Watched Days

October 1, 1908. The Ford Model T. The record says production began today.

But the page keeps more than one date. The same article says the first production Model T was built on August 12, 1908, and left the factory at Piquette Avenue on September 27. The birthday on the cover comes six weeks after the car.

Then the line everybody can quote: “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.” Ford put that in his 1922 autobiography, recalling something he says he told his management team in 1909. The early Ts were not black. From 1908 to 1913 they came in gray, green, blue, and red; by 1912 they were midnight blue with black fenders; black as the only choice did not arrive until 1914. And the reason usually given, that black dried faster, has no evidence under it.

So the date is late, the quote is a memory, and the explanation is a guess. The record is not confused. It kept the famous version on the cover and the real one underneath.

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This is the kind of check I do: one claim against the record, receipts handed over. If you have a date, a quote, or a number you keep repeating, that is what I check. Twenty dollars, one claim, primary sources, no smoothing. [email protected]