Henry Ford Chooses Craft

PoD is Ford falls under other influences, thinking the masses are not fit for automobile ownership. He goes for high end market & the current manufacturing methods.

What others aim at the mass working mans market & how long is it before they reach Ford's OTL levels of servicing that market?
 
My money would be on Billy Durant. If he hadn't bought as many miscellaneous manufacturers as he did, getting the nascent General Motors Corporation overextended financially in 1910, and instead focused on developing what he had, across many socioeconomic strata, he might well have succeeded in bringing cars to the masses. He might, for example, postponed the acquisition of Chevrolet in 1911, and kept his association with Durant-Dort alive to make Dort or Durant into America's entry-level car: mechanically simple; almost glorified agricultural machinery (tolerances in agricultural machinery are-or were!-rather loose; the Model T as Ford built it had mechanical tolerances of 1/64"); limited number of factory options; lots of after-market items available for upgrading.

With all of that, Durant and Ford had a similar vision of automobiles as mass-marketed items: that's one of the key reasons I nominate Durant.
 
Durant had experience in mass production? One the things that struck me about the early auto industry is how many were behind the time in this. Custom carriage makes sticking motors on their buggies.

Anyone think Hayes could have kept his lead absent Ford?
 
Durant had experience in mass production? One the things that struck me about the early auto industry is how many were behind the time in this. Custom carriage makes sticking motors on their buggies.

Anyone think Hayes could have kept his lead absent Ford?

Ford is still gonna Ford, even if he stays at the 'Henry Ford Company' that became Cadillac under Leland. OTL, he and his financiers butted heads(imagine that). At that time, Ford's interest was towards racing high HP cars.
So handwave a bit, he stays at HFC, with emphasis on high performance autos.

Durant liked buying his way to profitability by acquiring companies: that was not sustainable, but he did well in making a holding company, United Motors Corporation that existed to supply smaller parts to automakers, they joined up with GM in time, the best know of those subsidiaries was Delco.

So Durant was an early proponent of Vertical Integration, but achieve3d that buy buying existing companies, rather than doing it all in house as Ford did with FMC

Mass Production via the assembly line predated Ford( like Olds or Hart-Parr), using it to dominate a whole market segment by turning output to 11 was Ford.

Without Ford at the low end, Hayes will still get killed by Maxwell
 
Reflecting on this a bit further. The demand was there, so either others fill the market with hyper efficient production, or buyers pay a higher cost for less productive methods.
 
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