On This Day

Friday 10th December 1915

104 years ago

The 1,000,000th Model T Ford was produced. No one paid much attention to the 1 million milestone. “With twenty-five assembly plants …and with a big factory in Detroit assembling so many Ford cars a day,” said The Ford Times, “we passed the million mark without knowing it.” The 10 millionth Ford, on the other hand, traveled back and forth from New York to San Francisco and from Los Angeles to Chicago in the summer of 1924, inspiring raucous celebrations everywhere it went. The company even made a movie of this goodwill tour, called “Fording the Lincoln Highway.” Along with the 15 millionth Ford in 1927 came another milestone: the company’s announcement that it was discontinuing its classic but no-longer–beloved Model T. Compared to that news, the release of the 20 millionth Ford was fairly dull: emblazoned with the words “TWENTY MILLIONTH” and the Ford logo on both sides and the top, that car went on a national barnstorming tour in 1931, then directly to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.