South Meath Driving School

The idea that Henry Ford invented the first car is ‘bunk,’ one might say. The car was defined as a wheeled vehicle with its own engine and capable of transporting passengers: it was also called a horseless carriage. The automobile, as we know it, had many inventors, evolving over many years and in many countries. It’s believed that about 100,000 patents created the modern autos with claims and disputes as to who was first. The first theoretical plans for an automobile were drawn up by none other than Leonardo da Vinci ( in the late 1400s.) It took some time, though, to get those plans off the shelf as it was 1769 before the first self-propelled vehicle was engineered – a military tractor invented by Nicholas Cugnot, a Frenchman, and it was steam powered. In those formative years and even into the early 1900s, the automobiles were steam, gas and electric. It’s believed this poor man, Cugnot, was also involved in the first road crash – banging his wagon into a stone wall!

In the early 1800s, came the first electric cars, invented by a Scot, Robert Anderson. Those cars were powered by storage batteries which later allowed for the electric vehicles to flourish. And here we are 200 years later reinventing them! Towards the end of the 19th century, interest in the motorcar had increased greatly in the USA, New York getting its first fleet of taxis. A car was a luxurious item then and could cost up to 2,000$. The carriages were very ornate and large, suited, ideally, to a lady wearing sable.

The electric car had many advantages over its gas or steam competitor, being noiseless, didn’t vibrate and had no fuel smells. The gas version could take nearly an hour to start up on a cold morning while the steam had only a short range travel capacity. Roads were in their infancy generally, but growing towns and cities had a good standard which suited the electric car which also had a short range.

Among the earlier engineers were Daimler, Benz, Steinway and the Duryea brothers from the US who put the first internal combustion engined car on the road in 1893. By 1896, Henry Ford had built his first car, called a Quadracycle, which he sols for 200$. He introduced the Model T in 1908, the first with an enclosed engine and transmission. The car was simple to drive and easy to repair. Priced initially at c. 1,000$, with greater production that fell to 360$ and within ten years most Americans were driving one.

In 1914, Ford doubled wages to 5$ a day, drawing in the best mechanics in Detroit thus raising production and lowering costs. Ford introduced the first moving assembly lines and by 1918 he claimed half the US sales market. Over 15 million Model Ts were produced and Ford’s quip went ‘You can have any colour once it’s black!’ Black was all that was available, initially at least, because that paint dried faster. Ford introduced the 40 hour working week, a minimum wage and the three shift system. It took 14 hours to produce the first Model Ts, but, at full production, there was one produced every 14 seconds. Despite generous wages, labour difficulties were encountered when workers set about introducing a Union. Ford even contemplated closing down a whole plant until his wife intervenedand !

Adolf Hitler admired Ford, hung his picture on his wall and modelled his own new Volkswagen, the people’s car, on the Model T.

Henry Ford was son of a Corkman, William Ford, who emigrated to the US about the time of the Great Famine. Henry was born in Michigan in 1863, one of eight children. He worked on the family farm but disliked the work. He could dismantle a watch and put it back together while still in the classroom. He left school at 15 and walked the eight miles to Detroit to work in machine shops that were to be the foundation of young Fords engineering skills that led him to found Detroit Motor Company.

Apparently, it’s not true that Henry Ford said ‘History is bunk,’ rather, that he said ‘History is more or less bunk.’ He made the famous reply in an interview with a journalist from the Chicago Tribune in 1916 who was questioning Napoleon’s inability to invade England. Had Henry been born in ‘the real capital of Ireland,’ perhaps we’d be the biggest exporter of cars in Europe today, perhaps not. It does seem, however, that some of our better exports over hundreds of years, and continuing, was and is our gifted children.