The Flivver King: A Story of Ford-America

Now that Abner has a stable and promising job, he and Milly marry and take their honeymoon, “the first and last holiday of their lives” (27), at Niagara Falls. Within a year, Milly gives birth to a boy, John Crock, who turns out to be the first of six children. Four of the children (three boys and one girl) survive. The youngest is called Tom, after Abner’s father.

Meanwhile, Ford pursues his dream of producing and selling millions of cars. During its first year, the Ford Motor Company earns $1.5 million, “nearly one-fourth of which was profit” (29). For the rest of his life, Ford has plenty of money to pursue his plans.

The first car, the Model A, sells for $850. Ford’s plan is to reduce the price in order to sell more cars at a more democratic price the following year. However, his associates insist on following a different business model: they prefer to change the style slightly each year to appeal to the rich and fashionable, and to charge a higher price. The next year, the Model A is discontinued and replaced by the Model C, Model F, and Model B, which range in price from $900-$2000. Over the next three years, sales decline, and Ford and his stockholders disagree about whether the problem is that the prices are too high (Ford’s hypothesis) or that the company has not made any new models (the stockholders’ theory). Ford and the stockholders reach an impasse.

Ford saves his share of the dividends and begins to buy out those stockholders who disagree with him about the business model. Once Ford achieves outright control, the company produces only inexpensive models, and in 1906 it sells over five times as many cars as it did in 1905.

As Ford implements the new production model and more cars are made, Abner finds that he has time only for one of his tasks: screwing in the spindle-nuts on the wheels. One day he approaches Ford, who has become “a heavily burdened man [...] if you happened to cross him, or to disturb his mind at an unpropitious moment, he might fall into a violent rage” (32), to suggest changes that could increase efficiency.

Abner says that the right and left spindle-nuts should come to him sorted, rather than mixed up together, in order to prevent mistakes. Similarly, instead of going to the shed to retrieve the wheels, Abner feels they should be brought to him: without the interruption, he could work faster. Abner also asks Ford for a promotion: at the rate the company is growing, Ford will need a whole department for assembling wheels, and Abner would like to be made foreman of that department. Soon Abner becomes foreman, supervising four other men, and earns $2.75 a day.