If the 1908 Ford Model T was made as cheaply as possible, the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost was made with no expense spared. The Rolls-Royce cost seven times as much as the Model T and didn’t even come with a body.

The 1907 Rolls-Royce 40/50 “Silver Ghost” was described as the “Best Car in the World”, an epithet bestowed on it by the magazine Autocar:

“The running of this car at slow speeds is the smoothest thing we have experienced while for the silence the engine beneath the bonnet might be a silent sewing machine

…at whatever speed this car is being driven on its direct third, there is no engine as far as sensation goes, nor are one’s auditory nerves troubled driving or standing by a fuller sound than emanates from an eight day clock.

There is no realisation of driving propulsion; the feeling as the passenger sits either at the front or the back of the vehicle is one of being wafted through the landscape.”

Autocar 1908

The chassis was originally called the 40/50 and the power output was a rather relaxed 48 hp from just over 7 litres of capacity (the current Rolls-Royce Phantom V12 car develops 563 hp from 6.75 litres, nearly 12 times the power).

The gentle state of tune of the Rolls-Royce 40/50 made the engine delightfully flexible and the ability to drive almost everywhere in top gear was of great importance to Edwardian motorists, many of whom could not manage the “crash” gearboxes of the day and were unable to change gear on the move.

Claude Johnson, Rolls-Royce’s managing director realised that excellent though the new model was it needed to be brought to public attention if the newly floated Rolls-Royce Ltd was to succeed.

Johnson had an unerring eye for publicity. He used to balance a glass of water on the bonnet of the new 40/50 while the engine was taken up to 1,600 revolutions per minute, and not a drop would be spilled.

He would also balance a penny on the end of the chassis and the penny would remain where it was.

He then had an even better idea. He persuaded the factory to build a special “demonstrator.” This was chassis no. 60551, the 12th 40/50 to be made.

An open-topped Roi-des-Belges body by Barker was fitted which was specially finished in aluminium paint with silver-plated fittings.

On the dashboard was a plaque with the name that Claude Johnson had chosen: “Silver Ghost”. This actual car, registration number AX 201 features largely in the film “Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines”.

It is now considered the world’s most valuable car and is insured for around $35 million US dollars.

Silver Ghost was a name that was to resound down the years in the Rolls-Royce Hall of Fame, a name that at first referred to that particular car but eventually became applied to all 40s/50s.

Going so far up the market meant that the only individuals who could afford a 40/50 Silver Ghost were royalty, dictators, and the very wealthy.

Vladimir Lenin’s Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost was purchased on 11 July 1922. It cost £1,850 which included a 15% discount due to an Eagle aero-engines deal that the new Russian Government had signed with Rolls-Royce.

Because of Moscow’s deep winter snows the car was fitted with caterpillar tracks at the rear and skis on the front wheels so that the dictator could be driven from his Gorki mansion to the Kremlin.

His chauffeur was Adolphe Kegresse, also Tsar Nicholas II’s personal driver (the Tsar had two Silver Ghosts).

Lenin showed just how much of a Bolshevik he was by owning eight more Rolls-Royce cars. At the same time as the Russian people were dying of cold, Lenin installed heated garages for the Rolls.

Lenin’s crimes were many; when famine swept his native Volga region in 1891, killing 400,000 peasants he propagandised against charitable relief efforts from America because the spectacle of death might prove a ‘progressive factor’ in weakening the Romanovs.

Stalin and Brezhnev also owned Rolls-Royces. Wherever history was being made there seemed to be a Rolls-Royce parked around the corner.

The Ford Model T and the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost shared much the same lifetime, being produced between the years 1908 to 1926, which enables some comparisons to be made. They both had four wheels and a petrol engine.

They could both carry four or five people.  But the chassis price for the 1921 Rolls-Royce American version was US $11,750 ($192,779 in today’s dollars), and the American car cost $300 or $4000 today.

AX 201, the original Silver Ghost is now valued at $35m, and a Ford T is around $10,000.

At least two of Lenin’s Silver Ghosts were converted to half-track drives by Kegresse. They both survive. Kegresse later worked for Citroën for whom he designed halftrack vehicles for use in the desert.

What was the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost like to drive? As you climb aboard you notice a large, cranked windscreen with a view over the bonnet which makes it look surprisingly short.

The Grecian radiator constantly reminds you that you are driving a Rolls-Royce. On top of the unsupported upright steering column is a big, 4-spoke wheel with a polished wooden rim.

On that is a control cluster with two levers, labelled Fast/Slow and Early/ Late, and the Governor.

The plain-speaking Henry Royce thought that “early/late”, referring to the spark timing, was more understandable than the more usual “advance/retard”.  A plate on the scuttle reads: “Rolls-Royce Ltd., London & Manchester” and gives the car number as 551.

The driver has a snake-like bulb-horn and the front passenger is also provided with a Desmo bulb-hooter, mounted outside below the left elbow.

Outboard of the driver’s door, and between it and the spare tyre are the silver-plated gear and brake levers.

The gear gate is unusual, as 1st is forward and left but 2nd and 3rd positions are both down and back, then with a short movement forward into the overdrive top; the reverse is between bottom and top.

The hand brake operates the cable-applied rear-wheel brakes, which are fairly quiet. The foot brake is little used; it works on the transmission and is likely to bind in hot weather and lock the back wheels in a skid.

The accelerator pedal is to the right of the brake, unusually for those days- it was often between the clutch and brake pedals.

Beside the spare wheel, there is a Cowley speedometer reading from 10 to 80 m.p.h., with a little clock next to it. The engine is idling silently.

When you drive off the Ghost will perhaps feel rather lorry-like, with a heavy clutch and the odd crunch of gears, but the flexible engine soon gets you up to 30 mph which is a comfortable cruising speed even on main roads.

The ride is surprisingly good. The passenger sits high in a comfortable leather armchair and they have to maintain 1 lb. fuel pressure with a vertical floor-mounted bicycle-like plated air pump, watching the gauge that reads to 4 lb/sq. in.

This needs constant attention or else the engine will stop. Otherwise, you glide along in silence. This is the best of Edwardian motoring.                                                         

For a while, the “Silver Ghost” really was the most famous car in the world. Not everyone was an admirer, though.

Laurence Pomeroy of Vauxhall described the Rolls-Royce as a triumph of workmanship over design, by which he suggested they placed too much reliance on correcting errors other manufacturers would have avoided in the first place.

History of the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost

The Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost was a luxury car produced by Rolls-Royce Limited from 1906 to 1926. Over its 20-year production run, it established Rolls-Royce as the ‘Best car in the world’, setting new standards in luxury, refinement, and reliability.

Name of Vehicle

The Silver Ghost name refers to the silver paintwork as well as the car’s smooth, quiet running.

Early models were officially called the 40/50 h.p. but the Silver Ghost name stuck after one particular car completed a non-stop endurance run, leading Claude Johnson to refer to it as ‘the silver ghost’.

How Many Were Made

Approximately 7874 Silver Ghost cars were produced between 1906 and 1926. Over 6173 of these were built in the Rolls-Royce Derby factory in England. The remainder were produced in Springfield, Massachusetts in the United States.

What Makes It Special

The Silver Ghost established Rolls-Royce as the undisputed manufacturer of the finest motor cars in the world. Key factors that made it stand out include:

• Refinement – The engine ran so smoothly and quietly that at speeds below 20mph it was difficult to tell if it was running at all. This led to the ‘silver ghost’ nickname.
• Reliability – The car set new standards in reliability and endurance thanks to detailed engineering and extensive testing. In 1907, a prototype Ghost completed a 15,000-mile non-stop run, cementing its reputation.
• Quality – The craftsmanship and materials were unrivalled. The coachbuilding was done by external coachbuilders who created beautifully crafted luxurious bodies for the chassis.
• Performance – It was capable of speeds up to 65-70 mph, very fast for the time. The ample 40/50 horsepower engine provided great flexibility and torque at low speeds despite its silence.
• Luxury – The well-appointed interior housed the latest innovations like electric lighting. The ride quality from the sophisticated suspension system was unmatched. It appealed to royalty, aristocrats, and the super wealthy.

Who Designed It?

The main people involved in designing and engineering the Silver Ghost were:

• Henry Royce – Co-founder of Rolls-Royce. He was the engineering brains behind the car, involved in the meticulous design and testing of the chassis, engine, and other mechanical parts.
• Charles Rolls – Co-founder who contributed design ideas, marketing skills and had the vision to realise Royce’s engineering excellence could be turned into the ‘best car in the world’.
• Claude Johnson – Businessman and promoter who led Rolls-Royce in its early years. He was the key driver behind the Silver Ghost model and convinced Royce to go ahead with production.

The Specification

The Silver Ghost had the following key specifications:

• Engine – In-line 6 cylinder, 7668cc displacement, overhead inlet, and side exhaust valves. The rated output was 48 bhp at 1,250 rpm.
• Transmission – 4-speed manual gearbox, with direct drive 3rd, overdrive 4th. Rear wheel drive via the open driveshaft.
• Suspension – Front, half-elliptic leaf springs. Rear, 3/4 platform cantilever springs.
• Brakes – Rear wheel drum brakes only, operated by hand or foot lever.
• Chassis – Long tapered chassis made from pressed steel and wood supports. The wheelbase was 142 inches.
• Body – Made by external coachbuilders. Typically 5-7 seats. Limousine and Tourer bodies are common.
• Dimensions – Length 14 to 15 feet. Width 5 to 6 feet. Height around 6 feet. Weight between 3600 lbs and 2 tons.

The Engine

The Silver Ghost was powered by a six-cylinder, 7668cc engine designed from scratch by Henry Royce. Key aspects:

• Inlet-over-Exhaust – The inlet valves were positioned above the combustion chamber, the exhaust valves on the sides.
• Aluminium Cylinder Head – Gave excellent cooling.
• Detachable Head – The head could be unbolted for easy maintenance and repairs, unusual for the time.
• Pressurised Lubrication – Oil was pumped to critical components for reliable lubrication.
• Extensive Testing – The engine design benefited from rigorous testing and refinement. The patented crankshaft vibration damper ensured the reliability of a component that regularly snapped on rival six-cylindered cars.
• Flexible Power – Abundant torque, especially at low rpm, gave effortless acceleration.

The Interior

The Silver Ghost interior represented the pinnacle of luxury in the early 1900s. Key features included:

• Luxurious Upholstery – The finest leather and wood veneers adorned the interior. Coachbuilders lavished great attention on their creations.
• Comfortable Seating – Deep buttoned seats with generous padding and springs provide unrivalled comfort, even on long journeys.
• Electric Lights – Electric lighting was still a novelty at the time. The Silver Ghost made great use of it to provide illumination at night.
• Comprehensive Instruments – An array of gauges and dials monitored all aspects of the car’s operation. Reliability was paramount.
• Intricate Detailing – From engine-turned aluminium dash panels to embroidered upholstery, no detail was overlooked. Customers could specify their own options.
• Amenities – Later cars had wind-down windows, map pockets, mirrors, heaters, and other amenities to pamper occupants.
• Custom Coachwork – Custom coachbuilders created limousines, coupes, tourers, and more. The Silver Ghost chassis was the perfect canvas for their imagination and skills.

How Many Are Left?

As a car produced over 100 years ago, the number of Silver Ghosts remaining is diminishing as time takes its toll. However, over 200 examples are believed to still exist. Of these:

• Around 180 are in the hands of private owners and collectors. They are highly sought after at auction.
• 20 or more are still road registered and driven on occasion. Well-maintained examples can still be used.
• A number are in museums like the Louwman Museum in The Netherlands which has an excellent collection.
• Some are undergoing or awaiting restoration by specialists. The challenging task keeps craft skills alive.

Parts availability and the dedication of owners have kept more Silver Ghosts on the road than might be expected. Many will remain pristine museum exhibits and investments, reminding us of the pioneering early days of Rolls-Royce.

The Oldsmobile Model R, or “Curved Dash” was probably the world’s first mass-produced car, that is to say it was built out of standardised, interchangeable parts on an assembly line.

But what was a curved dash, and why did a fictitious story about a disastrous factory fire claim that only the Curved Dash design was chosen out of several prototypes?

Who made the Oldsmobile Curved Dash, and When?

The Oldsmobile Curved Dash was introduced in 1901 by the American automobile pioneer Ransom E. Olds. He was of English ancestry, his family coming from the county of Dorset in 1667.

Interestingly, Henry Ford’s family originated a few miles away in Closworth, Somerset, England (it must have been something in the water). Olds grew up building steam engines and founded his Olds Motor Vehicle Company in Michigan in 1897 (source: Wikipedia).

By early 1901 he had built no less than eleven prototypes, trying steam engines, electric motors and gasoline engines for propulsion.

Just as he was ready to select one prototype for production, a disastrous fire swept through the Olds factory in March, 1901. Panicking, the workers only managed to rescue one car from the flames, a little runabout they had christened the Curved Dash.

Ransom Olds always maintained that it was this fire that made him choose the small runabout.

However, an advertising campaign run before the fire had already resulted in three hundred orders for the Curved Dash Model R.

“Olds did not need the one rescued car from which to reconstruct the plans and patterns for the runabout.”

George S.May- biographer

Why tell a tall story like this? The answer must lie in the intensely competitive American market, where a good tale could get you precious newspaper column inches.

How Much Did the Oldsmobile Curved Dash Sell for?

The Oldsmobile Curved Dash sold for $650, which is around $20,000 in today’s dollars. The little runabout was versatile, reliable and no less than $200 dollars cheaper than its main rival, the Ford Model C.

The two-seater Ford Model C cost $850 and was known as the “Doctor’s Car”. The Oldsmobile managed to undercut the Ford by the high volume of cars built, and the efficient production on a stationary assembly line.

Just 300 Oldsmobile workers managed to build 19,000 cars between 1901 and 1907.

Only later did Henry Ford perfect the moving assembly line for automobiles. To read more about the Ford Model T click here.

Olds was a pushy salesman, as his factory fire story suggests, and at the second-ever New York Automobile Show in 1901 he pressed hard to make sales. When a dealer offered to buy 500 he responded

“I would like to see you make this order for a thousand cars. Then the public would drop its jaw and take notice.”

Ransom E. Olds

The dealer took the bait, signed an order for 1,000 cars and the deal hit the headlines. He only sold 750, but “a thousand cars” was the number everyone remembered.

The Oldsmobile Curved Dash had a single-cylinder 1564 cc (95-cubic-inch) gasoline engine of 4.5 horsepower, two forward speeds with reverse, and it could carry two people. It might have been low on power, but the curb weight was only 850 pounds.

In front of them was the board which gave the car its name. Steering was done by a tiller, not a steering wheel. The toboggan-like dashboard gave the model its enduring nickname, and the tiller gives the car a unique driving experience.

Contemporary roads were nothing more than muddy cart tracks studded with tyre-puncturing horseshoe nails. Dung from horses was dashed up and only some was intercepted by a board in front of the driver’s feet: the dashboard. In later years this dashboard was to be raised to chest height.

The dashboard on the Oldsmobile was, quite simply, curved in an attempt to deflect the worst of the filth. To cope with wind chill, the rain and the spray of dung, passengers and drivers still had to wear heavy car coats, hats, veils, goggles and gauntlets.

Despite the dashboard, drivers still became splattered with mud. When the factory test driver took the Curved Dash to the New York Automobile Show he decided to drive most of the way on the Eirie Canal towpath to avoid the filth on the New York state roads.

After no less than eight days of driving he arrived at the Waldorf Astoria hotel only to be turned away at the door because of his mud-bespattered clothing. He looked so dishevelled that he was directed to the servant’s entrance at the back of the building. (source: Wikipedia)

So the Dash may have been Curved, but it didn’t work very well.

How Much is an Oldsmobile Curved Dash worth today?

The average price of an Oldsmobile Curved Dash is around $37,000 (source: classic.com). To find out what a Ford Model T would cost today click here.

Where can I buy an Oldsmobile Curved Dash?

The auction sites are the best bet. Sotheby‘s has one for sale at the time of writing.

But what did she ask for?

“Ligroin”. This was heavy naptha, a distillate of petroleum oil used as a solvent, and it had been on the German market from around the 1860s.

It was rather different from the petrol you buy today. The classically educated British called it petroleum, which comes from the Latin: petra; rock, oleum; oil or literally rock-oil.

This was appropriate as petroleum was found under sedimentary rocks where countless bodies of zooplankton and algae had been subjected to enormous pressure and heat. It was fossilised fuel (and the energy was fossilised sunlight).

The first modern oil well wasn’t in Texas or Saudi Arabia, but at the Riddings colliery at Alfreton, Derbyshire. In 1847 a chemist, James “Paraffin” Young noticed a seepage of oil and managed to distil from it a light oil that he could use in lamps instead of expensive whale oil.

His patented discovery probably saved whales from total extinction. Different fractions of the distilled product were useful for different things: paraffin for lamps and the more volatile petrol as a solvent or fuel.  

The Americans called the fuel gasoline, or confusingly “gas” for short, a name which comes from the British coffee merchant and Temperance publisher John Cassell. Seeing new opportunities for artificial light, in 1862 he set up an oil refinery in Hanwell, London and marketed his new lamp fuel under his own name:

“The Patent Cazeline Oil, safe, economical, and brilliant … possesses all the requisites which have so long been desired as a means of powerful artificial light.”

The Times, 27 November 1862

Sales boomed, then fell away in Ireland. Cassell found out that a Dublin shopkeeper, one Samuel Boyd, was selling counterfeit Cazeline Oil and asked him to stop. The shopkeeper responded with a paintbrush, changing every label to read “Gazeline”, coining a word that eventually spread throughout the USA. Cassell took him to court and won, but Boyd’s coinage won in the end: “gasoline”.

So the Americans called the fuel gasoline, or confusingly “gas” for short.

Karl Benz knew that his engine had a limit, and that limit was called detonation. Combustion in petrol engine is initiated by the sparking plug at a specific point in the piston’s travel; between 0 to 40 crankshaft degrees before the piston comes to the top of its stroke (Top Dead Centre).

The flame front should spread smoothly, burning all the fuel/air mixture just in time to push the piston back down the cylinder. But when pockets of fuel/air mixture explode early detonation occurs. The shockwave causes the characteristic knocking or pinging sound as combustion pressures rise sharply.

The results can be disastrous: first overheating and then the erosion of holes in the piston or cylinder head. Old-time engineers could detect the onset of detonation by holding a short piece of steel between their teeth and resting the other end on the cylinder head of an engine running at full throttle.

That’s why they didn’t have many teeth.

When used in Benz’s engine ordinary chemist’s shop petroleum worked well enough until the engine’s compression ratio was increased beyond around 3.2:1. This ratio is a measure of how tightly the fuel and air mixture is squeezed in the cylinder.

More accurately it is the ratio between the volume of the cylinder plus the combustion chamber when the piston is at the bottom of its stroke, and the volume of the combustion chamber when the piston is at the top of its stroke.

If Benz’s one-litre (actually 954cc) cylinder drew in a deep breath of one litre of air/fuel mixture it could safely compress it to only a third of the volume. Any higher ratio and detonation would set in.

Modern car engines use a compression ratio of around 10:1 because there are huge gains in power and thermal efficiency to be had.

The Rolls Royce Silver Ghost made around 48 horsepower from over 7 litres, a pitiful 6.8 hp per litre, whereas a modern General Motors LS 7 litre engine of the same capacity, with an 11:1 compression ratio, makes 505 horsepower.

That’s 72 hp per litre, or more than ten times as much. A lot of the difference has to do with the advances in fuel because they enabled higher compressions to be used.

Fuel quality was therefore of vital importance to the motor industry once it was known how much more power could be had.  How could they improve the fuel? Petrol’s resistance to detonation is measured in octane number: the higher the octane number the more compression the fuel can withstand before detonating.

Benz Patent-Motorwagen would have been running on Ligroin of about 40 octane, and during the First World War, aircraft engines would have used petrol of around 50 octane. But petrol bought in a supermarket petrol station today might have an octane rating of 95 or so. 

And if the octane number is increased from 72 to 100, the power is likely to increase by 100 per cent.

Low-octane fuel nearly brought disaster to the Allies during the First World War. Before the American entry into the war, their European Allies used petrol distilled from crude oils from the Far East which gave acceptable performance in their aircraft engines.

When the United States entered the war in April 1917 the U.S. became responsible for supplying petrol to the Allies and suddenly a decrease in engine performance was noticed. Engines gummed up and sparking plugs fouled. If full throttle was used detonation set in and a number of aircraft were lost.

Panicked messages were sent across the Atlantic and it was found that petroleum from aromatic and naphthenic base crude oils was superior. These came from California, South Texas, the Mexican Gulf and Venezuela.

Exotic fuels were cooked up for the Schneider Trophy Rolls-Royce R engines by Rodney Banks, a British fuel chemist working for the Anglo-American Oil Company. The winning engine of 1929 ran on 78% benzol, and 22 % Romanian petrol with a dash of tetraethyl lead, and it developed 1900 hp with high supercharger pressures.

In 1931, when the Trophy was won for perpetuity, the fuel chemists concocted a brew for a world speed record attempt consisting of 60% methanol, 30 % benzol and 10 % acetone, and the Rolls-Royce testers were able to screw up the supercharger pressure to make a staggering 2530 hp.

These exotic brews were impracticable for military use, being expensive and unstable. Petroleum had to be made with a higher octane rating, and this is where Thomas Midgley Jr. comes into our story. 

Midgley was an American engineer working for General Motors whose assistants T.A. Boyd and Carroll A. Hochwalt undertook the first tests of tetra-ethyl lead (TEL) in 1921. They discovered that adding tetra-ethyl lead (TEL) to petrol prevented, or at least delayed the onset of detonation or knocking in engines.

His team had an engine on the test rig running under detonating conditions when suddenly

“The ear-splitting knock of their test engine turned to a smooth purr when only a small amount of the compound was added to the fuel supply. and all the men danced a non-scientific jig around the laboratory.” 

Thomas Midgley Jr.quoted in Nickerson, Stanton P., “Tetraethyl Lead: A Product of American Research,”

Midgley took the credit, writing to his old professor:

“We have recently discovered a new antiknock material approximately 50 times as powerful as aniline and which proves to be 100 % practical and commercial. In fact, our wildest dreams of success on this problem are exceeded by this new material. ‘Allah is good.’”

Letter, T. Midgley to Prof. H. Diederichs. Dec. 14, 1921. T

The TEL certainly increased the octane number. The problem was this compound was highly poisonous and they knew it. Indeed, it had killed several German scientists who had experimented with the stuff. (source: jalopnik)

All mention of lead was omitted from publicity materials, but Midgley became ill from lead poisoning. He had to drop all his work in 1923 and take a long vacation in Miami.

General Motors created the Ethyl Corporation and built a plant in New Jersey to mass produce the stuff. Workers suffered hallucinations, insanity and five deaths.

To prove his compound was safe Midgley participated in a press conference in 1924 at which he poured TEL over his hands, placed a bottle of the chemical under his nose, and inhaled its vapour for 60 seconds, declaring that he could do this every day without succumbing to any problems.

Shortly afterwards he had to take an absence from work again after being diagnosed with lead poisoning. The State of New Jersey ordered the plant to be closed a few days later.

Still, the profit motive prevailed and what little regulation there was in the US was ineffective. TEL was manufactured and spread worldwide as a constituent of high-octane petrol, releasing large amounts of lead into the atmosphere and causing countless cases of brain damage, particularly among children.

Not content with that, Midgley was on the General Motors team that invented Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) for air conditioners and refrigerators under the name of Freon, which was later implicated in the destruction of the ozone layer of the atmosphere.

Once again Midgley flamboyantly demonstrated the safety of his lethal brew, this time in front of the American Chemical Society, by inhaling a breath of the gas and using it to extinguish a candle.

Midgley was highly decorated for his work before it was discovered to be so diabolical, and he was duly elected the president and chairman- of the American Chemical society.

Midgley has been described as the single organism that has had the most negative impact on the world’s atmosphere, ever, and Bill Bryson wrote in 2003 that he possessed “an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny.” 

Environmental protests prevailed and after lead in petrol was banned a 2011 study by the California State University found that

“ridding the world of leaded petrol … has resulted in $2.4 trillion in annual benefits, 1.2 million fewer premature deaths, higher overall intelligence and 58 million fewer crimes”.

California State University

Once again, thanks to scientists and experts who spotted the ozone hole caused by CFCs, another Midgley menace was eradicated. In 2007, 200 countries agreed to eliminate hydrochlorofluorocarbons entirely by 2020.

Synthetic fuel might become important in the future, and might delay the extinction of the piston engine. Porsche, like all other conventional car manufacturers, has a huge vested interest in the piston engine.

The company is planning to produce their own synthetic fuel in Chile on an industrial scale, using wind power to make the stuff. Porsche’s boss Frank Walliser explained:

“The general idea behind these synthetic fuels is that there is no change to the engine necessary….It has no impact on performance – some horses more, so it’s going in the right direction – but emissions are way better; we see less particles, less NOx…In a well-to-wheel consideration, it is on the same level as an electric car.”

Frank Walliser, Porsche

A piston engine on the same level as an electric car? That’s quite a claim, and it may take a few years to work out the true costs.

The question remains: where now for gasoline-powered vehicles?

Henry Ford perfected mass-production with the assembly of his 1908 Model T. As his technique got better, prices of the car plummeted.

When announced in 1908 the price of the Model T Ford was $825, or $26,211 today (£21,284). Within five years the Model T’s price had halved. By 1920 it had halved again. Then by 1925 the price was down to $260 ($8,260 today).

How did Henry Ford do it? And what did a Chicago abbatoir have to do with it? Read on for more…

The price of the Model T Ford back then has been adjusted for inflation. The dollar has had an average inflation rate of 3.08% per year between 1908 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 3,077.13%.

That means that today’s prices are 32 times higher than average prices since 1908, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index. A dollar today only buys 3% of what it could buy back then (source: In 2013 Dollars).

So the U.S. dollar has lost 97% of its value since 1908!

The price of new motor cars in 1908 plummeted like today’s electronic goods. The price fell steadily during the car’s life. And Henry Ford’s secret was this: he mastered the art of mass production.

Early cars had been made by hand by craftsmen used to selecting and adjusting parts to make a perfect fit. This fettling took a lot of time. But Ford had always wanted to increase the productivity of his factories.

To build the Model N, his previous car, he had the constituent parts placed in a row on the factory floor and the skeleton car dragged along the row on skids and slowly assembled.

Similarly, at first the Model T chassis was loaded onto a three-wheeled dolly and wheeled along the line as it was built.

Ford thought he could do better than that. While studying the dismemberment of animal carcasses on moving conveyor belts in a Chicago slaughterhouse, it struck him that he was trying to do much the same thing, but in reverse.

The meat canning industry also used continuous processing. So did the breweries and bakeries.

So Henry Ford broke down the assembly of the Model T into 84 discrete steps and trained each worker to perform just one action. He hired a time-and-motion expert to study every process and to refine it.

In 1913 he added his first moving assembly line: the fitting of magnets into flywheels. By 1914 assembly lines building complete cars were travelling at six feet a minute. This reduced the time to build one Model T from 12 hours to one hour 33 minutes and enabled the price to be cut in half to $440. Ford had brought the work to the workers.

However, the workers didn’t like it. Ford noticed that his men were leaving to join his competitors, and staff turnover rose 400%. They complained that they now found the work boring as they were performing one repeated task, over and over again instead of building a whole vehicle.

Also, they loathed the strict discipline of the moving assembly line, where if you missed a task you found yourself struggling to complete it while barging into the next group of workers. Cars ended up missing vital parts, and men went home exhausted.

Charlie Chaplin satirised the dehumanising nature of the assembly line in his film, Modern Times. Distracted by a fly buzzing around his face, he struggles to keep up with the moving line, crashes into his fellow workers and causes chaos.

Cars have never been so cheap since. Added complications such as front brakes, electric starters, batteries, airbags, anti-lock braking, safety belts, heating etc have all increased costs.

So today the cheapest car you can buy in the States today is the Chevrolet Spark at $14,595, about twice the price of the 1925 Model T Ford, adjusted for inflation (source: Car and Driver).

Did you know?…

…that there was once an American car on sale for just $125, or $1930 today? Read about the Smith Flyer here

One of the cleverest parts of the Model T Ford was its transmission, but its design and operation has long been a mystery to enthusiasts and the public alike.

Fans of the car might know that you changed gear by pressing pedals. But where was the throttle pedal? Any why were there only two gears? If you’ve ever been puzzled by the Tin Lizzie’s transmission, read on…

The least satisfactory aspect of early cars was the sliding-pinion crash gearbox (transmission), which originated from the back gearing of lathes. To change into another gear the driver had to disengage the clutch, de-select the current pair of gears and slide another pair of spinning gears into engagement with each other, with horrific grinding, screeching noises.

“C’est brutal, mais il marche” or:

“it’s brutal, but it works.”

René Panhard, speaking about his crash gearbox of 1891

And so early cars were hard to drive because of this difficulty of changing gears with the old crash gearbox. You had to learn skills such as double declutching, and have a lot of mechanical sympathy. Many new owners point blank refused to drive the car, hiring a driver, or staggered around in top gear as much as they could.

Acknowledging everyone’s dissatisfaction with the crash gearbox, Henry Ford looked around for something easier to operate.

Realising that on the Great Plains of the United States there might be no-one within a hundred miles to show you how to drive the thing, Henry Ford used an epicyclic gearbox in his previous Model A, and he would again in the Model T.

By simply pushing down a pedal the car would go forward slowly. Letting the pedal up again would make it change into high gear, going forwards faster. Pressing another pedal would make it stop. Pushing another would make it go backwards. This all seemed more natural to horse riders: Henry Ford’s first customers.

The Model T gearbox resembled the inside of a giant pocket watch. Epicyclic, or planetary gears run together in constant mesh with other gears which are attached to brake drums. These planet gears drive a sun gear called a Driven gear.

By braking or releasing the brake drums with the pedals you can make the planetary gears run on different sized gears, making them drive the Driven gear at Slow speed or Reverse. Locking the whole lot together with a clutch gives you High speed. It sounds simple, doesn’t it…

Despite Henry Ford’s claims, he hadn’t invented the epicyclic gearbox: that was the Ancient Greeks in about 500 BCE. The Antikythera Mechanism was a sort of clockwork pocket astronomical calculator which employed epicyclic gearing which imitated the Moon’s progress around the Earth. But Ford probably never knew – or cared – that what he found had been invented by the Ancient Greeks.

History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s dam is the history we make today.

Henry Ford, in an interview with reporter Charles N. Wheeler for the Chicago Tribune, 1916

The British inventer and car maker Walter Wilson had used an epicyclic gearbox in his Wilson-Pilcher cars of 1901, realising that large torques could be controlled with small input forces (source wikipedia).

The epicyclic gearbox was not particularly new in the US, either, the 1901 Oldsmobile Curved Dash had a similar gearbox.

What Kind of Transmission did a Model T Ford Have?

The Model T Ford had an epicyclic transmission or gearbox. The two forward speeds of the Model T (there were only two), and the single reverse were engaged by pressing pedals that stuck out of the floor.

These applied wood or cotton-faced friction brake bands to the gear sets, locking one or other of the gears, and therefore providing a low ratio or a reverse.

How Does the Model T Ford Transmission Work?

An animation is worth a thousand words. See wikipedia.

The Model T Ford transmission works like this: the engine flywheel drives (or rotates) three planetary gears mounted on it. Each of these three planetary gears has three rings of different gears on it. The front one is meshed with (or geared to) a driven sun gear. This drives the Brake drum and also the rear wheels (see modeltcentral.com).

The other two rings of gears on the planetary gears are meshed with either the Slow Speed drum’s gear, or the Reverse drum’s gear. When the clutch is engaged, the whole lot revolves together and you get High Speed.

You can select Slow Speed gear, High Speed or Reverse Gear. These are selected by the drums being locked in place by brake bands, which are clamped onto the drums by pushing the floor pedals.

These force the planetary gears to roll round either the Slow speed gear or the Reverse gear. The planetary gears then revolve the Driven gear which rotates the rear wheels and makes the car move along (see below)

You can easily adjust the brake bands by removing the floorboards and screwing the appropriate nut along its adjusting stud (source youtube.com ).

Pushing the left pedal engages Slow Speed and disengages the clutch. Lifting the left pedal engages the clutch, which locks the whole gear train, which gives you High Speed.

Remember this is not an automatic transmission, it is at best semi-automatic as you still have to select the correct ratio by using the pedals. At the rear of the transmission is the Brake drum, which when clamped by the Brake band slows down or brakes the rear wheels only.

How Do You Shift Gears on a Ford Model T, Then?

When you climb into a Model T Ford you will find three pedals on the floor. These are for the clutch, brake, and gas, right?

Wrong!

None of these is the gas/throttle. From the left, first you find the gear pedal. Pushed and held all the way down it selects first gear. Neutral is halfway up, and all the way up is top gear. Remember the Model T only had two speeds forward and one reverse.

The middle pedal was for reverse, and the right pedal was the brake. The gas, throttle, or accelerator was a lever to the right of the steering wheel, just like a tractor. The lever to the left of the column was the spark advance/retard.

Once you get the engine running by swinging the starting handle at the front you jump behind the wheel and in your left hand grasp the brake lever which has been pulled back to safely hold the car and also put the transmission in neutral.

Place your left foot lightly on the left pedal, keeping it in neutral, your other foot on the right brake pedal to hold it stopped. Then pull down on the right-hand throttle lever on the steering column gently to increase the engine to a fast idle.

Then release the emergency brake lever on your left and press the left pedal firmly to the floor – no gentle slipping, as this will burn out the Slow Speed band. The car will now start to move forwards.

Now you can pull the throttle/gas/accelerator lever down to increase the speed. As your road speed increases you can let the left pedal all the way up. This engages the clutch and shifts the transmission to its top gear, or high gear. You then adjust the throttle lever to the road speed you want.

Now you are driving, the Model T Ford feels like a go-cart on stilts.

This all takes time to learn, but probably less time than learning to ride a horse. (source curbside.tv).

Did the Model T Ford Have a Clutch?

The Model T Ford has a clutch, but not the single disc dry clutch found in most manual gearbox cars. It is a multi-disc clutch running in engine oil. There are no less than twenty-five clutch plates!

Today’s automatic gearboxes still have epicyclic gearsets, brake bands and multi-plate clutchs running in oil, so Henry Ford was certainly following the right lines.

What was the Warford Transmission?

For those who found the Model T’s two speeds too limiting for hill climbing and fast road cruising there was the option of fitting an auxilliary extra transmission behind the standard transmission . The Warford Underdrive gearbox was patented in November 1911, not long after the car was introduced by Ford. It provided two gears, or ratios.

The Warford was offered to the Model T Ford owner as an auxilliary transmission for improved load hauling and hill climbing. It mounted straight on to the back of the Model T transmission, with the tailshaft cup and uni-joint fitting into the rear of the Warford. It was necessary to shorten the car’s tailshaft and rear radius rods as well, so it was a serious bit of surgery.

The idea was to order the car with the higher 3:1 ratio final drive. The car could then cruise with lower engine revs or higher road speeds than the standard low ratio differential. When a moderate hill was encountered the driver could remain in High gear and shift into the Warford Underdrive, giving a slightly lower ratio.

If a steep hill was encountered the driver could first shift into Low gear, then use the Warford Underdrive to provide an even lower ratio to defeat the steepest hill when carrying the heaviest load (source modelTcentral.com).

The early manual gearbox Range Rovers had the option of a Fairey Overdrive which did much the same thing as the Warford Underdrive Gearbox but provided an overdrive instead of underdrive.

It reduced the engine revs at high speeds or enabled the old Range Rover to exceed 100 mph. I had one of these with a 6.5 litre GM diesel V8 fitted, but the monstrous torque blew the Fairey Overdrive apart, not once but twice.

Did you know…?

Henry Ford’s cost scrimping was legendary. The company manufacturing the transmission gears for Ford was given careful specifications for the wooden boxes that the gears were to be shipped in. When a manager from the company visited the Ford plant he found out why.

The workers were cutting up the empty wooden shipping crates and using them to make the floorboards in the Model T. So if your car’s floorboads are original they were once the containers that the transmission gears came in.

Contrary to common belief, Model T Fords did not only come in black, in fact the first cars came in blue, gray, green, and red, but not black. Only from the years 1914 to 1925 were Model T Fords only available in black.

One of the most persistent car myths is that Henry Ford decreed that his customers for the Model T could have any colour they liked as long as it was black. So did Henry Ford really say this, and was it true? Well, sort of. And sort of…

Henry Ford did not actually utter those exact words. In his autobiography he wrote:

“Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants, so long as it is black.”

Henry Ford, My Life and Work (1922)

And so like many famous quotes it sounds good but isn’t actually what was said. Somebody somewhere “improved” Ford’s quote and in so doing made it memorable. It has become part of the legend of this legendary car: the obsessive pursuit of the mass production of an identical product. And it worked: by 1918 half the cars on the roads of the USA were Model T Fords.

Those early Model Ts were sold in almost any color… except for black. Red, gray, green, and blue were all available, but not black. The first black Model T didn’t roll off the assembly line until 1913.

So why did the boss decide to sell only black cars? Here’s why: it was more efficient that way. Henry Ford explained the philosophy behind his car:

“I will build a motor car for the great multitude…constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise…so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one-and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God’s great open spaces.”

Henry Ford, 6/6/13 Ford Times.

Henry Ford relentlessly drove the price of the Model T down. When announced in 1908 the price of the Model T Ford was $825, or $26,211 today (£21,284). Within five years the Model T’s price had halved. By 1920 it had halved again. Then by 1925 the price was down to $260 ($8,260 today). (see our article:)

The main reason for painting all the Model Ts in black from 1914 was simple: economy of scale. It was cheaper that way. There was nothing particularly special about the colour; black didn’t dry any quicker, nor was it easier to apply.

If there was a technical reason I suspect it was that you can use very slightly less black paint to cover a panel: anyone who has ever spray painted a car knows that white paint, for example will often need another coat to hide imperfections.

There was another reason. The First World War caused disruption of the chemical industry in the US, so sourcing different coloured dyes became more difficult.

And it is interesting to note that during the life of the Model T the Ford Motor Company used no less than 30 types of black paint to coat different parts of the car (source McCalley, Model T Ford: The Car That Changed the World.) Multiplying that number by a dozen colour varieties would have cost money.

It is true that for around ten years of production, from 1914 to 1925 the Model T was only available in black. But for the last two years of the car’s life, with falling sales, six new colours were offered, including Royal Maroon, Phoenix Brown and Highland Green (source woot.com)

Why Were All Early Model T Fords Black?

Early Model T Fords, from 1908 to 1914 were available several colours: blue, gray, green, and red, but not black.

From 1914 to 1925, halfway through the production run the Model T was only available in black.

Then for roughly the last two years of production, from 1925 to 1927 the Model T was available in six new colours including brown, maroon and green.

So, although Henry Ford did order that all his Model T’s should be black this didn’t happen until the seventh year of production. The claim that all Model Ts were black is fake history.

Why Did Henry Ford Choose Black for the Model T Ford?

The Ford Motor Company explains on its website that “the policy was in place solely for efficiency and uniformity. The car was only offered in black from 1914-1925, however before and after that various models of the vehicle could be purchased in a variety of colors including blue, red, grey, and green.” (source: corporate.ford.com)

A fuller quote is here and might remind readers of another revolutionary car maker, Elon Musk:

‘In 1909 I announced one morning, without any previous warning, that in the future we were going to build only one model, that the model was going to be the Model T, and that the chassis would be exactly the same for all cars, and I remarked  “Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black.” I cannot say that any one agreed with me. The selling people could not of course see the advantages that a single model would bring about in production. More than that, they did not particularly care.’

Henry Ford, My Life and Work 1922

To summarise, black was chosen because it was cheaper to produce cars in just one colour. Black paint also covers panels more efficiently than other colours. So less paint needed to be bought.

Were All Subsequent Model T Fords Black, or Different Colours?

In the last two years of production, from 1925 to 1927 the Model T was available in black and also in six new colours including brown, maroon and green.

The Decauville company was well known for making light railways, but had diversified into making the new Motor Car. This had been invented by Karl Benz in 1888, and popularised by his wife Bertha Benz on her famous road trip of that year.

The Decauville Voiturelle

Decauville’s first Voiturelle was well received on the French market in 1898. The little car had a tiny single cylinder engine under the seat, and this motor was made by De Dion-Bouton, a partner French car manufacturer that Decauville had made 3,000 tricycle chassis for.

It had no roof, just a padded seat perched on top of a four wheel chassis. There was room for three occupants, it weighed just 425 lbs (192 kgs) and sold for 3,500 francs- about $17,000 today (source: wikipedia).

The Voiturelle had a kind of sliding-pillar independent front suspension – quite possibly the first in motor car history – but no suspension in the rear! And it was steered by a tiller, not a wheel. But this little car was a good beginning.

Then a new twin-cylinder 5hp Decauville was released towards the end of 1899, propelling the Decauville into a whole different market. It was designed by Decauville’s Ravenez and Cornilleau. Soon the engine power was increased to 10hp.

The Racing Decauville

The engine in the new car was now mounted at the front instead of under the seat, and was water-cooled instead of air-cooled. The two-cylinder engine of 765cc, with a bore of 80 and a stroke of 76mm drove the rear wheels through a Bozier gearbox with only two forward speeds and one reverse. And a wheel was fiited for steering instead of the tiller.

Now there was suspension at the rear, with semi-elliptic fore and aft leaf springs together with a transverse semi-elliptic spring, suspending the previous Voiturelle’s rear axle. And at the front, like the previous Voiturelle model there was a transverse leaf spring and sliding pillars.

The chassis was made of tubes and the rear axle design of the earlier Voiturelle was adopted. But the body looked different, with a round bonnet and a radiator on the dashboard! That must have helped with cold fingers.

It weighed twice as much as the earlier car, 992 lbs (450 kilos) and cost nearly double at 6,500 francs ($31,000 today). But it was a much better car, as racing events would soon go to show.

Decauville won first in class in the Paris to Amsterdam Race of 1898 over 969 miles, then an amazing 1-2-3 result in the Tour de France in 1899 over a demanding 1,450 miles, and first place in the Coupe des Voiturelles in the Paris-Rouen-Paris event in 1900. Decauville also took the Daily Mail prize in the 1900 English Thousand Miles Trial.

Careful design and precision engineering had paid off. Briefly, Decauville were considered the best car on the market (source: bonhams.com).

The Decauville gets an admirer…

Meanwhile, in England, Henry Royce was the rather shy engineer owner of Royce Ltd, a Manchester-based engineering company making dynamos and electrical gear.

The end of the Boer War had caused an economic downturn, and cheaper foreign-made dynamos appeared on the market using Royce patented designs without paying him any royalties. Sounds familiar today?

So Royce either had to make his own products more cheaply or diversify by making a new product. As a perfectionist, the first course would have been anathema to him, and at around the turn of the century, he saw clearly that the new Motor Car was the next big thing. And it would be ideal for his business: precision engineering.

Royce first bought a De Dion-Bouton car to examine and then looked for another make. The Continent was in the forefront of car manufacturing at that early stage, the French in particular.

So then, the story goes, Henry Royce bought a 1902 Decauville with a 10 hp two-cylindered engine. This was the model that had been so successful in races and reliability trials. But Royce thought the engine vibrated too much and this offended his perfectionist instincts.

He was dissatisfied with other aspects of the Decauville, so in typical Henry Royce fashion he dismantled it, inspected the parts, made improvements and then built his own motor car.

An aristocratic car salesman, the Honourable Charles Rolls was on the lookout for an engineering company that could build him a new make of British car. When Mr. Rolls met Mr. Royce in Manchester both men found the man they had been looking for.

Rolls had been hunting for a British-built replacement for the French-built cars he had been selling to his wealthy acquaintances, and Royce needed a buyer with connections to the rich and famous for his perfectly-made but expensive machines.

Rolls deplored the lack of quality British car manufacturers and was on the look-out for a suitable car. What he found at Royce’s was a revelation. Although he disliked two-cylindered engines and had been looking for a three-or-four-cylindered car the smooth running of the two-cylindered Royce convinced him that here was a machine he could sell under his own name.  

So goes the Rolls-Royce legend.

But if the Decauville was so bad why was there so much of the French car in the genes of the Royce car? The radiator looked so similar that when Charles Rolls saw the car for the first time he thought it was a product of the French factory. The rest of it looked much the same.

So was the Decauville the second-best car in the world?

Henry Royce’s approach had always been to “take the best and make it better”, which later became the central Rolls-Royce mantra. And so he had set about doing exactly that: copying what worked on the Decauville, improving what didn’t.

As Royce once said himself, inventors and pioneers rarely make any money, only those who take their ideas and make them work.

He was a modest man, who always described himself as a mechanic. But where another car maker would use just a rivet, Royce would use a tapered bolt and nut.

“In 1904 he had produced the first Royce car: this was before he met the late Hon. C.S. Rolls,” wrote his friend Frank Lord “The car was a 10 hp. two-cylinder, and was a revelation for its date, having properly lubricated joints to the drive shaft [instead of chains].

As he could not buy a satisfactory coil for the ignition, he designed one, fitting very large points of the purest platinum, which, although expensive in the first place, never seemed to want adjusting or cleaning. The coil itself was as nearly perfect as possible, thus from the very first making the car reliable in a part in which, with most cars, there was endless trouble.”

Frank Lord Henry Royce obituary, Autocar May 1933

When the two friends took the car out for an ambitious run in Wales, the famous Royce reliability shone through:

“During the whole three days’ trial we never had a stop of any sort from any fault of the car, a pretty good performance for a car designed by a man who had never designed one before; yet only what you could expect from one designed by Mr. Royce.”

Frank Lord op cit

Decauville – the legacy

On a personal note, my old school friend Trevor Ellis owns a Decauville Reg no. FP4 which was the first car registered in the county of Rutland with FPs1,2 and 3 being allocated to motorcycles for the post office. In 2022 it completed the London to Brighton Run and was awarded President’s choice at the Concours D’Elegance at St James Palace on Saturday prior to the run.

Rolls-Royce cars, built with Henry Royce’s painstaking precision soon became known as “The Best Car in the World”, but few knew or cared how much a little French car had contributed to their success.

The parent company stopped making cars in 1909, and so the Decauville disappeared into history.

But the little French car had inspired one of the most important collaborations in the history of the motor industry: Rolls. And Royce.