Trucking Magazine – July 2019

LAST DROP BILL DEAN

HENRY FORD:

HISTORY MAN

How one of America’s great industrialists saved the

world’s first diesel engine from obscurity

By Bill Dean

PHOTOGRAPHY VARIOUS

98 TRUCKING Summer 2019 http://www.truckingmag.co.uk

H

enry Ford is always

remembered for two

inaccurate quotes: “Any

colour as long as it’s black,”

and “History is bunk". The

first quote might seem correct: at a

meeting with salesmen, he did say of the

Model T that “any customer can have a

car painted any colour that he wants, so

long as it is black.” However, there was a

good reason for that. By the time he had

got to prototype T, he had tried out a

range of colours on the cars, which were

developed alphabetically. A was red, F

dark green, K Royal Blue, R red again.

He had settled on black for two

reasons. The first was black paint dries

quicker because it absorbs heat fastest.

The second was many of the Model T’s

parts were bought in from sub-

contractors. By specifying they were

already finished in black, it cut his

painting costs and it was a good colour

match. Black is black, whereas anyone

who has been shopping for soft

furnishings with herself knows all other

colours have subtle variations invisible to

the male eye, such as taupe and magenta.

When the first Model T rolled off the

line in 1908, he stated: “It will be

constructed of the best materials, by the

best men to be hired, after the simplest

designs that modern engineering can

devise. But it will be so low in price that

no man making a good salary will be

unable to own one.”

These are words that should be

emblazoned on the boardroom walls of

every manufacturing company in the

world. Customers could customise their

Model Ts if they wanted, but black kept

the price down without compromising

quality. By 1927 when production ended,

half the cars in the world were Model Ts

(though ironically the 15 millionth car

was green).

That Henry was not only a superb

engineer, industrialist and marketing

man is in no doubt. However, in 1916 he

was against America entering WWI in

Europe. He was not alone in this, but he

was a massive public figure. To justify his

stance, on May 26 he said: “History is

more or less bunk. It is tradition. We

don’t want tradition. We want to live in

the present.”

In America, the European conflict was

seen as the replaying of old historical

grievances and quarrels. The Continent

had only just got rid of its European

occupiers – Spain, France and England –

and many saw no reason to take sides or

send their young men to die. America was

a young country with a future that needed

building, not a past that needed defending.

The Chicago Tribune took umbrage at

his stance, writing: “Ford is an Anarchist”,

“an ignorant idealist” and “enemy of the

nation”. Henry sued for defamation of

character. To defend their editorial, the

Tribune’s lawyers concentrated on

Henry’s lack of historical knowledge. In

court, he didn’t know the date of the

Boston Tea Party or say when the United

States itself was incorporated.

Cartoonists drew Henry in a corner with

a dunce’s hat on. However, the war had

ended before the trial started. Henry won

and was awarded 6 cents in damages.

But the three-month trial had really

got to him. He was annoyed politicians

and warriors were celebrated, but the

work of engineers, inventors and

scientists was ignored. These were the

people whose strivings had moved

mankind from the Stone Age to the

20th Century, not paper-shufflers and

generals. In 1919 he declared: “I’m

going to start up a museum and give

people a true picture of the development

of the country. That’s the only history

worth observing.”

The new museum in Detroit needed

exhibits to fill it, so instructions went out

to Ford’s network of dealers across the

USA and England to buy anything –

ploughs, engines, seed drills etc – from

the early part of the industrial revolution.

It was the first of the world’s science

museums, displaying and explaining the

evolution of ordinary objects. It has a

real “wow” factor, with many unique

exhibits, superbly displayed and their

context explained.

The emphasis, not unreasonably, is on

how American innovation and

engineering changed the world. So it has

many early cars, Sikorsky’s prototype

helicopter, Fordson tractors, steam

engines and planes. It also has Greenfield

Village, where can be found (dismantled,

shipped in and rebuilt) the Wright

brothers’ bicycle shop, Edison’s

laboratory and other historical buildings

• including a Cotswold cottage.
  However, it is exhibit 31.89.1 that is my
  own personal favourite. When
  researching the history of Jacob
  Morrison (see page 66), I had discovered
  his Oil Engine No. 1 – the world’s first
  diesel engine – had been sold to
  Woodside Farm, Thorpe Thewles. In 1931,
  agents of Henry Ford had bought it for
  £5 and shipped it to Detroit.
  There it was a catalogued, re-crated,
  stuck in a storeroom and forgotten about.
  It was just another stationary engine of
  no particular merit. It could’ve been
  cleared out and scrapped at any time
  over the intervening century, but
  fortunately it wasn’t.
  After I sent over the newspaper
  photo showing Jacob standing proudly
  with his engine along with the paper
  trail showing provenance, its
  significance was recognised and it was
  put on full display.
  Because Henry Ford was attacked for
  almost saying “History as it was taught
  then is bunk”, he created a museum to
  illustrate the history that really mattered


• and an important piece of English
  engineering was inadvertently saved. n

Politicians and warriors were celebrated, but the work

of engineers, inventors and scientists was ignored.