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Old 08-10-2020, 10:53 AM   #24
rotorwrench
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Location: San Antonio, Texas
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Default Re: The First Modern Production Ford Motor

Ford's successes at racing and involvement in building the race cars did help with Ford Motor Company becoming a reality. He was well known in Detroit and elsewhere due to this. Alex Malcomson sure noticed and offered to bankroll the new Ford company.

I went back and re-read Charles Sorensen's book about the early years when he first got involved Henry Ford. He made patterns for Ford before he was hired on so he had some involvement with the early cars. C Harold Wills and Henry Ford had a lot to do with the development of the planetary transmission which was a first on the Model B. P.E. Martin was hired to assist as well. Both of these guys were around in 1903 and may have had other design involvement with the Model B as well as the other models. Wills went on to pioneer the use of chrome vanadium steels for certain parts on the Model N and to make a more reliable planetary transmission for the Model T. His involvement with this particular type of steel eventually eroded Henry Fords trust in him. Wills and Sorensen didn't get along and he was always trying to sell people on utilizing this type of steel since he was heavily invested in the process. Due to Wills' previous study of commercial art and calligraphy, he is credited with the original Ford logo taken from a calligraphy set that he had. I've seen Henry's signature and he didn't write his name that way as some folks claim. It's too bad that C.H.Wills and P.E. Martin didn't write memoirs like Charlie Sorensen did. There are books about C.H. Wills and P.E. Martin but they are very late books (2017 on each one) and I wonder how much research went into them. One critique wasn't very good for the one about Wills. C.H. Wills went on to build the Wills Sainte Claire automobiles which were a bit too far ahead of their time and the financial timing was bad due to the depression so the company folded. He died in 1940. P.E. Martin resigned from Ford in 1941 due to health reasons and died in 1944.

Ford Motor Company used several pattern making firms like the one Charlie Sorensen had worked for and they used several local foundries to make their castings. The Dodge brothers were involved as well and they may have also developed patterns and castings for parts of the model B and other cars. They were heavily involved with the Model K cars as well. The big 6 cylinder engine even looks a lot like the Model B 4 cylinder engine.

Charlie Sorensen mentioned that he would have batches of new parts made by the Dodge brothers returned to them because they wouldn't fit right. John would take them back but eventually those same parts would be sent back to Ford along with other new batches of parts. Needless to say, there was no love lost between Charlie and the Dodge brothers. It cost Henry Ford dearly to buy them out but he really had no other choice.

If I had to bank on it, I'd say that Ford, Wills, and Martin as well as the Dodge brothers had a lot of involvement for all the cars produced by Ford in that very early time frame.

Last edited by rotorwrench; 08-10-2020 at 11:01 AM.
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