Henry Ford and the Car Invention

About Henry Ford and the Car Invention

One warm rainy night in June, in the year 1896, Clara Ford (Henry Ford 's wife, formerly Clara Bryant) heard a terrible hammering noise from the back of her house. Clara Ford was used to loud noises, as were all neighbors of the Ford's. Ever since Henry and Clara Ford had moved into the house on Bagley Avenue in Detroit two years before, there had been strange noises every night from the little brick shed in their back yard. Hissing noises - banging noises - and sometimes a loud roar.

Occasionally, they could see sparks or smoke drifting out the windows. The Fords seemed a nice enough couple. They had a baby son named Edsel Bryant Ford who was home with his mother, Clara Ford, all day, while father Henry Ford worked at an electrical power plant in town.

But every night when Henry Ford got home, the lights would go on in the shed and the strange noises would start again. Sometimes the lights and noises continued all night long, and sometimes there would be visitors to the shed - important looking men who would come out shaking their heads and urgently whispering to each other. It wasn't long before the neighbors found out what was going on in the shed. Henry Ford was building one of those horseless carriages - useless contraptions! A few other men had built them but they never worked for long, not nearly as reliable as the good old-fashioned horse. The horseless carriage would never be anything more than a toy for grown men with idle time.

Henry Ford finishing his car invention

Even though Clara Ford was used to the loud noises from the shed, this night was different. It was so loud it sounded as if the building was collapsing. Clara Ford grabbed an umbrella and hurried out to see what was going on. And then she stopped in her tracks. There was Henry Ford, mallet in hand, swinging away at the brick wall of the shed. Timber was splintering and falling, bricks were flying, and clouds of dust billowed in the doorway. What on earth was he doing this time? Henry Ford saw his wife, Clara, and ceased hammering for a moment. "It's finished," he said.

Henry Ford 's first Car Invention

Through the doorway Clara Ford could see that it was finished. Henry Ford 's horseless carriage had a two-cylinder, chain driven gasoline engine. The engine was stored right behind the single seat, which could carry only one person. Henry Ford figured the engine was about three or four horsepower. The carriage had a tiller, like a boat's, for steering. It had two forward speeds but no reverse. It had an electric doorbell for a horn. Henry Ford might need a horn, because the carriage had no breaks; Henry Ford would stop it simply by turning the engine off. The carriage had four big wire wheels that looked like bicycle wheels, so he called his new creation a Quadricycle.

Now, after two years of work, he was ready to test it. The only problem was it wouldn't fit through the door. Henry Ford assured his wife that he would rebuild the shed. Then Henry Ford ran back to the carriage and cranked up the engine by hand. He climbed into the seat of the Quadricycle, started it up, and steered his way out onto the cobblestones of the alley and into Grand River Avenue. He'd gone only a short distance when the car sputtered and came to a stop. Henry soon found the problem - a tiny spring that was part of the ignition system had come loose. He replaced it, climbed aboard again, and continued his drive, once around the block, and back to home on Bagley Avenue.

It was only a beginning. But in a few years Henry Ford would painstakingly design and build more cars until finally he was able to produce one that was practical, affordable, and accessible to the mass market. Henry Ford's work would transform the United States into the nation of the automobile. He became the largest automobile producer in the world and the first to use the assembly line to mass-produce standardized cars.