It was 112 miles (180 km or 18 hours by boat) from Santarem, the closest urban center. There were just a handful of families of native rubber tappers and native traders that called that area home. In its place, though, “Fordlândia” will soon rise.
Fordlândia was intended to resemble a prototypical American community, complete with shingle-covered wooden homes, bright red fire hydrants, and a complete prohibition on alcoholic beverages.
Challenges of the jungle
In Brazil’s history, there were zero rubber plantations. Previous generations of tappers relied on widely spaced trees in the wild to get their rubber. However, Ford’s notion of efficiency was fundamentally at odds with this. Thus, contracted laborers with machetes and chainsaws attempted to restore order to the forest.
The wet season prevented a successful initial effort to burn the cut wood. Consequently, a lot of kerosene was required (due to its low ignition temperature) to soak the wood before setting it on fire. So for days, the bush was engulfed in an unchecked fire.
It was true that the fire cleaned hundreds of acres of woodland, but the land was scarcely cultivable now.
Even though Henry Ford had hired Brazilians to clear the bush, the attitude among the workers toward their boss was already heated. The Brazilians were not allowed to adjust their work schedules for the seasons, but rather had to punch in at the same hour every day.
Dystopia, more than a utopia
The six-month mark came and went without incident, but then a Ford dealer came to check on the development in this utopia of Fordlândia. The only things he discovered in plenty of Fordlândia were filth, millions of flies, and a lack of sanitation facilities and trash cans, as well as no mosquito nets or other forms of protection from the elements.
Fordlândia’s employees called it “Inferno verde” because of the bad food, malaria, diarrhea, and deadly snakes that plagued the city. As much as 30% of Fordlândia’s workforce was sick. There were so many flies around that it was difficult to see the objects on the tables.
When the pressure got to be too great, the local guys with machetes pursued the American foremen into the woods and robbed them.
Ford then sent a supply vessel to the Amazonian outpost of his dominion. There were locomotives, water purification systems, generators, power plant components, and prefabricated sections and equipment on board, all set for Fordlândia. There was a medical doctor, a chemist, engineers, managers, and their spouses. In contrast, Henry Ford didn’t put much stock in the opinions of biologists and farmers about his kingdom. In fact, a Norwegian ship captain was his choice for the position of Fordlândia’s new ruler.
Houses in the Fordlândia city. (Image: W. Commons)
Fordlândia attracted workers and their families from all across Brazil. Approximately 5,000 individuals called Fordlândia home by the year 1929. However, the attempts were likewise unsuccessful since the rubber tree seedlings died in the kerosene. At the same time, rain began to enter the Fordlândia hospital via a hole in the roof. The disused typewriters and piles of decaying paper in the workplace were signs of neglect.
A fight against the wilderness
A new management for Fordlândia was brought in by Henry Ford. In order to make way for new rubber trees, he had the old ones plowed under. In 1930, Fordlândia received a railroad for plantation labor, as well as running water and electricity, schools, and a brand new, state-of-the-art hospital. Swimming pools that breed mosquitoes were emptied. The managers’ bungalows were under the shade of mango trees. Most of the staff was still living in makeshift quarters, but the most crucial mission—fostering Ford values via teaching—was well underway.
In Fordlândia, sanitation squads examined the shacks to ensure that the employees were using the toilet paper given by the firm and that their laundry was properly hung on lines, just as Henry Ford had done in Detroit. The Brazilians needed to be checked for worms and treated for sexual illnesses.
At Fordlândia, alcohol use was prohibited under penalty of law. It was company policy that all workers without spouses dine at the cafeteria, which served food prepared according to Henry Ford’s guidelines. Nor did they like the North American work hours that didn’t take into account the noon heat, nor did they like the oatmeal, whole wheat bread, and soy soup that was served. The workers hated the time clocks and the industrial siren that blared over the farm at regular intervals throughout the day.
Uprising in the Fordlândia
For their own good, employees were required to consume the business cafeteria’s unappealing selection of brown rice, oatmeal, and canned fruit, the cost of which was automatically withdrawn from their pay using a personal identification number.
Soon after the canteen switched to self-service, just before Christmas, the Fordlândia workers smashed it to pieces in December 1930. Then they went about smashing whatever they came across with clubs and machetes, including all the workplaces, equipment, and vehicles. They sank Ford vehicles in the Rio Tapajós while shouting “Brazil for Brazilians, murder all Americans!”
The panicked Americans ran away with boats or hid for days in the woods. Until a military commando from Belem came with machine guns, the Ford managers held out on boats on the river. Fordlândia was now an empty hulk of damaged buildings.
The rebel workers destroyed all of the timepieces as a statement against Henry Ford’s tyrannical attempt to import the factory work ethic into the forest.
Ignoring the severe restrictions on alcohol was a common practice as well. The situation in Fordlândia only became worse when bars and brothels sprang up in the area. In turn, the Ford Company assured the employees that the business would not cover the cost of any medical attention related to venereal disease.
Ironically, Ford’s civilizing ideals were actually aided by the worker insurrection of 1930. After that, Henry Ford decided to start over from scratch and acted radically, laying off almost everyone who had worked for the company and tearing down any remaining brothels or bars.
Fordlândia became home to about 8,000 people during its peak population. Paved streets, schools, barber shops, bakeries, and butcher shops sprang up. A golf course and weekly gardening contests were also available. And since Henry Ford had a penchant for classical music, waltzes were performed at corporate gatherings, even in the forest.
Nobody gave up on Fordlândia yet
Instead of a workers’ colony, Henry Ford said publicly that he would construct a whole metropolis. A whole year later, Fordlândia finally materialized, like a tiny version of a contemporary industrial metropolis. Thick clouds of smoke billowed from the stacks, a train chugged along, and tractors slogged up and down the slopes.
Electric lamps and red fire hydrants illuminated the streets, and perfectly straight rows of similar homes with refrigerators and washing machines climbed the slope. In addition to its Main Street shops and barbershop, the Fordlândia community also included a library, tennis facility, and golf course.
Ford’s dream city of Fordlândia included clearly defined neighborhoods for executives, secretaries, and blue-collar employees. Each of the Americans and the Brazilians had their own swimming pool. Every home had its own garden, and on Sundays, people would square dance and recite poetry. Attendance was required.
It was a picture-perfect setting. However, Ford had officially nixed the idea of thatched mud houses. And they had concrete slabs for floors and metal for roofs, which was a construction plan that originated in Detroit. The effect was that the homes of the employees in Fordlândia were very heated.
Even more concerning was the fact that the company’s true mission had yet to be revealed. Not even a tenth of the land needed for the 10,000,000 rubber trees was prepared. The rain had washed away the soil, leaving the hilltops barren. It was quite costly to build terraces. Young rubber plants in Fordlândia were attacked by mites, flies, ants, and a fungus. A botanist said the Fordlândia was terrible for growing rubber trees. Nonetheless, Henry Ford continued to fight: He restarted a new city a little distance downstream.
A second Ford city, Belterra
Boarding the Lake Ormoc, the ship that would transport much of the supplies required to build Fordlândia, were executives from Ford. (Image: W. Commons)
About 62 miles (100 km) north of Fordlândia, in 1935, Ford established a second U.S. clone town. The brand-new city of Belterra was situated on perfectly flat terrain. Clearing and planting went rapidly, but so did the invasion of fungus and insects. The first crop from Belterra’s trees was brought in that year, 1942. They produced over 750 tons of rubber. Fordlândia, on the other hand, never produced latex. And Ford’s yearly need for rubber for its cars was estimated at 38,000 metric tons. Millions of trees were killed for nothing.
By planting the rubber trees, which are naturally spread out, too closely together, they provided the perfect environment for the growth of various pests like fungi, beetles, and caterpillars.
Following this, a caterpillar plague ravaged Belterra, and fungus ultimately did in the plantation. Henry II, Ford’s son, sold the Belterra and Fordlândia rubber firms back to Brazil in 1945 for around $250,000. That was how much the Ford Corporation owed its employees in the end. Henry Ford passed away two years later. He had never set foot in his foresty domain of Fordlândia in his life. But he had put away a cool billion in today’s currency for his American utopia projects in the Amazon forest.
The many reasons Fordlândia failed
Henry Ford, who had a bias towards specialists in general, trusted unreliable and dishonest consultants when he first started planning Fordlândia. Brazil was chosen over other locations that would have been more suited for rubber plantations, such as Africa and Asia, since the South American mildew that is the most severe of all rubber tree pests does not occur in those regions. However, because of its steep nature, the land in Brazil was very vulnerable to wind and erosion, making it utterly unfit for a plantation.
The 1930 revolt was one of the numerous failures of the utopian jungle project of Fordlândia, and it was an assault on the naïve romantic notion of the American dream in the forest. Henry Ford struggled for a long time to find alternatives to importing rubber from Britain. He invested millions in Fordlândia for over 20 years, yet the rubber plantation yielded not a single pound.
The once-thriving city of Fordlândia became an almost deserted and decaying ghost town, marking the biggest failure of the man whose assembly lines had once changed the globe.
A negotiator destroyed everything
Willis Blakeley, then 37 years old and a former member of Ford’s security team, was tasked with negotiating contracts with the accountable Brazilian governor of the state of Pará in 1927. Even though Blakeley had taken an oath of silence, he had already revealed many of Ford’s secrets. He became notorious in Brazil as a drinker who enjoyed having sex with his wife on the open porch, provoking widespread outrage.
The controversial negotiator quickly became the talk of the city. Blakeley paid a crazy sum of money—$125,000—to purchase a 3,850 square miles (10,000 sq km) plot of property. The deal stated that the Americans could extract a variety of raw commodities (including timber and oil) and bring them back to the United States tax-free. However, the idea that Ford could bring in American equipment to Fordlândia duty-free was entirely Blakeley’s creation, and it ended up costing the business a lot of money and time.
As manager of Fordlândia, Blakeley proved to be a disaster since he knew nothing about plants. He lived in a hacienda while his employees were forced to endure windowless barracks without bathrooms or sleep in hammocks in the yard. Somehow, Blakeley decided to try clearing the forest in the midst of the rainy season. After the tree trimmers became mired down, he used days’ worth of kerosene to set fire to the drenched trees. One witness described the scene as like the Earth was consumed by fire. Blakeley was fired shortly after a Ford dealer’s visit to Fordlândia.
Fordlândia was a civilization experiment by Henry Ford
The company’s promotion of Fordlândia as a “civilizing experiment” and a middle ground between industry and farm gave rise to expectations that took on almost holy connotations. Time magazine wondered whether Ford would keep pouring money into the region until the whole jungle was industrialized. The Washington Post thought Henry Ford would cultivate not just rubber but also the local population. However, the Brazilian press also fulminated, although in a different way, with Henry Ford being dubbed the Jesus of industry.
Fordlândia became home to about 8,000 people during its peak population.
Because according to Ford’s son Edsel, there were historical grounds for the widespread belief that the once-wealthiest man in the world could rescue the impoverished nation of Brazil with modern technology and economic success. Until 1876, when British citizen Henry Wickham sneaked tens of thousands of seedlings of the rubber tree out of the country, Brazil was the sole producer of rubber in the 19th century. The British used the seeds to set up massive plantations throughout their Southeast Asian territories. In the long run, organic piracy destroyed Brazil’s competitiveness as a rubber producer and dissolved the monopoly.
Many Brazilians assumed that the United States of America wasn’t worried about rubber, but rather the excessive extraction of more important resources. The nationalist press was outraged over that.
Armed mercenaries were often called in to quell riots. Many of the thousands of laborers that flocked to Fordlândia only stayed there for a brief period of time before returning home. Worker deaths from snakebites and infant deaths from fever were common, despite the presence of a free hospital. By 1930, the Fordlândia cemetery was filled with approximately 300 individuals.
Bibliography
“Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City”, Greg Grandin, 2010.
In 1908, the Ford Model T had gone from being associated with country bumpkins to the height of celebrity status throughout the United States. At the cost of his workforce, Henry Ford popularized the automobile by developing novel approaches to production and introducing bold new concepts, turning the automobile from a luxury item into a necessity. The modern drivers may find its controls to be too complex but when it was first released, the Model T was the most user-friendly automobile available. Thus, many women from the very beginning drove the Model T, even if they could not yet vote. Therefore, Ford aimed his marketing efforts squarely towards women, and the automobile was well lauded by early advocates for women’s rights.
The revolutionary assembly line
Henry Ford discovered the motivation to revolutionize the world among the cries and odors of millions of dead animals. Although Ford’s name is synonymous with the assembly line, he didn’t originate the concept. In 1830, French manager Georges Duhamel developed a system in Chicago’s slaughterhouses that moved an unending chain of animal corpses on meat hooks through the facility. Workers waited beside it, ready to execute a quick cut or move whenever the carcass arrived at their position. And that was it.
There was a period when the Ford factories would recruit anybody who sought a job, regardless of their degree or previous history. Because the assembly line broke down the manufacturing process into such manageable chunks of labor, just the most basic skills were required to operate it.
Ford wasn’t even the first to use mass production techniques in the car industry. The bodyshells for Ransom Eli Olds’ Oldsmobile Curved Dash were transported on wheeled wooden racks at each stage of construction. Ford’s creative breakthrough was the fusion of these two ideas: A completely automated and perfectly timed assembly line, which he had constructed on the floor of his factory in 1913, moved the bodies forward to the next stage. It was at that point that the worker no longer had to physically move to work; rather, his duties were brought to him.
The next phase of a project that had been in the works for five years naturally led to this effort. Ford’s Model T went on sale for the first time on October 1, 1908. Henry Ford set very high standards for the creation of this vehicle. His goal was to create an automobile that was affordable and accessible to all. While being spacious enough for a family’s Sunday jaunt, it was designed to be so cheap that every class of citizen could buy it.
Everybody loved the Model T
Because automobiles were formerly seen as luxury toys for the wealthy rather than practical means of mobility, the Model T was an innovative concept. Ford’s ultimate goal was to reach out to new demographics with his visionary automobile. He planned to create a transportation system for those who had been left out of the automobile boom. On the one hand, they were his employees; they deserved to have a personal stake in the success of the product they helped create. On the other hand, a significant majority of Americans still resided in rural areas and without electricity; in fact, only around 20% of the population was urban.
There weren’t many specialized equipment needed to fix a Ford Model T; most people already had the necessary screwdrivers, pliers, and other hand tools lying around the house.
Ford, who also came from a rural upbringing, understood the difficulties faced by those living in remote areas, where long distances and heavy cargoes sometimes provide logistical challenges. Twenty-five million horses were used at the time to complete this operation. So, it was imperative that the automobile these people bought could perform as well as a horse. This necessitated a low entry price, low ongoing cost, and low maintenance burden, with readily available and inexpensive replacement components.
In 1908, when the moment was right, the first Model Ts rolled out of the Dearborn factory and into the hearts of Americans. Henry Ford and his development team had finally accomplished their goal, making the Model T affordable enough that the cars were no longer luxury items. The spare parts of Model T were still hard to come by in the stores. But nothing could go wrong with a Model T that couldn’t be fixed using common household tools, just as Henry Ford had desired.
A speedy car with only black paint
The Model T also established a standard by which modern automobiles are still constructed: the use of a chassis which allowed variety of body styles. It didn’t take long for the Model T to be offered in different body styles, including the Touring, Roadster, Fordor, Coupe, and Sedan.
Tin Lizzie, as the Model T was dubbed by its fans, was an instant hit with buyers, sending manufacturing numbers soaring. Roughly 10,600 Model T automobiles were manufactured in 1909, in the first full year of sales. Contrast this with the 9,444 different automobiles that were produced by 50 different German manufacturers alone during the same time period. Production of the Model T was formally ended in May 1927, after 15 million vehicles had been sold; this was a record that would stand until the Volkswagen Beetle passed it in 1972.
The strict standardization of the components helped keep the vehicle’s pricing low. The Model T left very little room for personal expression. According to Henry Ford, the Model T could be had in any color, “as long as it’s black.”
During this time period, Ford introduced the Model T and mastered the art of mass manufacturing. In 1909, Ford halted the manufacture of everything except the Model T. Ford’s new facility debuted in Highland Park, Illinois, in 1913, and the company again utilized an assembly line. Henry Ford essentially built his own city within this area, housing 100,000 shift workers who manufactured vehicle components around the clock.
Also, the Model T was only manufactured in black. The use of black paint meant less time was spent waiting for the body color to dry, speeding up production. Henry Ford cut down on the number of processes involved as much as possible: There was no wasted time spent bending over for screws since the assembly process was split in two: One person provided the screws while another tightened them.
Using spies for the factory’s benefit
Classic old ad for the Ford Open Touring Sedan from 1919. Facts of Fords used in Europe during World War I, focusing on their reliability and performance. (Image: All-classic-ads.com)
This meant that the employees had to shake hands with one another for eight hours straight. These people were now just gears in a well-oiled machine; they had been transformed into automatons. Henry Ford didn’t mind resorting to harsh measures to keep his production running well, such as having the firm’s own security agency spy on employees and keep tabs on their morality even within their homes. Many employees found this to be intolerable, and they left in large numbers. But Henry Ford had another solution: he paid his employees $5 per hour, more than double the standard rate in the car industry.
Ford, however, did not go bankrupt as some of its rivals had feared it would. Instead, in the years that followed, Ford’s factories cranked out ever-greater numbers in ever-shorter amounts of time, making the company’s automobiles even more accessible to the average person. Initially, the price of a Model T was $825. About 12.5 hours of machining work was still needed in the chassis building at that point. The 1925 Model T could be put together in an hour and a half for about $260. At one point, the Ford facilities were producing upwards of 9,000 vehicles each day.
Between 1908 and 1925, the Model T sold around 15,000,000 units, making it the most widely sold automobile in history until the Volkswagen Beetle overtook it in 1972.
It was nothing but success for Henry Ford. Not only did people buy his automobile, they also highly praised it. The “tin box on wheels” was the punchline to innumerable jokes from the get-go, but the car still inspired both songs and newspaper cartoons. It was reasoned that Ford was responsible for those cartoons and songs since each new one kept selling more and more Model Ts.
Model T was a tractor as well
The Model T was very popular in rural areas. The costs associated with upkeep and repairs were minimal. And the Tin Lizzie was an ideal tractor as well because of its high ride height, massive undercarriage clearance, and massive power from its 2.9-liter, four-cylinder engine. There were many farmers who used a trailed plow with their Ford Model T throughout the week and then took their families to church on Sunday with the same Model T.
The average number of Fords on the roads in rural Minnesota communities was around 190 in 1909, and by 1911, that number had skyrocketed to around 1190, which was hard to believe. In outlying parts of the United States, “Ford” became almost synonymous with “car”.
Particularly in rural areas, the Model T had phenomenal success. It was more cost-effective to maintain than a horse-drawn carriage, and it could be easily fixed in the event of damage.
However, the Model T was not just a rural automobile; in the Roaring Twenties, it was the “automobile,” and celebrities in Hollywood clamored for one. Therefore, the “little black car” was featured in many films. The Model T was extensively used in special effects since it was simple to modify and was almost indestructible. The car was often cast as the third lead alongside Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in movies. And it was the flying automobile in the Disney comedy “The Absent-Minded Professor,” released in 1961.
According to the Internet Movie Cars Database, the Model T has been featured in over 200 movies to date. East of Eden (1955), Paper Moon (1972), and The Color Purple (1985) are just a few examples. The Model T has also appeared in newer films like O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), There Will Be Blood (2007), Jungle Cruise (2021), or The Sandman (2022).
The end of Model T
However, despite the popularity of the Model T, its production almost bankrupted Henry Ford. Competitors had already begun producing automobiles in the 1920s that were quicker, more comfortable, and more stylish than the Model T, while Ford was busy perfecting his manufacturing procedures.
General Motors, in particular, exerted pressure on Ford and ultimately dislodged it from its unquestioned leadership position in the automobile industry by unifying many brands and, by extension, target groups under one corporate roof at an early date. Ford found itself in a bind when it attempted to switch to a new model and discovered that much of its machinery was useless for making other models. For many months, production halted at Ford facilities, virtually bringing the business to its knees. The debut of the brand-new Model A was delayed until October 1927.
When Ford stopped making the Model T in 1927, over half of all cars in the United States were made by the Ford. There are still over a 100,000 Ford Model Ts in circulation today.
After almost 115 years of its introduction, there are still Model Ts around parades through the streets driven by fans. So, they’re still going strong, perhaps for a lot longer than Henry Ford anticipated.
Sometime around 1887, on a rainy day, the modern tire’s narrative starts with young Johnny on a tricycle. The nine-year-old kid was dominating his bigger schoolmates in a bicycling competition once again. But on his slow and ungainly tricycle, he wasn’t able to show his full potential. Johnny’s metal rims were rattling on the cobblestone streets of Belfast because the strong rubber bands he had put around his three wheels were too thin.
The background
Johnny, being a typical nine-year-old, walked glumly to his father after the latest humiliation to complain about it. Johnny was wondering whether there was any way to smooth down the ride on his shaky trike. If the father John could only loosen a screw here and remove one there, maybe the bike would go quicker and Johnny could show it to his schoolmates.
Johnny’s dad was a veterinarian in Belfast. Until now, he had never even sat on a bicycle, but that was about to change. From that day on, Johnny’s dad began experimenting with pneumatic rubber tires, which would make his name renowned across the globe and revolutionize the cycling industry with the “Dunlop tires.”
The first bicycle to use pneumatic tires, with Dunlop’s son, 1888.
In 1888, John Boyd Dunlop was granted a patent for the pneumatic tire he invented. Official document number 10,607 claimed that Dunlop’s innovation would help to facilitate the movement of wheeled vehicles, particularly those of the lighter class like bicycles, ambulances, and hospital chairs. In a few short decades, millions of vehicles would have used his tires. But foremost, Dunlop had to fix up his kid’s tricycle.
According to John Dunlop’s notes, the inventor had been musing about the concept of the air-filled wheel for at least 20 years prior to its actual creation. While Dunlop conducted experiments around this period, no records of them survived.
One thing that is known for sure is that Dunlop used rubber extensively at his veterinarian clinic and that he even fashioned some of his own tools out of the material. Dunlop reasoned that there must be a solution for the wooden or metal wheels as well, and he hastily started gluing a hose to a thin rubber plate. He used pieces of the finest linen fabric to encase the tube. It has been stated that Dunlop inflated his tires using an old pacifier as the valve.
Rather an unpleasant job
The Scottish National Museum in Edinburgh is home to the first Dunlop pneumatic tire ever made for a bicycle.
Dunlop made some adjustments to the design for the second rear wheel using the same blueprint. However, the front tire still had a layer of hard rubber on it, perhaps because the creator didn’t find much use for it. He wrote in his journal, “I did not feel it necessary to mount a pneumatic tire on the front wheel, since wheel building was rather an unpleasant job for me anyway, and I would have liked to keep the experiment private.”
Dunlop’s goal did take hold following Johnny’s maiden test ride on February 28, 1888, and his first triumph over his schoolmates. Robert William Edlin, a bicycle mechanic from Belfast, saw the tire as nothing less than the future of his company, and quickly joined Dunlop.
The bicycle manufacturer pounded the streets of Belfast almost every day. Dunlop said in his memoirs that on one of Edlin’s test rides, the cops pulled him over for going too fast. Edlin and Dunlop’s son drove this first practical pneumatic tire prototype for 60 miles. Next, Dunlop followed Edlin’s suggestion and applied for a patent on his invention. Patent No. 10,607 was issued for the invention of this new pneumatic tire.
Before the invention of pneumatic tires, the first rubber tires were solid pieces of rubber without air within them. R. W. Thomson, a Scottish engineer, received a patent in 1845 for the first pneumatic tire in history, and Dunlop developed it further in 1888.
The pneumatic tire was already invented
Number 10,607, however, should not have been granted in the first place since a Scotsman named Robert William Thomson had previously submitted a patent application for an air-filled (pneumatic) tire 40 years before Dunlop. However, since there was no need for his product, Thomson’s notion was quickly forgotten, perhaps even by the authorities.
No one seemed to notice the mistake for a while, and that’s perhaps because Dunlop’s pneumatic tire didn’t get much attention in its early stages, either. Cyclists most rejoiced over this “air trick,” and a professional cycling publication, “Irish Cyclist,” jokingly queried, “Pneumatic — has something to do with air, doesn’t it?”
Dunlop’s innovation came at a perfect moment; with Carl Benz’s recent creation of the first automobile, the transportation industry was poised for radical change, and Dunlop knew precisely what to do to “smooth” things over.
The devil inside a machine
What John Dunlop needed was a public figure in advertising who would help spread the word about his concept. As the leader of the Belfast Cruisers’ Cycling Club, William Hume wasn’t exactly a noteworthy choice to represent Dunlop. Because Hume had never achieved anything noteworthy in his life.
But Hume managed to rely on the Dunlop tire’s decisive edge despite his lack of riding skill, an advantage that even Johnny came to appreciate in his own races against his schoolmates. When compared to its steel and hard rubber counterparts, the pneumatic tire was clearly the victor, providing better speed.
On May 18, 1889, Hume won the first race ever held on the new Dunlop tire in Belfast. People were still talking behind Hume’s back before the race started, wondering aloud how his unusual bicycle was going to do. During the last lap, Dunlop overheard a spectator exclaim, “There’s a devil in that machine!”
With success came problems
Dunlop advertisement around 1925
Everything else Hume accomplished, Dunlop did as well. During that season, Hume almost swept the board, as shown by his nine first-place finishes in eleven days at a tournament in Liverpool. Investors started pouring in almost immediately after the project was a success. It was at this point that the first discussions on a business model, and the difficulties that Dunlop faced, got underway.
After hearing about Dunlop’s extraordinary success, Irish businessman Harvey du Cros recommended forming a company with two other businesspeople. However, Dunlop was really planning to retire; the almost-50-year-old’s health wasn’t holding up too well. In the early stages of the company’s inception, “I didn’t really need any money,” Dunlop remembered. “But I guess they had talked to Mr. Edlin and gotten his opinion of the value of my invention. He must have quoted quite a large sum.”
Dunlop’s invention never made him wealthy
At long last, Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co. Ltd. was formally established in Dublin’s Westland Row on November 18, 1889. Dunlop, the reluctant firm founder, and namesake cared only that his company would not have to relocate from Ireland. That way, he could personally monitor the manufacturing process of the tires.
However, Dunlop was surprised by how quickly the company expanded. In its first year of operation, the Dunlop company made almost 72,800 pounds; at the end of its second year, it had earned around 526,500 pounds; and soon after, the first European mainland Dunlop branch opened in Germany.
John Dunlop, on the other hand, was never meant to benefit financially. A patent battle with the heirs of R. W. Thomson, the actual inventor of pneumatic tires, compounded the stress of being unexpectedly placed in charge of a big firm. In 1896, Dunlop sold his patent for £3,000 to his business partner Du Cros because he was revolted about working on it.
The transportation industry was radically altered with the invention of the first automobile. The history of the automobile has gone through several transformations, from early attempts at human-powered transportation to fully autonomous and networked electric cars. An important development throughout the industrial revolution, this breakthrough has had far-reaching social and economic effects.
Never before have so many people, on both an individual and a societal level, come to embrace and even idolize a technological object. Manufacturers nowadays are developing smaller vehicles with cutting-edge safety features and engines (electric, solar, hydrogen, etc.).
The first car in history
Carriages were the means of transportation before the invention of the first automobile. Carriages were either sleds or carts with wheels and were drawn by a person or a pack animal. As early as the early 18th century, scientists and engineers attempted to fit a steam engine inside a car, but it wasn’t until the late 18th century that they saw any real success. In 1770, Frenchman Joseph Cugnot created the first car in history.
The military engineer Cugnot decided to mechanize the artillery cart (“fardier”) by replacing the horse with a third wheel powered by a steam engine. The aim was to use the cart to transport heavy parts like cannon barrels. These trials were not definitive, but they did serve to highlight the potential of high-pressure steam as driving power.
In 1769, Joseph Cugnot first created a small-scale version of his project which he called “fardier à vapeur.” In 1770, he constructed a full-scale version of the fardier à vapeur, with the intended capabilities of carrying four tons and traveling 4.8 miles (7.8 km) in one hour. The car weighed 2.5 tons and was controlled by a pair of handles.
The fardier had to stop every 15 minutes to refill the machine with wood. The steam engine was too cumbersome and inefficient to be really useful, therefore Joseph Cugnot’s efforts ultimately failed along with those of his French, American, and British successors.
Engineers focused on bettering the train instead, setting aside the automobile until the development of the internal combustion engine, which was lighter, more efficient, and less bulky.
The first car with an internal combustion engine
The first car in history powered by an internal combustion engine, a three-wheeled vehicle, was built in 1885, and its creation is credited to German inventor Carl Benz. The car was called Benz Patent-Motorwagen (“patent motorcar”) and it was also the first mass-produced car in history. In 1886, it was shown to the public after receiving a patent for it.
In the latter months of mid-1888, the Patent-Motorwagen became the world’s first commercially available car. Patent-Motorwagen was sold for $4,750 in today’s money. This first Motorwagen used the Benz 954 cc (58.2 cu in) single-cylinder four-stroke engine, and produced 0.75 hp (0.55 kW).
At its debut in Mannheim, Germany, Karl Benz drove the car at a peak speed of 10 mph (16 km/h). The car’s internal combustion engine helped establish Karl Benz as the father of modern cars. He built 25 units of Patent-Motorwagen in total.
The first auto show
A 1910 poster of the Paris Motor Show.
In 1898, Paris’s Grand Palais hosted the world’s first motor show, known as the “Paris Motor Show.” Even after 125 years, it remains a major event in the automotive industry. The retrospective exhibition at the tenth edition of the show in 1907 was even more magnificent and comprehensive, with artifacts ranging from the Cugnot cart, a real “prehistoric” legend from 1770, to a De Dion-Bouton tricycle from 1885, a German Daimler draisine from 1887, and a De Dion-Bouton steam omnibus from 1896.
There were still Brasier and Renault automobiles on exhibit, along with electric vehicles, but sadly absent was Etienne Lenoir’s gas-powered vehicle, which was said to have been utilized in Paris in the early 1860s and inspired Jules Verne.
The first car to break 100 km/h
La Jamais Contente reached 105.9 km/h (65.8 mph) in 1899.
While the issue of motorization had yet to be resolved, the first accomplishment of the automobile concerning the vehicle’s global conception did not change much over the next few decades in terms of transmission, steering, or bodywork. While some may have seen the near dead end of the electric automobile coming, it wasn’t proven until the century’s conclusion when competition between different forms of propulsion finally pushed an electric car above 62 miles per hour (100 km/h).
On April 29, 1899, Belgian engineer Camille Jenatzy finally crossed this psychological boundary of a “speed in three digits” in his La Jamais Contente (“The Never Contented”). It was the first car that broke the 100 km/h barrier (62 mph) and reached 105.9 km/h (65.8 mph).
The first affordable car
Henry Ford’s goal was to mass-produce an automobile that was easy to build, reliable, and affordable. He was successful in his gamble by introducing assembly line production, which had a profound impact on the automobile industry across the world.
When Henry Ford unveiled his vision for the Model T in 1908, Ford Motor Company was already five years old. He aimed for a simple car design that would allow the vehicle to be assembled quickly and a solid build quality that would demonstrate its reliability. Both of which contributed to the Model T’s minimal maintenance costs.
After-sale service was first introduced by Ford with the introduction of the Model T. Ford established a network of carefully selected agents by 1908, when other automakers still ignored regular maintenance as a cost of doing business. This increased the brand’s awareness.
Ford’s Highland Park plant, located outside of Detroit, produced 3,900 vehicles daily in 1914. Furthermore, between the years of 1908 and 1927, 16.5 million Model Ts were sold. In the early 1920s, the Model T was the world’s most popular car, with production facilities in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Denmark, South Africa, and Japan.
The Model T lacked modern conveniences such as a wiper (since the windshield was optional), a radio, and even a driver-facing door. The accelerator was on the steering wheel. In 1972, the Volkswagen Beetle became the best-selling automobile of all time, surpassing the Ford Model T.
The automobile becomes an industry
Adolf Hitler ordered the production of the Volkswagen to ease the transportation burden on the general population. The ultimate design of the automobile that would become the best-selling vehicle of all time may be seen in this 1935 V-series prototype. (VW)
Already in 1900, more than 9,500 automobiles were manufactured in the United States, France, and Germany. Henry Ford came up with the Model T eight years later and had millions of them mass-produced using his assembly lines. He is the one responsible for the birth of fast, personal transportation for everyone. At the turn of the 20th century, Ford standardized manufacturing throughout the automotive industry and beyond.
Several million Volkswagen “Beetles,” Renault 4CVs, and Citroen 2CVs were mass market successes at the end of World War II, making vehicle ownership more accessible to the average European. Because of the dramatic growth in the number of cars on the road and their average speed, legislation mandating the use of driving licenses and establishing highway codes became necessary.
The automobile caused major shifts in society, especially in how people saw and used their personal space. It encouraged the growth of trade and communication between nations, as well as the construction of several new facilities (roads and highways, parking lots). Everyone still recognizes the names of the great pioneers of the car industry, from Ferdinand Porsche to André Citroen and Louis Renault.
Contemporary challenges of the car
The car industry faced several difficult changes in the 1970s. Rising gas prices and concerns about supply were a direct result of the 1973 and 1979 oil shocks. Automobile companies started making more compact models. They improved the engines so that vehicles could go longer on the same quantity of fuel. They made the bodies more aerodynamic by altering their shapes.
As the number of drivers increased and automobiles became safer and quicker, so did public concern about road safety. Both the frequency and severity of accidents increased.
Another major issue is exacerbated by the growing number of automobiles on the road: air pollution. Although catalytic converters are effective at reducing a variety of harmful emissions, carbon dioxide (CO2), a major contributor to the greenhouse effect and, by extension, global warming, is one of the few gases they cannot remove. Manufacturers like Tesla are shifting their attention to electric vehicle research and development in order to combat this environmental threat.
Bibliography
Ervan G. Garrison, 2018. History of Engineering and Technology: Artful Methods. Routledge. ISBN 978-1351440486.
L. J. K. Setright, 2004. Drive On!: A Social History of the Motor Car. Granta Books. ISBN 1-86207-698-7.
Supposedly, William Ayrton and John Perry, created one of the first automobiles powered by electricity, but it was not rechargeable. Gustave Trouvé created the first actual and practical rechargeable electric car. Inventions and advances abounded throughout the 19th century. The electric motor was one of them. The extensive use of electrically driven vehicles and technologies is not unique to modern times. Its creator, the Frenchman Gustave Pierre Trouvé, who created the first electric automobile, is not as well known as he should be today.
His early life
Gustave Pierre Trouvé
Trouvé, the son of a rich cattle merchant, was born in the little hamlet of La Haye-Descartes in 1839. He had a lackluster academic record, but his aptitude for technology was clear from an early age. Rumor has it that by the time he was seven years old, he had invented a miniature steam engine. Trouvé, then just 20 years old, gained a reputation for himself in the jewelry industry in 1859 after relocating to Paris. His creations, like brooches and figures with beating wings or little bunnies spinning a drum, were driven by a battery he created. This was because the battery, which he developed in 1865, was created specifically to not leak. That made it a great mode of transportation.
The writer Jules Verne (1828–1905) and the poet Gustave Ponton d’Amécourt (1825–1888) were among the first notable new acquaintances that Trouvé established upon his arrival in Paris. He and d’Amécourt both had an enthusiasm for innovative crafts. The phrase “helicopter,” a combination of the Greek for spiral and wing, is often credited to d’Amécourt, however, Leonardo da Vinci had previously done early research for this field with his “Helix Pteron.”
As soon as Trouvé received his first patent, he and his brother started their own business. The moniker “G. Trouvé” was the one he settled on for his label. Since this sounded like the French phrase “J’ai trouvé,” which means “I have found (it),” it was clear that Trouvé had a mischievous side. That was the French counterpart of Archimedes’ “Eureka.”
Beginning with the metal detectors and ending with the endoscopy
Trouvé made several out-of-the-ordinary innovations over his lifetime. He displayed a battery-operated rifle at the 1867 World’s Fair in Paris. Simultaneously, he developed a medical device, a small metal detector, that would help surgeons locate and remove foreign objects from the human body. During the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, his device saw significant usage by French military medics.
Besides the fixed telegraph, Trouvé also created a portable version. The French military saw considerable potential in the technology and promptly placed an order with Trouvé for 120 units. However, production was slowed down by defective construction supplies. Trouvé was ultimately only able to provide 25 units. The anticipated benefit of the battle never materialized. Soon after that, in 1871, the French government gave up.
The Polyscope was a groundbreaking innovation by Trouvé. It was a light that ran off of one of his little batteries. It was developed to help in medical diagnosis and may be seen as a forerunner to the modern endoscope. At the 1873 Vienna World’s Fair, he presented it to the Austrian emperor, who instantly presented him with a prize. In addition, Trouvé designed a second light for use in medicine with the help of a physician. He coined the term “Photophore” to describe his new kind of headlamp. For his firm, it was an instant hit.
Trouvé designed the first electric car
As impressive as it was, it wasn’t even the whole story. From the 1880s forward, Trouvé focused his efforts on the realm of transportation, which was among the city of Paris’ highest priorities at the time. Transportation in the city was mostly provided by horse-drawn carriages, long-distance railroads made use of steam, and the Seine was navigable only by steamboat.
Trouvé took a Siemens electric motor and made it smaller before installing it in a bike he designed out of Englishman James Starley’s tricycle. He utilized a rechargeable battery recently developed by the famous French scientist Raymond Louis Gaston Planté (1834–1899).
The first electric vehicle: It was 1881 when inventor Gustave Trouvé first demonstrated his electric automobile to the public. In Paris, he took his tricycle out for its first voyage.
The first trip out with this vehicle was praised in the Paris media. Even though Trouvé built the first electric car, he never filed a patent for it. And one can only conjecture as to why he did not. Historians think it was related to another patent that a man named Louis-Guillaume Perreaux (1816–1899) had filed a few years previously, this one for a steam-powered bicycle. This patent may have prevented the “Trouvé tricycle” from being licensed.
One of the first outboard electric boats
Outboard electric boat of Gustave Trouvé, 1881.
It’s also conceivable that Trouvé just stopped caring. A few months later, he showed off yet another vehicle that ran on electricity. And this time it’s not on the streets of Paris, but rather a boat on the Seine!
The first trip was a success thanks to his own electric engine and batteries he got from Planté. This first electric boat patent was submitted by Trouvé on May 8, 1880. The next decades saw hundreds of boats, from pleasure boats to luxury yachts, fitted with Trouvé’s electric engines, in contrast to the doomed Tricycle. Trouvé also created the first outboard motor by attaching a propeller to his engine.
More than 300 patents were submitted by Trouvé over the course of his life, covering anything from electrically driven missiles to further electric gun designs to different iterations of his medical diagnostic equipment. In 1883, a play by Jules Verne starring one of his inventions had its world debut in Paris.
Trouve’s mechanical bird design. He developed two mechanical birds.
The female performer wore what seemed to be a brilliantly lit diamond on her head, but was really a piece of cut glass that Trouvé lighted with a battery. Jules Verne, perhaps out of jealousy, banned any further performances, including the diamond, because of the overwhelming positive response from the press. But, he shouldn’t have done that. Because the play was shut down after just 49 showings without the diamond.
During the construction of the Suez Canal, he created underwater lighting.
By the time of his death in July 1902, at the age of 61, Trouvé had spent the better part of the two preceding decades dabbling with electric toys rather than developing any really revolutionary ideas. This may have contributed to how swiftly he was forgotten. Perhaps the fact that, after a few decades of nonpayment, his patents had expired and his importance had been forgotten also contributed.
The only reason Trouvé is somewhat well-known again is because of the author Kevin Desmond’s painstaking research in the 2010s. One of the most successful innovators of the 19th century is now honored with plaques in both his birthplace and his workshop’s former home in Paris. However, he is unlikely to have as many streets named after him as his US inventor colleague Thomas Edison (1847–1931).
It has been suggested that both Leonardo da Vinci and the “fabled” Count Mede de Sivrac, had roles in the development of the bicycle. Mede de Sivrac is said to have invented the first bicycle around 1790 which resembled a “draisine” (a bicycle without pedals). But it was in fact German nobleman Baron Karl Drais von Sauerbronn who actually invented the actual draisine 27 years later in 1817 and patented it in French (probable source of the Sivrac fiction). As a forest scientist, Karl Drais displayed a “seated running machine” made of two iron wheels connected by a crossbar and the movement of the feet on the ground in Luxembourg Gardens in Paris in 1817.
The invention of the first bicycle ushered in a new era of two-wheeled transportation, which was followed by the pedal velocipede (now called “bicycle“) and, more recently, the modern electric bicycle.
The first bicycle
In 1891, French writer Louis Baudry de Saunier, who specialized in terrestrial locomotion, spread the myth of the “celerifere” hoax.
As early as the late 18th century, people were using their feet to move crude two-wheeled vehicles. But it was German Baron Karl Drais who invented the first known bicycle in 1817 which he called it “laufmaschine” or “running machine” in English. It was also called draisine (from the inventor’s surname) in English and draisienne in French.
This first bicycle was mostly made of beam of wood on which the wheels were fastened. The operator sat on a cushion on the beam and used his feet to propel the machine. The front wheel of the vehicle could be rotated by turning the handlebars. It was later commonly known as “velocipede” or “swift foot” in Latin. It was the first commercially successful bicycle and a huge step forward in transportation.
Produced in Germany and France at first, numerous individuals referred to this first bicycle as a “hobby-horse” or “dandy horse“, especially the British, after its widespread popularity.
The origin of the idea
Crop failure in 1816 or the Year Without a Summer—the after effect of the 1815 Tambora eruption—led to the starving and death of many horses, which piqued Drais’s interest in finding a substitute to the horse.
Karl Drais traveled eight miles (13 kilometers) with his design on his first documented ride in 1817 from Mannheim. The draisine was almost all wooden, weighing 22 kilograms (48 pounds), featured brass bushings in the wheel bearings, iron shod wheels, and a rear-wheel brake.
Several thousand draisine were manufactured and put into service, mostly in North America and Western Europe. As local governments started to ban it, its popularity quickly declined, in part because of the rise in accidents.
The first pedal driven bicycle
After then, innovators from France, Germany, and Britain developed a plethora of advancements. In Britain, the “pedestrian curricle”, an earlier bicycle form, was known as the “dandy horse”. This curricle, invented in 1818, was a lightweight bicycle with a adjustable seat and armrest.
Drive levers and pedals were added to a draisine-type machine by Scottish inventor Kirkpatrick Macmillan first in 1839, making it the first bicycle with pedals. With these advancements, the driver could move the vehicle forward without using his feet. But it was actually based on an already known mechanism called a “treadle” which operated differently from the modern pedals.
An improved version of this machine, also invented by a Scotsman in 1846, was dubbed the dalzell and saw widespread usage in Britain.
Invention of the modern bicycle
French velocipedes, which used cranks and free pedals, were the direct ancestors of today’s bicycles. Around the year 1855, its popularity skyrocketed in France. Both the frame and the wheels were manufactured from wood. The tread, the forerunner of modern tires, was formed of iron, and the pedals were joined to the hub of the front wheel, the driving wheel, which was set at an angle relative to the rear wheel.
Because of the pain it causes while traveling over uneven pavement or cobblestones, the British dubbed this thing a “boneshaker.”
In 1869, a British inventor designed the first official “bicycle”, which included rubber tires mounted on steel rims. A contraption with most of the attributes of a contemporary bicycle was constructed in Britain by James Starley four years later under the name “grand bi.” In those days, Starley’s machine had a front wheel that was three times as huge as the one in the back.
Towards the success of the bicycle
The evolution of velocipedes continued after the 1870 war, particularly in England. The front wheel grew, while the back one shrank. When first introduced, this kind of bicycle took the world by storm.
Later, in 1885, for the latter, locksmith Pierre Michaux and his son Ernest installed the pedals in their present location and chained them to the bicycle’s back wheel. The popularity of rural mail couriers and, beginning in 1903, the cyclists who compete in the Tour de France, ensured the phenomenon’s continued growth.
There are still more bicycles in use than any other mode of transportation in the world today (1.5 billion). The automobile formerly eclipsed it, but today there is a renaissance of sorts in post-industrial nations.
Today, the average annual distance cycled by the Dutch and Danes is 600 miles (1,000 kilometers), whereas the average distance cycled by the French for comparison is just 60 miles (100 kilometers). The mountain bike is a relatively new style of bicycle that has lately attracted widespread popular attention.
Electric bicycles for the future
It’s no secret that the electric bicycle, or electrically assisted bicycle, has been a major success in recent years, bringing bicycling back into the mainstream and revitalizing the sport in urban areas. It wasn’t created recently; in fact, it has been around since the late 19th century. The wheels and/or pedals were already equipped with electric motors that were driven by batteries.
The longevity of the gasoline-powered motorbike was a major factor in the success of this new form of transportation, delaying the widespread adoption of electric bicycles. The latter would be further refined in the decades to come, but would fail to find widespread adoption in the marketplace.
Nowadays, with environmental concerns and the push for “soft” transportation, this kind of transportation is getting a second chance. The electric bicycle is popular among city dwellers since it reduces pollution and requires less effort. Even if the price stays quite high (between 500 and several thousand dollars), the product’s rising popularity should make it more affordable over time.
Karl Benz, a German engineer, created the first genuine automobile. Of course, he had no idea at the time that his innovation would revolutionize the whole globe. The first automobiles were created around 100 years after the railroad. These vehicles improved human mobility and transformed industries such as product delivery, commerce, and entertainment. Their fast rise in the twentieth century drastically altered the social landscape.
The First Car with an Internal Combustion Engine
Karl Benz was born in Karlsruhe, Baden at the time (now in Germany). Karl’s father died when he was two years old. His mother worked hard and supported him through elementary school and then the Karlsruhe Polytechnische Hochschule (Institute of Technology). Karl has fantasized about a mode of transportation that does not rely on horses or trains since he was a youngster.
Before Benz, self-propelled automobiles were widespread. Some engineers created “cars,” which were largely steam or electric vehicles. All of them were adaptations to horse-drawn vehicles, but none of them were practical. The internal combustion engine was the most crucial innovation in the evolution of automobiles. Outside the cylinder, combustion (heated steam) happened in the steam engine. In the 1850s, the first functional engines were built, with combustion occurring within the cylinder and the piston is driven directly. The most significant of them was the engine created in 1850 by Belgian engineer Etienne Lenoir (1822-1900).
The First Car with a Four-Stroke Engine
The “four-stroke” engine, created in 1876 by German scientist Nikolaus Otto, was the next stage in the evolution of vehicles (1831-1891). These four periods are the essential concepts of gasoline engines today, and they involve fuel-air mixture intake, mixture compression, ignition, and exhaustion. Otto’s engine was the first true substitute for steam engines.
Karl Benz avidly monitored advancements in the area of engine design after graduating from high school and began to achieve his ambition of building a vehicle. He worked on several mechanical engineering projects before relocating to neighboring Mannheim in 1871. In the 1870s, Benz invented a two-stroke gasoline engine. Four four-stroke engine operations were merged twice in this engine, once to be done upward and once to be performed downward. He founded a firm with two other individuals four years later. Benz & Cie. Rheinische Gasmotorenfabrik was the name of the corporation. The business began by mending bicycles. They then expanded into machine and engine manufacturing, and the firm prospered significantly.
The First Three-Wheeled Car
Benz & Cie. turned out to be successful, and this success gave Benz the time and confidence he needed to make his dream come true. Benz made the first car by the end of 1885. This first automobile was a three-wheeled car powered by a single-cylinder four-stroke engine. Benz’s first car combined some important inventions of his design.
Among them were the electric starter coil, differential gears, a simple clutch, and a water cooling system. Despite his intense work and brilliant inventions, Benz could not conclude to develop a four-wheeled car. He chose the easy way and kept using three wheels on his cars. The front wheel was turned left and right with a handle in the form of a tiller.
Benz applied for a patent in January 1886 and was granted one in November of the same year. His application was allowed because the automobile Benz created could be propelled by its power source rather of an external one.
By 1888, Karl Benz had improved his design further and started producing more cars. Emile Roger, a French engineer and businessman living in Paris, obtained the sales rights of the automobile produced by Benz outside Germany, and the car became widespread.
After several innovations, such as the world’s first carburetor, the first Benz Patent-Motorwagen was sold in 1887. Benz started manufacturing the car and promoting it for sale in 1888. This automobile was the first motor car to go on sale in history. However, it was not easy for society to get used to this new, odd invention.
So, Benz’s wife Bertha (1849–1944) traveled with his two sons from Mannheim to his home city of Pforzheim on August 18, 1888, to familiarize society with the new automobile. The total distance was 200 kilometers. People have shown this some great interest, and as a result of the interest, Benz’s Motorwagen became very successful, and the automobile era began.
Henry Ford’s Part in Affordable Cars
Even 20 years after Karl Benz’s first car patent, the number of car owners was scarce. Producing each car by hand was increasing the costs, and prices, so the customer demand was low. In 1908, US businessman Henry Ford attempted to change this situation with the slogan “a car for everyone”.
The budget Ford Model T was a great success, as its interchangeable parts were assembled in a factory designed to increase production efficiency. One of Ford’s employees saw how efficient the production lines could be when he visited a slaughterhouse in Chicago. The application of this type of production to the car industry has drastically reduced costs, making Henry Ford a great fortune.
John Zachary DeLorean rose rapidly from obscurity to the highest levels of General Motors, the biggest automaker in the world at the time, before ultimately collapsing into bankruptcy. But in 1982, after only a few short years, his career crashed and burned. Few would remember the stainless steel two-seater DeLorean DMC-12 today if it weren’t for Christopher Lloyd’s portrayal of Doc Brown and Michael J. Fox’s performance as Marty McFly in the “Back to the Future” film series.
The “Back to the Future” DeLorean from the first film is now in Universal Pictures’ ownership. (National Historic Automobile Register)
Yes, but first things first. In 1925, John DeLorean entered this promising automobile world in Detroit. Detroit, in the U.S. state of Michigan, is often referred to as the “Motor City” since it is where most of the automobile manufacturing takes place. After receiving his engineering degree, DeLorean got employment there right away. His initial job was with Chrysler, but he quickly moved on to the defunct Packard Motor Car Company. After that, DeLorean allowed himself to be seduced by General Motors, one of the world’s greatest firms at the time and, from 1931 until 2007, the top carmaker by sales.
The automaker employed the young engineer to reposition Pontiac as a sports vehicle brand. DeLorean was promoted to head of the model division. As one would expect, this was the beginning of a brilliant career. DeLorean rose up the ranks quickly, first to chief engineer and then to general manager of Pontiac in 1965. This not only marked his arrival in the executive suite but also made him the youngest executive of a General Motors brand at the age of 40. But that was only a transit point. As a result of his achievements at Pontiac, in 1969, DeLorean was promoted to the position of managing director of Chevrolet, the group’s main brand. Three years later, he reached the zenith of his career, becoming a board member and vice president of all vehicle production.
DeLorean was rumored to be the future president of General Motors and projected the image of a youthful, energetic star manager. However, the future held a very different story. After tensions on the board about the company’s future reached a boiling point, it was decided that DeLorean needed to be replaced. The Detroit man then resigned, clearly to avoid expulsion.
Dream Automobile for the World’s Most Discerning Customers
In 1980, John Z. DeLorean, the company’s creator, posed with a concept DeLorean DMC-12.
He quickly had an urge to design and construct his own vehicle. A vehicle that bore his name and was a testament to his superior engineering skills. The vehicle has to have an extended lifetime, have the latest in safety technology for all passengers, and use as little fuel as feasible. The working title for the undertaking was “DeLorean Safety Vehicle,” or DSV for short. The ill-fated businessman established the DeLorean Motor Company (DMC) in 1975.
At this point, two of the car’s defining characteristics were already in the works: It was supposed to be unpainted and have gullwing doors. DeLorean went with a stainless steel exterior to save costs. He enlisted Bill Collins, a designer at General Motors, to help him create the new vehicle. For inspiration, the duo visited the Turin Motor Show in Italy. It was then that they crossed paths with Giorgetto Giugiaro, widely considered to be among the 20th century’s most innovative vehicle designers. His work may be seen in the original Volkswagen Golf and other cars.
A Crisis Followed by Another
Soon after, DeLorean began soliciting funding from potential backers. The main obstacle ended up being financial. There was a delay in manufacturing, and the automobile industry was already reeling from the oil and economic crises of the 1970s.
For DeLorean, this was a mixed bag of bad luck and good fortune. Though the bank had lost faith in the project’s viability, several states nevertheless attempted to weather the economic storm with newer plans. So, several of them submitted applications to manufacture the DeLorean DMC-12.
It came as a shock when the DeLorean DMC-12’s contract went to Northern Ireland, a United Kingdom territory that had been severely affected by the crises in Europe. Massive unemployment was a result of the oil crisis and the ongoing civil conflicts. Northern Ireland’s policymakers regarded the DeLorean as a chance to establish a new manufacturing sector. Despite auditors’ low expectations for the project’s outcome, the British government nonetheless approved the contract.
A new plant was erected rapidly in the Dunmurry neighborhood to the west of Belfast. DMC worked tirelessly to prepare the DMC-12 for production while the plant was being built. Bill Collins was tasked with this endeavor, and he worked on it for a long time. Impatient John DeLorean, though, sought a different path and found the British company Lotus. The company said they’d be able to mass produce the DMC-12 automobile in only 18 months. But the deal was that the DMC-12 prototype would give way to a new Lotus car called the Esprit. After DeLorean’s affirmative response, Collins departed DMC feeling downcast. The innovative DeLorean DMC-12 as a sustainable and safe sports car had been destroyed, leaving only its sustainable and secure stainless steel shell.
The British Government Provided Funding for the Car
Before being imported into the USA, Deloreans were stockpiled at the DMC facility. (Credit: AFP Contributor/AFP/AFP/Getty Images)
It’s no secret that DMC was on the edge of bankruptcy due to manufacturing delays. Time and over, the British government had to step in with guarantees or temporary loans to save the corporation. Late in the summer of 1980, when both the vehicle and the facility were completed and the first DMC-12 was being assembled in Dunmurry, it became apparent that series production would have to wait. After all, manufacturing a single automobile had taken three times as much time as originally anticipated.
If the DMC-12’s past misfortunes weren’t bad enough, they were about to become a lot worse. The first DMC-12 came off the assembly line in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on January 21, 1981. DMC was almost bankrupt again, it required a bridge loan, and the British government was its sole financial sponsor. It took around 150 hours of maintenance for each vehicle before the DMC-12 could be marketed in the United States since the initial cars were manufactured in such poor condition. Defects continued to mount after the first sales of the DMC-12, leading to many recalls.
The DMC-12’s lack of power disappointed critics. The 130-hp engine took over 10 seconds to accelerate from 0 to 60 mph, a lot slower than Porsches and Corvettes. But the car’s attractive appearance kept everything going.
When things had seemingly settled down, DeLorean made a disastrous choice in 1981. He demanded that output levels be increased by a factor of two. From that point on, twice as many cars were being manufactured each day as the corporation could sell. As a consequence, DMC-12s began piling up in the parking lots, but there was soon insufficient funding to maintain them. Everything quickly fell apart like a house of cards. More efforts to save the company failed in early 1981, prompting the British government to appoint an insolvency practitioner and leading to an arrest warrant for DeLorean on charges of theft.
Then, in October of 1981, a rumor that John DeLorean had been arrested on cocaine trafficking charges made its way to Northern Ireland and effectively put an end to all the efforts. The hope of starting a new automaker was dashed. The liquidation was declared by the insolvency administrator in Belfast, and all remaining workers were let go. DMC filed into bankruptcy after amassing more than USD $200,000,000 in debt. In the end, on December 24, 1982, the last of the roughly 9,000 DMC-12s to be manufactured left the factory.
The Missing Part Was the Flux Compensator
The Petersen Automotive Museum is home to the Back to the Future vehicle. (Credit: Petersen Automotive Museum/Ted 7)
DeLorean’s reputation as a brand soon hailed a near-miraculous recovery, even if the firm could not be reorganized ever again. There was apparently something really important lacking from the vehicle: A flux compensator. The DeLorean DMC-12’s time travel apparatus, which, of course, only existed in fiction. This narrative took place in 1985 when the first part of the trilogy “Back to the Future” was published and young Marty McFly, portrayed by Michael J. Fox, sped into the past in Doc Brown’s DeLorean, alias Christopher Lloyd, which had been modified for time travel. After the first film’s popularity, sequels were released in 1989 and 1990.
By the way, DeLorean was found not guilty in the drug trial because the FBI and DEA had knowingly persuaded him to commit a crime. Yet, until his death in 2005, he did not design or construct another automobile. He had a meteoric climb to the top of General Motors, but then a devastating collapse. DeLorean’s DMC-12 was, of course, ahead of its time but the reason for the failure of the DMC-12 rests totally with DeLorean, who failed to gain a grasp on his thirst for power, grandeur, and notoriety.
Sources:
Parnham, Chris; Withers, Andrew (2014). DeLorean Celebrating the Impossible. DeLorean Motor Cars (1978) Ltd. ISBN 978-0-9928594-0-4.
Clarke, R. M. (1995). DeLorean: 1977–1995 Gold Portfolio. Cobham: Brooklands. ISBN 1-85520-331-6.
Wills, Barrie (2015). John Z, the DeLorean & Me: Tales from an Insider. Houston, TX: DeLorean Garage. ISBN 978-0-9856578-8-8. an insider’s view of the longest serving employee, director of purchasing and last CEO of DeLorean Motor Cars in Northern Ireland
