1932-05-31 — Page 2

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WHAT IS FORD GOING TO DO?

NEW 1932 CARS THAT WILL SHORTLY APPEAR.

"V-8's" AND IMPROVED MODEL. “A.”

The following story, written by James Sweinhart and carried by all the Press associations to newspapers throughout the country February | 11, was the first authoritative auel mancanent og plans of the Ford | Motor Company for 1872 A Ford V-8, with # new night-cylinder ¦ V-shaped motor, and, a Ford four,- į an improved Model A,--were the Principal features announced in the Here is the atory as it plane. appeared in The Detroit Nene, under Sweinhart's signatare;

HONG KONG DAILY PRESS, TUESDAY, MAY 31, 1932.

SPARKS

FROM THE PLUGS

4. The price range of the 10:

different models will continue

5.

„ in the low price field.

The chassis is so built that the eight and four" engines may be interchanged at will.

6. Production will start Home time this month with the first pulle showing early in March, The question is a longer what Ford is going to do" he's doing it, now, on a mighty and rapidly increasing scale.

A new pulse beats through the

everywhere evident in the labera-

The whole automobila world has tories, the works and the shops.

The Ford, Eight."

Then Eerd eight had bean

bor.

Henry Ford had decided to pat it into 'production us his chief offer- ing for the coming year.

is now.

He had come into one of the experience. Now the public has¦ four." The "improved Mode] A

My father is never happier laboratory ofllers,' to sit, for abeon very patient, it deserves a lòt i was put isto production, Suppliers

than when he is solving some big moment, while something or other from the manufacturer. „From now „alf over the country were given

mechanical problem," said Edse! was got ready for his eye or hand on the public's pocket-book sits in jorders. Train-loads of raw materi

Ford. When the new Modol A in the workshops beyond. He was at every conference."

als began rolling in The power-

was brought out he left many things ¡umiling, alertly active, mentally and

"And here's something I wish plants started up toward peaks not

to others, but I have never seen him physically, looking "fit as a fiddle." you'd make pretty strong. It's for drenched in months. The foundry "He disposed of my question with the raw material supply mm. It began working day and night., And

That same morning he ordered theive such attention to detail as, he He works for hours at a wave of his hand

American manufacturers do their the endless carriers of parts started laid-away plans to be "brought "out"

time trying to eliminate a single atmost to start the whenla of indus-a-hour run. Down the assembly and prepared for large scale pro-

duction. "

part. He Agures that, the fewer I'ye just got back my old deter-try and the material men begin to lines the improved Model A started

From that moment Henry Ward parts in a car the less the risk of ruins prices, the whole offort may rolling in a steady stream,

trouble. In the Model A this was To do what? I asked.

be throttled: In times like theso

"But Jr. Ford wasn': satisfied," personally became the dynaina of

the works. He was here, there, I carried so for that repair bills were To get the price of an automo- everyone has to take some risk, the lieutenant went on. "His old bile down to the mark where the make some sacrifice and even be smile didn't come back, as it usual everywhere, ordering, directing, cut in two. Our business in parts public can buy it. The public will willing for a time, to do businessly did when things began to humchanging. A task immensurable by for the old Model T used to run always come half-way to meet a man without profit in order to start the Instead, somehow, he scomed to be words confronted him. The whole from $10,000,000 to $12,000,000 n who does his part to meet the pabnormal processes of industry and getting madder and madder. Of works had to be changed. Building lie's demands-I've always found it business again."

"Oh—That's nothing,” he said.

mination. That's all."

so

went ch.

the

You know," he said, been asking that question since the Henry Ford, has again become the public has suffered a lot. Every

11.

The foundation of his whole, world-

ald Model T "four" And wide industry was the success of the

evolution of his V-type Eight,”

the

course we didn't know what he was thinking-but we knew he felt we

ber I.

́olvewhere.

-1

A vast amount of ma-

month. On the Model A this fall

off to from 83,000,000 to 4,000,000 a month. The Model A didn't re- quire as much service." an

Asked as to when the new "eight" will be ready to show, Edsel Ford said:

"We can't tell, yet. We'll first

Plant and went to his office in the machinery, Bol yet in oxistence. have to make enough cars to supply

Dearborn laboratories. Henry Ford bame over. Father and son were to-

our dealers."

of the "right" would require cor- tain finished parts which Ford did That was Ford's way of disposing Ford moved his chair aroun of a titanic situation. The freewertu't yet on the right track." not make these had to be designed, tilted it against the wall and, rest-engines Ford made had but two

Then came the morning of Decem-contracted for, put into production

It was a Monday. Edsel What's Honry Ford going to vast. Ford organization to-day-it's ing one foot on the edge of the desk, cylinders. Then he made a "four"

Ford came over from the Rouge thinery had to be taken out-new

had to be designed, built elsewhere, brought in and installed. Somehow

"How certain are you that you a rumour got around that Ford had discontinued making the fours." have a market for your new cars?'” Came a flood of letters arging that Henry Ford was asked. the "four">

"We're not certain." he replied. type be continued. That was good in itself-it showed" But we're going to risk it. Some. something of the markets a lot of one has to risk, something to get buyers would continue to want things started. And, you know, faith is entching; if we have con- fours."The volume was much!

Spring of 1920, when the industrial paralysis of the world's greatest de pression Erst began to be felt.

And here's the snawer:

1. As his major offering, for the season now opening he is build ing a new model, with a new hight-cylinder V-shaped motor: £. He will continue building four

cylinder ears an improved Model A...

5. Both the "V-8'"and the

direcs driving, supervising and creative forer behind the engineeri ing undertakings of the Ford Motor Company.

He, personally, is making the supreine effort of his career: "10 produce," as he expressed it 10-day,

what these new times require the most advanced form of trans portation, at the lowest cost ever known, for the greatest number of buyers, ever encompassed by the

now, is not to Ford the epochal

thing we do now must take into account the people's pocket-book. We developed' a corking good

for and were all ready to let's just another form of his old

1

it go, but, we found, it was not the new effort which the public is ex- pecting. That's why we're bringing | out the eight now.

"You see, the public has its parbj in these matters. Somehow it in- stinctively knows when the time is ripe for something new. after the industry has produced its

And even

avent it seems to others. To him

ideal

a

Not Abandoning the "Four" Model.

1t occurred to me he might have bit of regret at abandoning the four model. I said as much.

But we're not abandoning the

ether, alone, for an hour or 90, Then suddenly, things began to happen

Ordars went out to the plants to

factured and on their way to the

!

"Model A's will have roomier | plans of any one motor manufae best design and developed its best four," Ford answored, either Plans in finished parts and bodies expected demand was rather We're going averything in our pow

bodies of wholly new design,

Lare

What Ford Says. This sudden, tema atawsphere of any big thinge afoot. 1 asked Ford

longue wheelbase, dower hang chassis and heavier frame than: have yet appeared in Ford models.

abent it.

ready for assembly 1

4

stop production--to stop production when 35,000 of the new improved "Model A's" were already manut West for early January showing areater than he had planned. For idence, others will, too. The chief with 50,000 more of them in the time; so far as it affected the thing is to meet the public's de- mand for something new and batter fat."; that is, coming through the building of the eight, this un-at a price the average man can pay,

concerting. Ford then had ap- proximately 50,000 men working He put half of them to work, mak ing the improved Model A and with the other half he dung himself into the job of changing over the plant. to get out the "V-Eight"

Mealtime the plans for the Everyone was set 10-right"

were coming through. Ford was again about the plant as he was 25 years ago.

The wide productive organization was suddenly thrown back on its

in production. manufacturing, method, is only in principle, or amounts to about 90 per cent. of the We're going right on

making completed job. The public con- fours for all, who want them haunches. tributes the other 10 per cent. gas and the eight, why, that's just of its netual use of the ear in road twofours put together."!

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The idea of building an "eight" has been in the back of Ford's mind a long time--but it must have been an epochal event throughout the plants of the company the day Ford, personally and alone, decided to bring out an "eight"

In the summer of 1921 1 remem- Uber sqeing an "eight" worki ig on the testing block in the experi- mental room of the old tractor plant. On the floor nearby, idle, was a." twelve," On a pedestal not far away was an X-happed twenty-four." All multiples of the basic "four." And when, iz 1927, the Model T was abandoned and the new Model A brought out, it too Was 1 "four" But it did not appear until after the resulty of renewed and extensive experimentų; tion and testing with an "eight" had been laid aside.

Daring the latter part of 1930 and the early months of 1921, experi- mentation with the "eight" again went forward. The work was done in the Edison laboratory, which Thomas A. Edison, used for 40 years at Fort Myers, Florida, and which is "now in Greenheid," the Ford old American village in Dearborn, Twenty eights" were built. Thomas A. Edison rode around in one of them a year ago. Thought was given to bringing the "eight" nodel out then--but the depression was on, business was bad, the time wasn't right,"

A

But that didn't dispose of the question. An eight or

four"in the late summer of 1931 it was again pressing for an answer. It was decided to get out are improved Modal A. -The-en-- gineering laboratories worked· Tong and feverishly at tests and ex- periments to develop improvements. Ford began to appear, daily in the shops, the drafting rooms, the plants, watching the development of each part, watching every detail of design and production-yes, and thinking, deeply, too, those about him say.

Parfect Four,"

- Came a day in late autumn when, as one of the Tord lieutenants'said, we believed we had a perfect

The carriers slowed down. The trains of raw materials dumped, went out empty and came no more. The assembly line again

as empty.

work on something else... What had happened?

er to give the public that kind of a„' ear. It will be the first, low-priced automobile in America considering quality and price. And we believe the public will come half way-is always has before."

"Though you're not certain of your market, you are certain you've got the car ?

That's it exactly," No one would say anything de- finite, as yet, as to how much the ears will retai) for

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