Ford was not the first to come up with a "horseless carriage," but he would play a huge role in America's love affair with the automobile.

It took him three tries to establish a company to manufacture his automobiles; the Ford Motor Co. finally set down permanent roots in 1903.

Manufacturing an automobile in those days was a slow and tedious process. Groups of two or three men worked on each car from start to finish, putting together components that were mostly made to order elsewhere. Cars were largely considered toys of the rich and famous and were often built on-demand, as orders were received.

But Ford wanted to change all that. "I will build a car for the great multitude," he said. "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 that modern engineering can devise. But it will be 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."

Ford continued to change and upgrade his automobiles, beginning with the Model A and moving on through the alphabet. Not every letter got a finished car, but there were B, C and F models. The six-cylinder K proved to be a failure, but N, R and S cars did well.

But it would be in the Model T that Ford's ideas all came together.

The idea for the assembly line may have come from the "dis-assembly" lines of a meat-packing plant that one of Ford's colleague's visited. But Ford made the idea his own. He put cars on a conveyor belt, having each person do the same task over and over. Cars could come off the line all the same, said Ford, "just like one pin is like another pin when it comes from the pin factory."

It worked. The first Model T's cost $850, but as the process got more efficient, the quantities went up and the price came down. In 1908, the Ford plant turned out slightly more than 10,000 cars. In 1916, more than 73,000 came off the assembly line. In 1916 people could buy a Model T for $360 — and people did.

The Model T was driven by factory workers and presidents, by ditch-diggers and bank owners. Henry Ford delivered on his promise, and America would never be the same.

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