IN 1999, Henry Ford bested Bill Gates as Fortune magazine’s “Businessman of the Century.” Ford didn’t invent the car, but he revolutionized the mass production process that made cars affordable for everyone.
When Ford began selling his Model T in 1908 at $850 a piece, only the rich had the kind of discretionary cash available to buy the new machine. Just 1 in 100 households owned one of Ford’s cars or an even pricier Cadillac, Packard, or Pierce-Arrow. Six years later, the assembly line allowed him to drop the price to the mid-$400s. And by 1925, with factories churning out cars and Ford’s well-paid workers guaranteeing maximum quality, the price dipped to a low $260. At that point more than half of all households could boast that they owned a car.
