Automobiles: In Search of Style

AUTOMOBILES: IN SEARCH OF STYLE

The Amazing Tin Lizzie

Henry Ford's Model T—popularly labeled the "Tin Lizzie" or "flivver"—- revolutionized American society. This simple, tough, affordable car, which was produced between October 1908 and May 1927, put America on wheels. Nearly 15,5 million Model Ts were manufactured, and an astonishing 75 percent of them were still being driven when the car went out of production in 1927. Priced as low as $260 (for a new-roadster in 1925; a good used Model T could be bought for about $50), the Tin Lizzie was the answer to the workingman's prayers. She was also frequently the object of his curses as he backed her up steep grades (reverse was her most powerful gear), pushed her through mud holes, and tried to start her on cold mornings. Yet no other car so captured the imagination of the American public: the Model T spawned songs, doggerel verse, jokes, camaraderie among owners, and a multitude of appreciative letters to Henry Ford, who was widely regarded as the common man's friend and benefactor because of his automobile.

SAMPLE AUTOMOBILE PRICES FOR 1925 (LOWEST SEDAN PRICES)

Ford Motor Company	$590	Kissel Motor Car Company	2,385
Durant Motors, Inc.	785	Stutz Motor Car Company	2,550
Chevrolet Motor Company	795	DuPont Motors, Inc.	3,050
Willys-Overland Company	850-1,550	McFarlan Motor Corporation	3,100-6,600
Essex (Hudson-Essex Company)	945	Packard Motor Car Company	3,275-4,900
Maxwell Motor Corporation	1,095	Peerless Motor Car Company	3,295-3,690
Dodge Brothers Company	1,250	Apperson Automobile Company	3,485
Nash Motors Company	1,295	Cadillac Motor Car Company	3,885-4,550
Reo Motor Car Company	1,595	Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company	3,895-6,900
Studebaker Corporation	1,595-2,785	Dorris Motor Car Company	4,310
Buick Motor Company	1,665-2,350	Lincoln Motor Company	4,800
Auburn Automobile Company	1,795	Daniels Motor Company	7,600
Chrysler Motor Car Company	1,825	Duesenberg Automobile & Motor Company	7,800
Hudson Motor Car Company	2,150	Locomobile Company of America, Inc.	9,990
Rickenbacker Motor Company	2,195-2,795	Rolls-Royce of America, Inc.	10,895 chassis only
Franklin Manufacturing Company, 2,250

Source:

"The Scientific American Annual Automobile Guide," Scientific American, 132 (January 1925): 68-71.

Model T Style

Throughout its years the Model T featured a four-cylinder engine, rear-wheel brakes, and a pedal-controlled planetary transmission with two forward speeds; on a good, flat road (too often a rarity in the 1920s) it might reachforty-five miles per hour. The first Model T's were available in four body styles—the most popular being the five-passenger touring car and the two-passenger roadster—and in a variety of colors, though between 1913 and 1926, when mass production really picked up, Tin Lizzies were invariably black. Until Charles F. Kettering developed fast-drying Duco lacquer in 1923, colored paints required several applications and two weeks to dry—absurd wastes of labor and time on Ford's assembly lines. Henry Ford allegedly quipped that the Model T customer could "have a car painted any color he wants so long as it is black." And although colors did reappear on the Model T in its final year of production, the only other major style changes that occurred during its lifetime were those imposed by customer-handymen served by Ford accessory stores that sprung up all over the country. Thus, the car might sport fancy spare-wheel covers or bumpers with a nickel finish. In general, however, the Tin Lizzie was not a dressy lady; she was simply a plain, hardworking, honest one.

Chevy

The Model T's chief competitor during the 1920s was the Chevrolet, developed in 1911 by the flamboyant William Crapo Durant, who in the previous year had been ousted as head of General Motors; in 1916 he again seized control of GM, where he remained until November 1920, when he was ousted for a second time. Durant brought to GM his four-cylinder Chevy and his philosophy that a single auto company should offer vehicles "for every purse and purpose." Alfred P. Sloan Jr., who would become president of GM in 1923, convinced Durant's immediate successor, Pierre du Pont, to retain the money-losing Chevy and to boost it as an attractive alternative to Ford's Model T. GM could not match Ford's low price; but, Sloan reasoned, many potential buyers of the Tin Lizzie would be willing to pay $150 to $250 more for a better-looking, slightly more powerful, and better-riding car. According to the January 1925 Scientific American, the lowest-priced Chevy of that year cost $490 to the Model T's $260, had a wheelbase of 103 inches to the Model T's 100 inches, and boasted a fortytwo-horsepower engine to the Model T's forty. The Chevy also might have, though Scientific American did not mention it, Kettering's Duco lacquer finish, available in a variety of colors. Sloan's hunch was correct. GM's Chevy sold extremely well, finishing a respectable second in sales to the Model T through much of the decade. Clearly, by the mid 1920s style and the status-consciousness it implied were beginning to influence substantial numbers of even the least well-to-do auto buyers.

The Major Companies and Style

The major automobile companies responded to consumer demand for stylistic choice by expanding their model lines and by placing a new emphasis on the aesthetic appeal of their products. Expansion was often achieved through buying up smaller companies. For example, Ford acquired the upscale Lincoln marque from Henry M. Leland in 1922, and Walter P. Chrysler, who had developed his luxury Imperial in 1926, purchased the Dodge company for its line of mid-priced "Dependability Cars" in 1928. But interest in stylistic diversity and development was most clearly reflected through the establishment of aesthetic design components or departments in the major companies. In 1925 Henry Ford finally agreed with his son Edsel that the new Lincoln should be professionally styled and that custom designer Raymond H. Dietrich should be brought to Detroit for that purpose. Moreover, Henry Ford's belated recognition that "beauty of line and color has come to be considered a necessity in a motor car today," as one of Ford's ads proclaimed, was the primary impetus for his introduction of the Model A in 1927. Responding even more strongly to the demands for style, General Motors (which by 1927 offered seventy-two car models) had created the automotive industry's first separate design department, the Art and Colour Section, headed by Harley J. Earl. One of Earl's most memorable creations was the sleek, sporty La Salle, which Sloan called "the first stylist's car to achieve success in mass production." Thus, the offerings of each major automobile company were expanded through the acquisition of smaller companies' stock and through a new industry-wide emphasis on design as an attractor of customers. Automobile manufacturers were both responding to a need and creating it.

Sources:

C. Edson Armi, The Art of American Car Design: The Profession and Personalities (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988);

Handbook of Automobiles 1924 (New York: National Automobile Chamber of Congress, 1924); "The Scientific American Annual Automobile Guide," Scientific American, 132 (January 1925): 68-71;

Stephen W. Sears, The American Heritage History of the Automobile in America (New York: American Heritage, 1977);

Alfred P. Sloan Jr., My Years with General Motors (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1964), p. 269.