Allen Hernandez

Henry Ford Mechanical Engineer

Henry Ford is probably one of the most important people in the history of
automobiles and mechanical engineering. Ford was born on July 30, 1863 on a farm in
Greenfield Township, Michigan. Although Ford was born and raised on a farm he never
liked farm work so he turned to something else. At age 15 he was given a watch and
dismantled it, by 20 years old he had a reputation for repairing watches in his town. In
1879 Ford left home to start working and was hired by James F. Flower & Bros as an
apprentice machinist. Later he was hired by Westinghouse to service their steam engines.
In 1891 Ford became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company. After his
promotion to Chief Engineer in 1893, he had enough time and money to devote to his
personal experiments on gasoline engines. These experiments resulted in a vehicle Ford
created in which he named the Ford Quadricycle. With the help of C. Harris Wills Ford
designed, built and raced a 26 horse-powered automobile in October 1901. Then the
Henry Ford Company was formed in November 1901 with ford as Chief Engineer. Then
in October 1, 1908 Ford introduced the Model T. It had a steering wheel on the left, the
engine and transmission were enclosed, the four cylinders were in a solid block and the
suspension consisted of two elliptic-springs. The car was easy to drive and cheap to repair
at a cost of $825. With the great success of the Model T, Ford was convinced to create a
new model with updated engine, suspension and other mechanical necessities. The result
was the Ford Model A introduced in 1927 and produced in 1931 with a total output of
over 4 million im assuming that this was the help of his innovative assembly line. Ford
also entered the aviation business during World War 1, building liberty engines. Fords
most successful aircraft was the Ford 4AT Trimotor. Although it sold 199 units, it
discontinued 1933 following the shut down of the Ford Airplane Division due to poor
sales. Ford also had an involement in racing, he entered stripped down Model-Ts to race
which he would place first but later disqualified. In 1909 his model T set a one mile oval
speed record at Detroit Fairgrounds with driver Frank Kulick. Later on Ford lost interest
in racing because of the sports rules. His primary focus was back on ideals such as
transportation, production efficiency, affordability, reliability, fuel
efficiency, economic prosperity, and the automation of drudgery in
farming and industry, but rarely mentions, and rather belittles, the idea

Allen Hernandez
of merely going fast from point A to point B. Although this man did not
invent the automobile nor the assembly line we look at the way this
man did innovative things in his time. He basically took ideas from
other people and made them better with his own ideas. That is what
we need in this world in order to improvise our lifes.

Allen Hernandez

Works Cited
http://www.hfmgv.org/exhibits/hf/The_Innovator_and_Ford_Motor_Company.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford