THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21,
1928.
THE NEW FORD CAR
An announcement of unusual importance
"NINETEEN years ago we made and
sold the first Model T Ford car. In announcing it to the public we said:
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We will build a motor car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials," by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary -will be unable to own one."'
"If I were starting in business to-day, or asked to restate my policy, I would not change one sentence or one word of that original announcement. In plain, simple language it gives the reason for the very existence of the Ford Motor Company and explains its growth.
"IN
THE last nineteen years we have made 15,000,000 Ford cars and added to the world nearly 300,000,000 mobile horse-power. Yet I do not consider the machines which bear my name simply as machines. I
concrete take them as evidence of the working out of a theory of business which I hope is something more than a theory of business-a theory that looks toward making this world a better place in which to live.
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"The Model T Ford car was a pioneer. There was no conscious public need of motor cars when we first conceived it. There were few good roads and only the adventurous few could be induced to buy an automobile.
"The Ford car blazed the way for the motor industry and started the movement for good roads. It broke down the barriers of time and distance and helped to place education within the reach of all.
It It gave people more leisure. helped people everywhere to do more and better work in less time and enjoy doing it. It did a great deal, I am sure, to promote the growth and progress of every community.
"We are still proud of the record of the Model T Ford car. If we were not, we would not have continued to manufacture it so long. But 1928 is not 1908. It is not 1915. It is not even 1926.
We have built a new car to meet
modern conditions
"We realize that conditions all over the world have so greatly changed in the last few years that further refinement in motor car construction is desirable.
to every automobile
automobile owner
So we have built a new car. To put it simply we have built a new and different Ford to meet new and different conditions.
car, "We believe the new Ford which will be officially announced on' Saturday of this week, is as great an improvement in motor car building as the Model T Ford was in 1908.
Smart new low lines and
beautiful colours
"The new Ford is more than a car for the requirements of to-day. It goes farther than that. It anticipates the needs of 1928, of 1929, of 1930.
"The new Ford ear is radically different from Model T. Yet the basic Ford principles of economy of production and quality of product have been retained. There is nothing quite like the new Ford anywhere in quality and price.
"The new Ford has exceptional beauty of line and colour because beauty of line and colour has come to be considered, and I think.rightly, a necessity in a motor car to-day. Equally important is the mechanical beauty of the engine. Let us not forget this mechanical beauty when we consider the beauty of the new Ford.
By
HENRY FORD
"The Liew Ford 'has unusual speed for a lowprice car because present-day conditions require unusual speed.
"The world moves more quickly than it used to. There are only so many hours in the day and there is much to be done.
"Fifty and sixty miles an hour are. desired to-day where thirty and forty would have satisfied in 1908. So we are giving you this new speed.
Quiet and smooth-running at all speeds
"The new Ford will ride comfortably at fifty and sixty miles an hour. It has actually done sixty-five miles an hour in road tests.
"Since modern conditions demand more speed, they also demand better brakes to balance this speed. So we are giving you four-wheel brakes in the new Ford.
"The new Ford will be quiet and smooth-running at all speeds and you will find it even easier to handle in traffic. than the old Model T Ford...
"The new Ford has durability because durability is the very heart of motor car value. The Ford car has always been known as a car that will take you there and bring you back. The new Ford will not only do that, but it will do it in good style. You will be pround of the new Ford.
THIS new Ford car has not been
planned and made in a day. Our engineers began work on it several years ago and it has been in my mind much longer than that. We make automobiles quickly when we get in production. But we take a long time planning them. Nothing can hurry us in that. We spent twelve years in perfecting our former Model T Ford car before we offered it to the public. It is not conceivable that we should have put this new Ford car on the market until we were sure that it was mechanically correct in every detail.
Henry Ford
FORD MOTOR COMPANY Eroit, Michigan
"Every part of it has been tested and re-tested. There is no guessing as to whether it will be a successful model. It has to be. There is no way it can escape. being so, for it represents the sum total of all we have learned about motor-car building in the making of 15,000,000 automobiles.
The new Ford will sell al
a low price
"The price of the new Ford is low. in accordance with the established Ford policy. I hold that it is better to sell a large number of cars at a reasonably small margin of profit than to sell a few cars at a large margin of profit,
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"We never forget that people who buy Ford cars are the people who helped to make this business big. It has always been our policy to share our profits with our customers.
"No other automobile can duplicate the new Ford car at the Ford price because no other manufacturer business the way we do.
does
"We make our own steel-we make ́our own glass-we mine our own coal-we make virtually every part used in the Ford car. But we do not charge a profit on any of these items or from these operations. We would not be playing fair with the public if we did so. Our only business is the automobile business. Our only profit is on the automobile we sell.
"W
6TX7E ARE able to sell this new Ford car at a low price because we have found new way to give you greater. value without a great increase in our own costs.
"We did not set out to make a new car to sell át such-and-such a figure. We decided on the kind of car we wanted- to make and then found ways to produce it at a low price,
"The new Ford car, as I have said, will be officially announced on Saturday of this week. In appearance, in ner- formance, in comfort, in safety, in all that goes to make a good car, it will bear out. everything I have said here. We consider it our most important contribution thus far to the progress of the motor industry, to the prosperity of all countries, and to the daily welfare of millions of people.” -
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