The final Model T was driven off the assembly line at Ford’s Highland Park Plant in Detroit by Henry Ford and Edsel Ford on May 26, 1927. The ceremonial vehicle is now on display at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan.
Ford knew it had a hit on its hands as early as 1908, when the Model T broke production records with 10,660 cars built the first year. By the time the company retired the iconic vehicle in 1927, more than 15 million Model Ts had been sold, a record that stood for more than four decades, eclipsed just 50 years ago this month.
The revolutionary Model T combined utility – it was used in a plethora of climbing stunts and adapted for other automotive applications, including as a snowmobile – and affordability enabled by production efficiencies and previously unheard-of scale brought about by the introduction of the moving assembly line.
The car gained popularity in other parts of the world as well. The industry’s first global car, the Model T was manufactured in multiple countries and sold on six continents. As its success grew, it came to account for more than half of all vehicles in the world by 1921.
Even after being replaced by the Model A, the Model T retained its title of world’s best-selling vehicle for another 45 years! The Volkswagen Beetle finally took the throne on Feb. 17, 1972, but its reign was short-lived, toppled by the Toyota Corolla after just two years.
In 1999, the Ford Model T was named Car of the Century, for its impact not only on the automotive industry, but society as a whole. The international panel of journalists, dominated by Europeans, chose the Model T over the Beetle and other significant vehicles.
As of 2018, the Ford Model T still remained in the top 10 all-time vehicles sold, along with the Ford Escort and, of course, Ford F-Series, which had surpassed the Beetle by 1995.
The seeds of Ford’s legendary truck leadership were planted with the Model T, which spawned a pickup variant late in its production run. The Model T Runabout, introduced in 1925, was the company’s first factory-produced domestic pickup. Like the original Model T, the Runabout came with a low price of $281 and impressive first-year production numbers of 34,000 units. Ford sold a heavier-duty, one-ton-rated Model TT chassis as well, providing a range of offerings for its truck customers, much like today’s F-Series Super Duty lineup.
Ford F-Series has stood as America’s best-selling vehicle for the past 40 years, with the company recently marking production of the 40-millionth truck.
