[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he TEAm at Ford of Britain’s head office embraced Britain’s tea culture on Friday, the National Tea Day.
Ford employees at Warley, Essex made the most of their morning by enjoying a cuppa, with the stirring sight of Ford’s very own national t-reasure – the Ford Model T.
National Tea Day takes place every year in the UK in the month of April, and this year more than 150 employees marked the occasion with their Tea, in a T, in return for a small donation to Ford’s chosen chari-tea, Guide Dogs.
Tea pre-dates the Model T by an “Oolong” time – dating back to the 1600s, compared with the first Model T, which rolled off the Detroit production line in 1908.
The Model T was introduced with a price tag of $850 – more than enough to buy a cup of tea for the entire team at Warley today.
MODEL T FACTS
The Ford Model T was introduced on Oct. 1, 1908. The first Model T had a 20-horsepower, four-cylinder engine and reached a top speed of 45mph.
More than 15,000,000 Model T’s were built and sold. The Model T was the first low-priced, mass- produced car with standard interchangeable parts.
The engine design, a single block with a removable cylinder head, became the industry standard. Henry Ford’s initiation of mass production of vehicles on the moving assembly line led to lower car prices Henry Ford called the Model T “the universal car,” a low-cost, reliable vehicle that could be maintained easily. It successfully travelled the poor roads of the era, thanks to its three-point suspension.
The Model T came in nine body styles, all on the same chassis. The Model T’s agile transmission enabled novices to operate the gears, and was a forerunner of modern automatic transmission designs. Vanadium steel, an alloy manufactured for the company at the direction of Henry Ford, gave the car great strength and durability without extra weight.
For its 100th anniversary, Ford built six Model T’s, called T 100, based on the original model. There are no original Model T parts on these cars, but each is interchangeable with the original, including the hand crank located under the radiator. Top end speed of the T 100 is 55 mph, averaging 18mpg
