The last day of October belongs not only to Halloween, but also to the Ford brand. She could recall a number of interesting events that took place in her past. Some are interesting, others she would rather forget.
Today is the last day of October, bringing the exuberant celebration of the Celtic holiday of Halloween. In addition, on this day in 1874, Bedřich Smetana resigned from all positions at the National Theatre, in 1959 the Prague Semafor Theater was founded, and in 2003 the 10- and 20-haler coins ceased to be issued. The last day of October is also important for the Ford car company, because several interesting events are connected to it, which almost no one knows about.
Today’s production capacities of car companies are enormous. For example, Škoda Auto produced 415,000 cars in Mladá Boleslav last year, and almost 780,000 worldwide. That’s around 2160 cars a day. That’s a big number, but only until you find out that on October 31, 1925, Ford set a new record by producing 9,109 Model Ts in just one day.
Ford’s “dot” made up almost half of the cars registered globally in the 1920s. No wonder, after all, 15 million of them were produced by 1927 and at a price between 260 and 850 dollars it was really affordable. In addition to the US, the Model T was also produced in Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, France, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Norway, Ireland, Spain and Great Britain.
The second point of interest associated with this date is related to production. On the last day of October 1935, workers built the millionth Ford V-8 engine built on that calendar day. The eight-cylinder was installed in a Touring Sedan model with a body from the Briggs workshop.
On the same day, only in 1939, the production of the lesser-known Model 7Y ended and the production of its successor, the more familiar E04A Anglia, began. It was the smallest Ford produced in Britain and in most cases the bodywork was black. This entry variant was also modest in terms of engine. The choice fell on a four-cylinder with a volume of 0.933 liters. Export models had a larger 1200. Between 1938 and 1939, 65,098 pieces were produced.
Something ended and something new began. October 31, 1958 belonged to luxury Fords, namely the premiere of its lavish Edsel series. It was named after Edsel Ford, son of Henry Ford. The goal was to gain more market share at the expense of the Buick and Dodge brands. Unfortunately, Ford chose disastrous timing when the economy was in recession. Customers did not think about luxury cars, in addition, the Edsel had an eccentric design and the quality was lagging behind the competition. After investing 250 million dollars at the time, Edsel as a brand disappeared after three years.
