the $2,500 car?!

The title of Ralph Kinney Bennett's piece in The American on what may be the newest thing in cars (at least, world-wide)...

The automotive world is abuzz about what might be the next Model T Ford or Volkswagen Beetle—an entry-level sedan to be built in India by Tata Motors Ltd. for about $2,500.

That would be about half the cost of the low­est-priced car now available in India—the bare-bones Maruti 800, which is essentially unchanged from its introduction in 1983. If Tata pulls this off, it would be one of the cheapest cars ever built, and it could have a huge impact not only on India’s growing car market but also all over the semideveloped world....

Many have said Tata’s goal is impossible. The so-called “One Lakh” (equaling 100,000 rupees) car is a four-door compact sedan with a small luggage compartment under the front hood and a rear engine producing 33 horsepower. It will be a base model by all means, but it will not be one of those go-kart or jitney-like vehicles so com­mon throughout India and Southeast Asia....

But that’s not the point. If Tata comes near its objective it will mark a huge achievement. And rival auto companies, while skeptical of the One Lakh, are already moving to counter it. Renault-Nissan is reportedly working with an Indian maker on a car with a price point somewhere between $2,500 and $3,000. Volkswagen sub­sidiary Skoda, South Korea’s Hyundai, and even mighty Toyota are also looking with renewed interest at the “bottom of the pyramid” in the Indian market....

Those who say these cars might not be as safe as “Western” cars need to spend a little time in the Third World and see five people (yes, five people) riding on a single motorbike or on some of the other two- and three-wheel get-ups that people use....

...even a little $2,500 four-door can be a dream machine, a freedom machine.


And then, looking back to the time when the Model T was introduced...

By 1900, auto­mobiles had been long established in Europe, particularly France, which was not only the fount of automotive technology but also the lead­ing automobile producer in the world. But the industry was quickly glutting its market, which was pretty much confined to the wealthy or near wealthy.

The idea that these newfangled (and expen­sive) motorcars were only “toys for the rich” had spread to the United States as well, but the notion withered quickly before a new reality. America was a nation of people with rising incomes and a people spread out over great distances. They were hungry for a way of getting around that was faster and less troublesome than the horse and more articulate than the railroad car....

The first truly popular car—at a price ($650) that brought it within the cost of a horse and buggy—had been introduced. The legendary Curved Dash Oldsmobile, with its distinctive toboggan-shaped front end, looked like little more than a two-seat carriage without the horses. But with the 1-cylinder, 4-horsepower engine beneath its seat, tiller steering, and 28-inch buggy wheels, the Olds was amazingly easy to drive and proved to be nimble even on the horrible American roads.

People were mad for it and made it the first mass-produced car. Ransom E. Olds sold as many as 5,000 a year before the car went out of production in 1907. Its reliability and charm were not enough. Automobiles had swiftly surpassed it in power, appointments, and appearance. People no longer wanted “gas buggies.” The clas­sic auto form, enduring to this day, of the engine mounted forward between the front wheels, its power transmitted to the rear axle by the drive shaft under the passenger compartment—a configuration introduced in France in 1891 by Panhard-Levassor—had taken hold throughout the automotive world.

But the plucky Curved Dash Olds had whet­ted an already growing American appetite for a car that everyone could afford. And the man who would assuage that appetite with “a car for the great multitudes” was Henry Ford.

As the automotive writer Ralph Stein put it, “On October 1, 1908, the most maligned and most praised, the most reliable and the most can­tankerous, the ugliest and the most functional of all cars was born—the Model T.”

It was introduced at a price of $825 for the two-seat “runabout” and at $850 for the tour­ing car. It is important to note that the Model T cost $250 more than Ford’s previous car, the acclaimed 1906 Model N, which Ford had con­sidered “the crowning achievement of my life.”

The Model N was a good car and selling very well, but Ford knew he could build a better car. And he did. The Model T was rugged. It used chrome-vana­dium steel for its axles—more costly, but much lighter and stronger than other steels. It was a forgiving car with a drive train and components that could take a beating, be easily repaired, and still function. Its loose and limber engine could climb hills with less shifting of gears. It looked high-wheeled and ungainly next to other cars, but it could clear the rutted, potholed, muddy rural roads of America with comparative ease. Most important, it could be driven by the aver­age person, not a chauffeur....

In 1908, the year the T was introduced (its for­mal debut was December 31 in New York’s Grand Central Palace), Ford sold 10,202 cars. In the 1909 model year the company sold 17,771, all Ts. In 1910 it was 32,053, a figure which more than doubled to 69,762 in 1911. By 1915, sales were over half a million.

As sales rose and production efficiency improved, the price of the Model T dropped dramatically. In 1912, the $575 price for the two-seater T was less than the average annual wage in the United States. By 1916 the popular touring model was priced at $360, less than half its orig­inal price. By the time the sturdy T was phased out in 1927, more than 16 million of them had been sold all over the world.

Henry Ford had truly “put America on wheels” with the Model T, and the impetus toward cars for the masses, begun with the Curved Dash Olds and a few other imitators, had vaulted the United States into the automo­tive leadership of the world. France would remain the auto-industry leader in Europe until 1924, but its production numbers were minuscule by American stan­dards. The United States surpassed France in sales volume in 1904. By 1913, when world­wide production of motor vehicles was 606,124, America accounted for 485,000 of that number (more than a quarter of them were Fords). Talk about “broadening the market.”...