Talk:Ford Model T/Archive 2

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Archive 1 Archive 2

ethanol?

I just read somthing saying that the ford model T could use ethanol as well as petrol but I have never added anything to an article so I am not going to add it in myself. If anyone else could please add it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.226.98.110 (talk) 08:09, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks like someone has gone off on one in the main article text very much playing down this possibility, tossing in about four paragraphs to harshly (and not really encyclopaedically) quash the claim of a single line - does it need moderation? 193.63.174.10 (talk) 16:52, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Pop Culture

The Character Lizzie in Disney/Pixars Cars was a Model T. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.108.132.112 (talk) 18:04, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Is it appropriate to include Jerry Reed's "Lord, Mr. Ford" here? The song doesn't specifically reference the T, but it does hit on many of the topics covered in this article. Steve8394 (talk) 06:35, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
The usual criteria for pop culture references to be included is whether the reference materially affected the car (perhaps media attention to particular problems caused the company to fix them), affected the sales or affected the public's awareness of the car (eg Lizzie in the Cars movie brought it to the attention of a new generation).  Stepho  talk  22:38, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

The Pedals

The paragraph on the pedals is somewhat confusing. Pressing the left pedal "engaged" gears but did not engage a clutch????? I thought this was a clutch pedal!!! And the middle pedal is a "Reverse" pedal? so no pedals need to be used for forward motion, BUT the reverse pedal needs to be pressed to go backwards? This is odd. Anything out of the ordinary with regard to the brake pedal? Or is that self explanatory? just press on the brake to stop, like we still do? seriously: how does pressing on a gear pedal not engage a clutch???? Marc S., Dania Fl206.192.35.125 (talk) 21:00, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's odd - but only in hindsight. At the time the Model T was produced there wasn't such simple agreement over pedals as there was in a decade or two. Even for simple "Clutch, brake, accelerator" systems, there was no agreement as to what order they should be in. Add in a few other makers with quite different ways of using the pedals (look at pre-selector gearbox for some), and there really wasn't much standardisation to cite. Also the Model T would be most driver's first experience of any car, so it's not as if they had anything to compare it to. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:12, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
The transmission section describes how to drive the Ford car very well. To disengage the engine from the rear wheels you have to press the clutch pedal hafway down - or pull the hand brake lever at least to the upright position, wich does the same ting = disengages the clutch. If you press the clutch pedal further to the floor, the low gear is engaged by a band in the transmission. You have to keep the pedal down to be in gear. When ready for high gear, you let the pedal out fully, which engages the clutch & puts the car in direct gear = high. The hand brake lever has to be forward for that maneuver, or the pedal will stay halfway up with disengaged clutch. To operate reverse you have to disengage the clutch by either method and press the reverse pedal down. The reverse is like first gear - don't let the pedal up or you'll be slipping the band and get out of gear. Brake works like modern cars - except much less efficient. Rear wheel only brakes may be adventurous in today's traffic , particularily if driving on slippery roads. The brake band material lasts longer if the pedal is pumped so oil can come in between the band and transmission brake drum for cooling. Hepcat65 (talk) 14:12, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Le Mans

There is a minor edit war over whether the Model T was in the Le Mans 24 hour race. Does any body have any references for the Model T being in Le Mans? Personally, I can't see such a cheap, utilitarian vehicle being a good candidate but it's possible that somebody stripped one down and had a go anyway.  Stepho  talk  08:19, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

A modified Model T ran in the inaugural race: 1923_24_Hours_of_Le_Mans. Rmhermen (talk) 22:04, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Thanks - I'd forgotten about this 1 day edit war. That article has no references of its own but since the Model T entry has been there uncontested since late 2007 I feel a little more confident of its truth. At least it gives us a lead to look for a real reference. Thanks.  Stepho  talk  23:33, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Apparently it still races in the Le Mans Classic race: [1] [2]. Also see [3] Rmhermen (talk) 01:26, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

accessdate

The date and accessdate formats in the references are all over the place. Some of them are mm-dd-yyyy (all digits), which is expressly banned by WP:DATEFORMAT. Allowed formats are yyyy-mm-dd (all digits), yyyy-mmm-dd (mmm in words) or mmm-dd-yyy (mmm in words). Either '-' or '/' are allowed between the fields, as long as it is used consistently. Most non-American articles are using yyyy-mm-dd (all digits) but since this is a predominantly American article, the American date format (with months in words) could be acceptable. Comments?  Stepho  talk  05:58, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Apparently no-one has a preference, so I'll change all references to yyyy-mm-dd in the next day or two to match the majority of automobile articles.  Stepho  talk  15:22, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
I missed noticing this talk thread earlier. The one-vote win (mentioned in Stepho's edit summary) can now be called a two-vote win. I second the use of ISO 8601, for its clear, easy, unambiguous reading across any international audience. Many people are perversely stubborn about sticking to their pet traditional local variants (and their needless semantic ambiguity), but IMO Wikipedia isn't the place to encourage that. Wikipedia strives for clarity with globally usability. So I too support using ISO 8601. — ¾-10 16:43, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 Done Also handled a few dead links and filled out a few web references more fully. Many of the entries in the Notes section probably should be shifted to the Bibliography section but I'll leave that to another day.  Stepho  talk  04:05, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Assembly

The Ford Model T was also assembled in Louisville, KY from 1913 until the ceasing of the product line in 1927.

I apologize that I don't know how to edit Wikipedia entries myself. Thanks to whomever can correct this oversight.

Reference: http://m.bizjournals.com/louisville/print-edition/2010/12/10/ford-to-invest-600-million-in-plant.html?r=full http://digital.library.louisville.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/cs/id/1347/rec/13 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brandonschadt (talk • contribs) 03:28, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Brandonschadt (talk) 19:39, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Kevlar? Really?

I fail to see what Kevlar has to do with Model Ts. While a detailed discussion of the topic of brake and transmission parts is neat, it is out of context. The section should be limited to what was actually used on the Model T variants in production.99.245.248.91 (talk) 04:49, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Notice the section header says "today" not "OEM". TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 02:29, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps the section should be re-organized to differentiate what the Model T was versus what modern modified versions are. 99.245.248.91 (talk) 06:19, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
Section references a Model T fansite that contains historical and current information. Section was simply copied without close inspection to content. I propose removing most/all of section as is doesn't represent information about the historical Model T, but restoration of existing cars. Xitit (talk) 16:30, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

1925 Model T at car show

Ford Model T year 1925.

Photo for possible inclusion.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 20:15, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

That's lovely. Thx. I hope it's on Commons, too. (And I take it the plaque confirms it's a '25?) TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 22:53, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
Yes, excerpts from the description at the car show: 1925 Ford Model T -- found in Sparta NJ "with no indication of it being a car or truck" -- completely restored by hand -- cab ... designed & built using oak strips -- interior seats are antique seats, from an old schoolhouse, built in 1925...--Tomwsulcer (talk) 23:05, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
So, strictly speaking, not a restoration.... :( TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 08:31, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
It was at a car show in my town; I do not know much about antique cars, but I took lots of photos (uploaded only about 5). I have more if they would be helpful. But I defer to you fine people to see if the photos are worthy of inclusion in the greatest encyclopedia in the world.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 12:33, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Cost?

Can anyone add the cost of this vehicle on its release and throughout time? Also the present cost that a vintage Model T can bring? This would substantially improve the article, as it is stated as being a cheap car for the masses in that time. --64.75.187.201 06:13, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Much of that is already in there: "It was sold in the beginning at a price of $850 when competing cars often cost $2000-$3000. By the 1920s the price had fallen to $300 (about $3,300 in 2005 inflation-adjusted dollars)" As to the current prices - there were millions of them, they are not especially valuable - and many hot rod versions are built with modern fiberglass bodies, instead of old parts. Rmhermen 17:02, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
I don't doubt the Japan black paint was cheaper; I've also heard it was preferred because it dried faster, & therefore was more suited to hi-vol production. Trekphiler 11:15, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I've heard both stories. But note that barns, etc. always used to be painted with red lead paint, because it was cheapest (because it covered better with less). I don't know if that is relevant to car paint or not, though. Gzuckier 14:42, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
I never remember "fast drying speed and resistance to impact" being a factor in barn paint, though :) it containing lead that would kill off fungi and other rot, whilst also sealing the wood against water incursion, however... 193.63.174.10 (talk) 17:23, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

The section on pricing has gotten very wordy and hard to follow. I created a table that could be put it the article but maybe we should fill some of the blanks first. I had moved a paragraph from the marketing section but I see that there is conflicting information about the sales volume for 1914. It is also not clear if this is US sales only or worldwide sales. Nyth83 (talk) 11:07, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Year Sales Price Notes
1909 $850 ($28,820 in 2024) [1]
1911 69,762
1912 170,211
1913 202,667 $550
1914 308,162 (or 250,000?)
1915 501,462 $440
1916 472,000 $360 [2]
1920s $260 ($3,950 in 2024) [3]
  1. ^ Ward 1974, p. 1562
  2. ^ Lewis 1976, pp. 41–59
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference MediaFordCom was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
Also, the previous section mentions a price of only $240 rather than $260. Nyth83 (talk) 14:43, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
Found a couple of interesting sources. Ford Production and Sales. Nyth83 (talk) 15:03, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Who invented the automated assembly line?

Under the heading Mass production it says "The assembly line was introduced to Ford by William C. Klann upon his return from visiting a slaughterhouse at Chicago's Union Stock Yards and viewing what was referred to as the "disassembly line" where animals were cut apart as they moved along a conveyor." and under the heading Advertising, marketing and packaging it says "Always on the hunt for more efficiency and lower costs, in 1913 Ford introduced the moving assembly belts into his plants, which enabled an enormous increase in production. Although Henry Ford is often credited with the idea, contemporary sources indicate that the concept and its development came from employees Clarence Avery, Peter E. Martin, Charles E. Sorensen, and C. Harold Wills.". Since they couldn't all have done it one of those passages has to go. Which one? Allan Akbar (talk) 18:05, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

There was too much forking going on by trying to discuss the same topic in at least 3 places. I removed the forking. Interested readers can click through to the main article, assembly line. — ¾-10 04:02, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
Changed the claim about the first assembly line to be more historically correct. The article assembly line makes it clear that Ford was not first and it was not his idea.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Nyth83 (talk • contribs) 18:55, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Samuel Colt developed many of the elements of mass production at his revolver factories in the 1850s. Not the automated production line, but interchangeable parts. Also marketing and PR.Paul J Williams (talk) 10:09, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

It goes back way before that - Brunel´s block factory in Portsmouth is often cited as the first but even that is simply a development on what had gone before. Bagunceiro (talk) 11:31, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
Interchangeable parts were standard in firearms & bicycles before the Model T was ever conceived. AFAIK, bicycle mfrs didn't use "assembly lines" as such, but it wouldn't surprise me. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 20:44, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
Ford (or Ford's staff) innovated the assembly line, based on the slaughterhouse. The question is, what an "assembly line" means. The notion of division of labour is codified by Adam Smith and his pin factory, which was one of several texts in the 18th century covering the same ground, and it wasn't novel then. Interchangeable parts dates from Colt and his revolver factory. Brunel's block mill has specialised machinery and general machinery both only used for specific production tasks. Ford's innovation though is the line, the notion of repeated pieces of work being transported through the plant, in sequence, and worked on one by one. This much was novel (for non-meat manufacturing at least). Andy Dingley (talk) 21:55, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
Use of interchangeable parts predates Colt; Whitney was using it in 1800. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 22:58, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
An interesting example because firstly Whitney was most certainly not the first (by a very long way) to use interchangeabilty and secondly didn't actually manage to incorporate it into his production process! What he did do, and it shouldn't be minimised - it was another step on the development road, was to have the vision to popularise the concept. Bagunceiro (talk) 00:15, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Nice idea, but there's no evidence that Whitney ever did this (not that it makes any difference to "Ford wasn't the first with interchangeable parts").
Whitney adopted LeBlanc's idea of standardised parts, which is that all parts would be made to match one standard pattern piece (the idea of "pattern guns" is still over-prevalent in UK armouries). A later development was to not make parts to match another part (which is hard) but to make parts to match a measurement jig (Whitworth takes the credit for that). Yet owing to the limitations of Whitney's (and even Colt's) manufacturing process, such "standard" parts didn't fit together well enough. They were, in Whitney's production, still hand-fitted for final assembly, then grouped into per-gun sets that were kept together. Yes, triggers and locks could be swapped onto other barrels, because all had been made to a standard pattern dimension. But accurately-fitted parts within a lock and sear, or within a barrel group, were still kept together. What else could Whitney do? He was ahead of the game for basic measurement at this time. There was no precise length measurement, no concept of fit gauges and even surface plates were rare, expensive and somewhat inaccurate (see Maudslay).
Interchangeable parts in the car industry come in with Cadillac, before Ford. They were demonstrated in the famous RAC trial, where two Cadillacs were dismantled, the parts mixed and re-assembled. Cadillac were able to do this (Rolt, Tools for the Job) because they had adopted the more accurate finish grinding for sizing, rather than merely lathe turning. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:45, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
Not really. Venice was using a prototypical production line for the construction of ships in the 14th century, for example. Like many if not most technological "firsts" Ford's factory system was simply a development of what had gone before. Bagunceiro (talk) 23:30, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
In what way was the Arsenal "production line" building? They were efficient, certainly, but they batch built the great galleys and had them all at comparable stages of completion simultaneously. They certainly didn't move galleys (at least during the hull building stage) past a succession of different work stations, as was Ford's main innovation. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:53, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
Oh, but they did though, but ;-). "At least during the hull building stage" is something of an artificial restriction as regards whether they had developed a prototypical production line or not. Bagunceiro (talk) 00:31, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Inflation adjusted prices

I'm sorely disappointed that someone thinks showing inflation-adjusted prices in the table isn't useful. Why not? I find it unhelpful to say a car cost "$300" since I have no concept of how much that was actually worth. Is it a lot? Is it a little? I don't know! So what's wrong with displaying inflation-adjusted prices for every figure, instead of just 2 out of 23 of them? --Bigpeteb (talk) 14:16, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm sympathetic to both arguments. I suggest a workaround to meet in the middle. (1) The one argument (the objecting argument) is that after a century, with substantially different lifestyles and standard of living, one can no longer compare apples to apples with a converted number. So, by corollary (and here's where the objecting part kicks up), giving converted numbers in parens falsely suggests that apples-to-apples comparison is being made, when it's not. For example, half of America (or some large fraction like that) were family farmers in 1914, and these were people who grew much of their own food, had no concept of a cable TV bill, or a cell phone service or ISP bill, or social security or Medicare (none of which existed), so to speak of dollar figures is misleading; the non-currency-transaction fraction of their economic experience was an order of magnitude different from most people's today. (2) But the other argument, also valid, is what you said—what meaning/significance does "300 1914 USD" have to any reader today unless you tell them what to compare it to? (3) The workaround would be to not give parens conversions on every number, but to give a few key goalposts of comparison, such as "how many months' salary that was for an average worker" for the 300 dollar figure. Then leave it to the reader to understand that other figures are, say, half of that or double that. Even though individual incomes vary widely (thus "average" has limited meaning), this is the only valid way to convey to a layperson reader today some "range of relevance", to put a name on it. The reader can say, "I can imagine what half a year's earnings is for me and how much of a punch to my pocketbook that is." — ¾-10 22:16, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Advertising

The article begins by stating that the Model T "was so successful that Ford did not purchase any advertising between 1917 and 1923". There are several sources of this, and it's often cited elsewhere as evidence of Ford's dominant market position. Later on, an entirely unsourced Advertising and Marketing section begins with "Ford created a massive publicity machine in Detroit to ensure every newspaper carried stories and advertisements about the new product." Which is true? They don't explicitly contradict each other but the two statements are confusing. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 18:25, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

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Colour (Black)

Besides the much quoted line about the "any colour, as long as it is black", there appear to be some myths (or not) about the use of the colour black. I see lots of information about this, some saying that it had to do with the cost, other claiming that it was about the quick drying quality of the black paint, something that is mentioned here, in a comparison with poles really wide apart — 48 hours VS 14 days. Could someone familiar with the subject please look into this? Thanks, regards, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 18:29, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Brother, can you spare a dictionary?

I'm deleting the price conversion to modern equivalents. A US$96000 car today is so enormously more sophisticated, & has so vastly more content, comparison to a Model T is laughable. Put it 1910s or 1920s terms: how many weeks/months' salary for a line worker? Or against the price of a loaf of bread, or a new house--these offer useful context for the period, as well as now. Raw numbers don't. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 22:32, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

I think it is fair to show the modern equivalent price. Most readers are likely to think that $850 is a trivial amount of money but in 1909 it was truly a huge amount that was out of reach for most people - cars really were a luxury item. It also shows that technology has progressed enormously, giving so much more value for money each year. Even over the time span of the price table, inflation makes it unrealistic to compare the 1909 price directly with the 1927 price.  Stepho  talk  23:51, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
The raw numbers lead to a very, very misleading impression. A US$90000 car today is enormously more sophisticated than what an inflation adjustment suggests. Putting it in terms of what $850 would buy at the time gives a suitable sense of scale that can easily be understood today: if it was 3mo wages for a line worker (IIRC, it was about that), that offers some sense of what it would buy today (& AIUI, it won't buy a brand new Buick, or most Fords--or even a Fusion). And if it's unreasonable to compare 1908s to 1927s with bare numbers, how in the world is it reasonable to do it with 2017 numbers? I'm hoping we can get some sense of comparing buying power to buying power, which the numbers alone don't do.  TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 22:59, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
Inflation adjusted buying power is a whole Wikipedia article. The buying power of different items from consumables like bread to durable goods like houses are different by large factors. The INFLATION template is the accepted tool we have right now, so deleting it just because you don't like the results is not an acceptable edit justification. Nyth63 14:27, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
So a meaningless, misleading number is preferable to something that actually communicates? Yeah, the fact "I don't like" the inflation conversion is the reason I want to delete it. Sheesh. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 04:02, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
Trekphiler: I know I'm coming into this several months late, but I just stumbled across it tonight, and it's an issue I've thought about a fair amount. Personally, I like meaningful price conversions (they're especially revealing when looking the relative price of computing power during the history of computers), so I often do them when writing for my own reference, though I don't think I've ever done one on Wikipedia. However, I don't like how they're most frequently done (using the cost-of-living index), because I think it's misleading. I agree that the subject is worth a whole article on its own. Because the issue is potentially debatable and fraught with uncertainty, I can understand why you'd prefer to remove the price comparisons. But I don't agree with the specifics of your argument here.
In this specific case, I would argue that the given value, if anything, slightly underestimates the relative cost. I'm a big fan of using the services of measuringworth.com. (Interestingly, I now see that that page uses the Model T as an instructive example. I hadn't noticed that when I wrote the following.) For something like this I prefer to use GDP per capita, for the following reasoning. During a year the inhabitants of a country generate its GDP: some amount of economic output in goods and services, valued in the currency of the day. Somehow they distribute that value amongst themselves; all the various wages, salaries, and other payments are implicitly incorporated in the GDP. When the inhabitants then compete to purchase goods and services, they will use what they took in from that economic output, with those who took in the most having the greatest competitive leverage. So, by this reasoning, an average person's purchasing power, in terms of the fraction of their income, roughly depends on their share of the GDP at the time. (This can never be more than a rough comparison, by its very nature.)
If I compare the Model T Touring's 1909 price of $850 to 2016 terms using GDP per capita, I get an even higher figure than the one you complained about: $140,000! This may sounds absurdly expensive at first—but think about it. During the 1909 model year, Ford only built around 10,500 Model Ts. Even though this was more than most car makers produced, it was still very small; even then the U.S. already had about 90 million people. Though Ford had eventual plans to build a "people's car", automobiles were yet a long way from becoming a commodity. Some could possibly justify paying such a high price for an automobile through their commercial or business needs, and it might help that the buyer would likely only purchase a single automobile for their entire family, rather than each adult in the family owning their own, as Americans tend to do today. But for most people, automobiles were still a luxury item, and the construction of the cars reflected this. Though Ford's were made more efficiently than many, they were still hand-made in many respects. The moving assembly line did not yet exist, and many of the car's components were supplied by other manufacturers who might not be as efficient as Ford was. Look at a well-restored brass-era Model T: it's almost garishly appointed, with plenty of brass, wooden, and leather accoutrements. Not to mention the fact that it's an automobile—for most people in 1909, that still meant a very new, revolutionary, cutting-edge device, not something one would use for ordinary day-to-day transportation. They were hard for most people to get and afford. Normal people would walk, or maybe bicycle, or if they wished to go a long distance, take the train.
OK, so what about the Model T's price at the peak of its popularity, 1923? (Ford made some two million of them that year.) The price for a 1923 Touring model was about $300 without electric starter and demountable rims, and $380 with those options. In 2016 terms using GDP per capita, those values work out to $22,000 and $28,000, respectively. This is in the neighborhood of what we expect to pay for a decent mass-market automobile today. Just as working adults today expect they can afford a personal long-range transportation vehicle, so did their 1920s counterparts, for the first time. (Consider that they would still likely have only one for the entire family.) However, the value difference in 2016 terms of the starter and demountable rims, $6,000, reflects that an electrically startable car was still a big deal then.
There are several problems with comparing using something like "how many months' wages of a production-line worker". Many of our readers have never seen a production line and don't think in those terms. The proportion of people who were production-line workers, and their relative economic status, changed a lot between 1909 and 1923, and has changed more since. Also, comparing in terms of "how many months' wages would that be" adds a further step of mental indirection which most people don't consciously apply when price shopping. Even so, for this case you still seem to end up with results in the same ballpark once you do proper economic weighting. Measuringworth.com offers this comparison as well; the resulting figures are: $850 in 1909 → $160,000 in 2016, $300 in 1923 → $20,000 in 2016, $380 in 1923 → $25,000 in 2016. Since these can never be more than rough order-of-magnitude comparisons, those results look quite similar to me. (Incidentally, based on the value you quote, I think the price comparisons you originally complained about were done using unskilled-worker wages, which has its own set of somewhat-related issues.)
As for comparing with the price of a loaf of bread, or a new house, you're assuming the relative value of those have stayed relatively constant over time. They haven't. Bread is vastly cheaper to make now than it was in 1909 or 1923; the developed world is practically drowning itself in cheap food. A house, on the other hand, may be cheaper or more expensive to construct; I'm not sure, since the standards for it have changed, and its price depends a lot on the value of land. (I live in Silicon Valley, where the price of a house has shot out of reach for many people, and more and more people seem to be living in rented properties compared to when I grew up in Southern California in the 1970s and 1980s.)
Regarding comparing the sophistication and content of a $100,000 or $140,000 or $160,000 car today to a 1909 Model T, well, that would apply just as well to even the lowest-end car today. That's kind of the point: technological developments, industrial progress, and economic changes make it nearly meaningless to compare the items directly, so you have to fall back to the fundamental meaning of "price" and compare the relative economic impact. Which is exactly what measures like relative GDP per capita do. --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 06:15, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
♠I think you've made my argument for me, actually. What the inflation template does is effectively compare item to item, rather than as a fraction of GDP. (And given the changes in wage structure then versus now, even that is a fraught value.) Or, rather, it gives the appearance of an accurate dollar-for-dollar, item-for-item comparison, when it really isn't.
♠I realize using the "loaf of bread" example isn't really ideal, either, but it beats a misleading number. That's the main reason I like the "worker wages" comparison: most people today probably have little idea how much a line worker earns, but do have a sense of what their own pay is; if a worker takes 3mo to buy a $300 Model T, & it takes 2 to buy a new Fusion (or something) today, you've got an inaccurate comparison, but one that (fairly) accurately communicates the value involved, or the scale. IMO, that's more important than exact numbers, or "head to head" (so to speak) equivalencies. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 10:42 & 10:44, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

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Table

I made the table sortable, and added a "Current Equivalent Price" column, becuase the Model T is critically important for bringing the price of an automobile down to something affordable by the masses, and the price dropped for many years as production techniques improved, and as the cost of the inplace plant was spread over 15 million units. My changes allow the average reader to get a feel for the price as experienced when these were on the market; and to see the drop in price which is dramatic—85% drop in constant purchasing power dollars. In the original prices it looks like a 71% drop, but those prices include inflation of that time. Nick Beeson (talk) 18:39, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Inconsistencies in the article

Why does it say in the lead ...16.5 million sold... and again here On May 26, 1927, Henry Ford watched the 15 millionth Model T Ford roll off the assembly line, but later down in the article it says Overall, a total of 14,689,525 were produced.? Mgasparin (talk) 03:24, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Tin Lizzy?

Why does a search for 'Tin Lizzy' redirect to this page? The term is not even mentioned anywhere in the article. Is the Ford Model T somehow related to the term? Anyone have a source? Jdevola (talk) 11:38, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

First line of the lead. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:57, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
So could you also please explain the derivation? 2001:44B8:3102:BB00:852E:885A:1B97:88DB (talk) 20:52, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
No idea, sorry. But "Tin Lizzie" was a common nickname for them. "Flivver", I believe, was less specific and was applied to any small, cheap car. If anyone can source the origin of the nickname, that would be a good addition. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:57, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
I can explain both 'Tin Lizzie' and 'Flivver', and do so in my latest book. I'll share the info here after I sell enough copies. Wikipedia has had quite enough free stuff from me, for the time being.2001:44B8:3102:BB00:852E:885A:1B97:88DB (talk) 21:09, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Middle class?

Could you please explain which section of society in America is considered 'middle class'? Elsewhere in the world, the term often denotes 'affluent and tertiary educated' - i.e. professional people. In America, 'middle class' seems to refer to 'ordinary citizens of average means.' 2001:44B8:3102:BB00:852E:885A:1B97:88DB (talk) 20:59, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

See middle class. Roughly put, the middle class has some discretionary income to spend on things but aren't among the elite. In America, like most western countries, the majority of people are in the middle class.  Stepho  talk  10:14, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
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