Original subtitles

- Hello, I'm Dale Earnhardt Jr.

As many of you know, cars are very important to me.

They've been my passion,

they provided my livelihood,

and they've captured my imagination.

Cars are also the backbone of what America was built on,

industry, innovation, and inspiration.

This evening along with History,

I'm proud to present to you the epic story

of the most American of machines,

from the industry's earliest pioneers,

to the innovators who shaped its glory years,

this is the story of how the car made America.

- [Narrator] As the 20th century dawns,

the modern world is being created.

(dramatic music) (train whistle blowing)

Industries like railroads, steel, and oil begin to emerge

and the United States

is at the forefront of this modernization.

Now the third largest and fastest-growing

country in the world, its 45 states span

the vast North American continent,

but the travel remains difficult.

And most Americans never venture

more than 50 miles from home.

(dramatic music)

A new innovation was about to change all that.

In just 50 years, two billion miles of paved roadways

will intertwine the country connecting its cities,

its small towns, and its people.

(dramatic music) (engines roaring)

As Ford,

Chevrolet,

Dodge,

and Chrysler,

become household names that will forever shape the country.

(muffled chatter) (dramatic resonating booming)

(flashbulbs crackle)

- There are 15 million Ford Model Ts

scattered around the globe.

This car lays a trail

for the entire automobile industry.

Times may be changing, but here at Ford Motor Company,

things don't change.

- [All] Ford, Ford!

- [Narrator] The Ford Motor Company will become the

greatest car maker the world has ever known

and one man will dominate the cutthroat industry.

(glass shattering) (dramatic music)

But 38-year-old Henry Ford,

wasn't always a success.

- Come on, Edsel.

Don't bother your father.

- Henry Ford learned how hard it was

to build a car and a car company.

He created the Henry Ford Company and it did not go well.

Quite simply, he failed.

- It's odd to remember that

he put two companies out of business

before he finally found his footing.

(intense music)

- Here is a man with very little money

who was going to be considered a failure in his 30s,

and he was willing to risk his

livelihood, his reputation, and his future.

That's an enormous level of risk.

- [Narrator] German engineer Karl Benz

creates the first gas powered automobile in 1886.

Seven years later, the first American car is made,

but after nearly a decade,

cars still aren't catching on in America.

- The original cars could cost $7,000 in 1900 money

and that would be the equivalent of $100,000 today.

Well, ordinary people in those days couldn't buy them.

- Very often, you would see movie stars and others

who would use automobiles to sort of demonstrate

that they're someone in society and they've got the ability

to afford these kinds of luxuries.

- [Narrator] Speed was the primary focus

of early car makers.

- In the early 1900s, people were uncertain

about the utility of the cars

or their ability to endure different conditions

and so many of automobile manufacturers engaged in races

to show the durability of the car,

the capability of the car,

and people slowly, slowly jumped on the bandwagon.

- [Narrator] Ford sees an opportunity in racing

as a way to draw attention to his cars.

- Henry was adamant to not let the failure

of the Henry Ford Company define him,

but he had to change that perception.

(dramatic music) (engine rumbling)

He saw an opportunity to run in a race

against the best race car driver,

and arguably, the best car,

designed, built, and driven by Alexander Winton.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] But Henry Ford has never even been

behind the wheel of a race car before.

- It's funny to think, too, like, a guy like Henry Ford,

he only drove in one race in his life.

So here's a guy that was a brilliant engineer,

who was a great marketer, and on top of that,

he actually was a race car driver.

So you needed to be a multi-faceted person

back then to be successful.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Still, he knows that beating

the most famous driver in America

will land him on the front page.

- When this race came up, he saw it as an opportunity

to build his brand and hopefully to

raise funding in his new motor company,

the Ford Motor Company.

(engines roaring) (dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Winton's car has tripled the horsepower...

(dramatic music) (engines roaring)

But Ford's car is more reliable.

- Alexander Winton's car was so much faster

than Henry Ford's car,

but then Alexander Winton's car started to fail,

as a lot of cars did, with an ignition fail.

(dramatic music) (engines roaring)

- [Narrator] Ford narrowly wins the race.

- Henry Ford won the race as an innovator

and it was because his ability to create a car

that wasn't the fastest but had the most reliability

and the best endurance that investors

flocked to him

- Ford, from the very beginning, wanted to be the best.

He had the kind of ambition and the kind of obsessiveness

and the kind of single-minded focus that it takes

to become preeminent in your field.

His vision was always straight ahead.

Henry Ford was eerily reminiscent of Steve Jobs.

- Henry Ford had this vision

of building cars

that eventually everybody could own

and this vision of an America

where everybody could have mobility.

He wanted to make things that would improve

the lives of ordinary Americans.

(dramatic music) ??

- [Narrator] Cars are the technology of the future

and many wanted a piece of the new industry.

- If you go back to the turn of the century,

500 different companies were building

an automobile in some shape or fashion.

But there were more failures than there were successes.

- The early days of the automobile

were all about competition,

competition not only to build the best car,

but who could build it in large enough scale

to become king of the hill?

- One thing these different manufacturers

all have in common is that bulldog,

I'm not scared of nothing feel

that I have to gamble to make it happen

but they weren't afraid to fail.

(wheels rattling) (low music)

- [Narrator] One of Ford's biggest competitors

sees an opportunity to create a monopoly,

like what's happened with the powerful steel...

(metal clanging) (upbeat music)

And oil industries.

(low music)

- Nash!

What's taking so long?

I need to see those quarterlies before the market closes.

- They're all here , Mr. Durant.

- (sighs) Very good.

- [Narrator] Unlike Henry Ford, William Durant

comes from wealth and privilege,

the grandson of the governor of Michigan.

He drops out of high school and founds

his first company at 20.

- Durant was kind of the black sheep of the family,

but he was a natural salesman.

- [Narrator] By 40, Durant is a multi-millionaire

making his fortune in horse carriages.

Travel is evolving.

(train whistle blowing)

But even as thousands of miles of train tracks

are laid across the country...

(train whistle blowing)

Horses are still the most common mode of transportation.

The problem is cars and horses don't mix well.

Some cities even require flag men on foot

to warn nervous horses and pedestrians

of the approaching cars,

and horses cause another problem.

In 1900, over 2 million pounds of horse manure

land on the streets of New York City daily.

- What do you do with all the horse dung

and all the horse urine?

Big cities in America stank.

They stank like barn yards.

And aside from this, there was the problem

of horses dying on the street,

and what do you do with the dead horses?

- [Narrator] Travel by horse is also slow.

A trip from Chicago to Kansas City takes two weeks.

Durant senses America will soon embrace the car

and the freedom it will bring,

so he liquidates his fortune to fund acquisitions.

- Durant always saw things in ways

that other people didn't see.

He could see the future of any kind of product.

- [Narrator] He sets his sights on a struggling automaker,

the Buick Motor Company.

- Buick had vision as well,

but he had very little operating knowledge.

He was a very poor manager.

As a result, you have a very good car

but he was unable to sell his car effectively.

- When Durant bought Buick,

he knew that the car was a good car

and with his salesmanship, he could really produce.

He could sell anything.

He could sell you your shirt off your back

and make you feel very happy and thankful for paying for it.

- [Narrator] While Durant is buying his way in,

Henry Ford is building his company from the ground up.

- Henry Ford was the type of guy

that made some really aggressive moves that would scare the

you-know-what out of most people.

- [Narrator] Ford knows this is his last shot

at success in the car industry,

so he sets his sights on teaming up with two of

Detroit's rising stars.

(dramatic music)

- John and Horace Dodge.

I noticed your work.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] The 20th century begins with

America's pioneering spirit changing the world.

(airplane rumbling)

The Wright brothers have made the impossible possible

with the invention of the airplane.

Another innovation, the car, is not catching on quickly

but two men are trying to change that.

William Durant, who's made a fortune

building horse-drawn carriages,

is turning to a new industry he thinks he can control,

while Henry Ford, a two-time failure,

is going all in on his dream

to transform America into a country of car drivers.

- John and Horace Dodge.

Henry Ford.

- [Narrator] To do so, he needs the talents

of the two best mechanical minds in Detroit.

- [Henry] I noticed your work

- And?

- Admirable design.

- There was a ton of competition in the automotive industry

at the turn of the century.

You needed to be the manufacturer that had

the mechanics that had the next idea.

- [Narrator] The Dodge Brothers become known for their

work in the bicycle business

with a simple yet ingenious invention,

the dirt-proof ball bearing.

Bikes, like early cars, travel mostly on dirt roads,

exposed to the elements.

Their invention, housing two sets

of enclosed lubricated ball bearings,

keeps the axle spinning, protecting it from debris,

a simple concept that can be applied to early automobiles

As their skills evolve, the Dodges are in high demand.

- Their reputation spread very quickly and

that's when Ransom Olds had entered into a contract

to produce transmissions and axles for Oldsmobile,

and that gave them the start.

That's when the money started to flow in

and their reputation continued to explode,

in terms of the quality of their work.

- I'm here to offer you the chance to do

something revolutionary.

I want you to come and work for me.

And I will pay you $250 a chassis

and give you complete creative freedom.

(upbeat music)

- [Narrator] Ford offers the Dodges

what no other car maker has,

a true partnership and a 10% ownership stake.

- The Dodge Brothers, they already had

a pretty lucrative contract with Oldsmobile.

- They did a really good job of developing their engines.

And they came up with a suggestion

that Olds looked at and rejected.

So they didn't think that he would be as successful as Ford.

- We can do that.

- Excellent.

- You got yourself a deal. - Very good.

- Let me show you something we're working on.

- [Henry] I'd love it.

(upbeat country music)

- They would never have come together if

they hadn't both respected and fully understood

the other's mastery of their craft.

And the relationship between Ford and the Dodges

was entirely mutually beneficial, at first.

(upbeat music)

- [Narrator] To join forces with Ford, the Dodge Brothers

leave the country's leading car maker, Oldsmobile.

- The Oldsmobile little Runabout was an enormous success

for the first five years of the 20th century.

It was basically a buggy that had a motor attached to it.

- [Narrator] The curved dash

makes Oldsmobile America's number one car maker.

Oldsmobile's success gains the attention of William Durant

who is looking for more companies.

He buys up Oldsmobile and another car maker, Cadillac,

adding them to his growing conglomerate.

- The fact that he was able to take

all these little car companies and all of a sudden,

he had a company that people paid attention to.

- [Narrator] Durant now has the beginnings

of an automotive monopoly.

He calls his company General Motors.

But as Durant's company gets larger,

so does his number one problem,

car patent holder

George Seldon,

the man who sues anyone who dares to

make a car without paying him.

- George Seldon was a patent attorney who, in 1879,

decided he wanted to build an automobile,

without much success.

Well, then he thought it'd be a nice idea

to patent the automobile,

and he claimed that he owned the right

to every single internal combustion vehicle

made in America.

- George Seldon got a pioneer patent.

Pioneer patents said that anyone who copied not just

your idea but anything even remotely like your idea,

anything that achieved the same end

had to pay you royalties.

It's as if Bill Gates got a patent which

covered all software for personal computers,

it doesn't matter what the code is.

- [Narrator] Durant pays Seldon a total of $1 million,

worth 27 million today.

- It's amazing how all the auto manufacturers

lay down for him.

They all caved and said, all right Mr. Seldon,

yes, sir, it's your idea.

Now, they all must have known this was ridiculous

but they didn't want to take the financial risk

of having a case go against them.

- [Telegram Delivery Man] Mr. Henry Ford?

- Yeah. - Telegram for you.

(mellow music) (indistinct chatter)

- George Seldon thinks he can steal from me.

- Henry, that's the cost of doing business.

(dramatic music)

- [Henry] This is what I think of George Seldon.

(dramatic music)

- Another one of Ford's great business traits

was utter stubbornness and a total belief in himself.

Many of the independent car makers caved

to the Seldon patent group.

- Let's get back to work.

- Ford refused and he went to war.

- Seldon finally caught up to me.

I got a letter telling me to cease and desist

or else pay him royalties.

- [Clara] Can you afford to pay him?

- That's not the point.

It's my name on those cars, not Seldon's.

I'm done being pushed around.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Undeterred, Ford and the Dodge Brothers'

first design is a two cylinder, eight horsepower Model A.

But they sell only 700 of them.

- Ford started off with his Model A.

The Model A was not a particularly effective car.

- [Narrator] They continue working their way

through the alphabet,

experimenting to find the right balance

between price, durability, and innovation,

getting closer and closer to Ford's vision

of the perfect motor car for the masses.

- Henry Ford's culture was that he understood

the common man's needs.

It was to have a simple machine that was reliable

and got the job done for the average man,

and that was Henry Ford's vision.

- [Narrator] William Durant continues his buying spree,

adding Oakland Motor Company, which becomes Pontiac.

GM now owns 11 car makers

and Durant is on the lookout for more.

- The legacy for Billy Durant is that he created

what nobody else had ever created before with that

multi-brand huge conglomerate.

I consider him to be

the first big thinker in the automobile industry.

(upbeat music) (engine rumbling)

- [Narrator] Meanwhile, Ford and the Dodge Brothers continue

their pursuit of perfection.

- Henry Ford had so much trial and error.

He failed so many times and succeeded so many times.

He didn't learn without failing and so he learned a ton.

(engine rumbling)

- So what do you think of it?

(dramatic music)

- It's perfect.

- [Narrator] After five years

of missteps and moderate success,

they have a design that finally lives up to Ford's vision

of what America wants,

price, quality and durability:

(intense music)

the Model T.

(intense music)

- We're ready to share it with the world.

(intense music)

- [Narrator] By 1908, America is

the most modern country in the world.

Rail lines crisscross the continent,

connecting people over vast expanses.

But the rising car business

is about to change the country in ways no one expects.

William Durant's General Motors is

spending millions assembling an empire

- Billy Durant bought up a number of car companies

and his idea was to have each of these companies

specialize in a different aspect of the market.

some will do luxury cars like Cadillac

and some would do the cheaper cars like Buick

but for what Durant wanted to do,

he needed a lot of capital.

- [Narrator] Now at 11 companies,

including Buick,

Cadillac,

and Oldsmobile,

General Motors is massive.

Henry Ford and his partners the Dodge Brothers

are taking a different approach,

building their company from the ground up,

and after five years of trial and error,

their vision of a car for the everyman

is finally ready to be revealed.

(engine rumbling)

The Model T is a revolution in auto engineering.

At just 1,200 pounds, nearly three thousand

less than the average car today,

the T features a two-speed transmission.

Where most cars of the time shift gears

with complicated hand levers, the Model T

is the first mass-produced car

to offer something much easier,

foot pedals that control

brakes, clutch, forward, and reverse.

The design is a precursor

to the automatic transmission system.

It's simple, reliable, and affordable,

three things America has been waiting for in a car.

The Model T is the realization of Ford's unique vision

and the Dodge Brothers' ingenuity.

At just $850, $18,000 today,

Ford sells over 10,000 in the first year.

(upbeat music) (engine rumbling)

- The Model T was an amazing invention,

something that really changed the game.

And yet, it's amazing on how simplistic the

actual design of the vehicle is.

- [Narrator] Though simple, the Model T

is the right car for a country with only

a few hundred miles of paved roads.

- If you look at a Model T, it's an SUV.

You have a higher center of gravity.

You sit higher.

It's meant to go on road as well as off-road,

so the Model T, to me, was the first really popular SUV.

- What Ford was looking for in the automobile industry

was true innovation, and a genuine innovation

is something that meets a need you didn't know you had.

And his insight was, if we make these things cheap enough,

people who never thought they could buy them

will want to buy them.

- What Ford had with the Model T was

something that was a utility for the masses.

- Once it was available, everybody wanted a Model T.

Don't ask people to imagine something they don't have.

What you do is you build it,

and if it works, you're a success.

- [Narrator] The Model T ignites America's car obsession.

- It's hard to imagine now just how much

the Model T influences the country at that time.

It was more than just a technical achievement.

It was a real social revolution.

- [Narrator] In just two years, the Model T doubles

the number of cars on the road.

- The Model T changed entirely the way Americans live,

from paved roads to how we think and act.

- [Narrator] The car is also changing

the landscape of America.

In Detroit, the world's first stop sign appears.

Lane markings, traffic signals, and paved roads

allow new car buyers to travel wherever they want.

- There is no country on earth that is so big

that has ever developed such an

extensive network of highways.

- [Narrator] In New York, the first car-only roadway,

the Bronx River Parkway, is constructed.

America is starting to change itself to suit the car.

- (laughing) I'm telling you,

from 1,000 a month we're going to 1,000 a day.

- 1,000 a day?

How soon are we doing this, huh?

- [Narrator] Ford's success has drawn

the attention of the world

and the interest of his competition.

(men chatting indistinctly)

- [Man] Mr. Ford

(dramatic music)

- Gentlemen, excuse me, please.

(dramatic music)

- Quite the shop you have here, Mr. Ford.

- We got a ways to go.

But I think we're on the right track.

- So I've heard.

I also heard that you and George Seldon

aren't seeing eye-to-eye.

(dramatic music)

- Seldon wants to go to war.

He's chosen the wrong man.

- Admirable.

But suppose you didn't have to?

- What do you mean?

- Join the General Motors family

and all your problems with George Seldon go away.

All patent royalties, we pay.

(dramatic music)

Or you can take your chances in court.

(dramatic music)

Now tell me your price.

(dramatic music)

- $3 million.

(dramatic music)

- (chuckles) Seriously, now?

What's your real price?

(dramatic music)

- The real price is $3 million...

(man chuckles)

Cash.

(dramatic music)

- Well, then Mr. Ford, I wish you luck.

You're going to need it.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Ford's asking price is worth over

$80 million today.

Durant's rejection means he won't own all

the industry's major players, but if he can't buy them,

he decides he needs to out design them.

- Mr. Durant, you asked for it and my team delivered it,

an automobile that will be all things to all people.

- Let's see it.

(dramatic music)

- It's everything you asked for,

the horn button, the clutch pedal,

the horsepower that you were looking for.

(dramatic music)

- Now, that is exactly the car we've been looking for.

How quickly can we get this into production?

- Well, I think almost right away.

- Excellent.

This is fast, it's modern, it's sleek.

- [Narrator] The Buick Model 10 features

a 2.7 liter four-cylinder engine

and with 22 1/2 half horsepower,

it's more powerful than the Model T.

But Buick's biggest innovation

is its revolutionary engine configuration.

The Buick's fuel combustion goes through

overhead valves like modern engines.

- This overhead valve engine had ease of service.

You could kick the head off

and fix that, put it back on.

In other words, you didn't have to

tear the whole engine apart to fix it.

- [Narrator] The first 4,000 Model 10s are all white.

They're nicknamed the white streak,

but GM only sells 4,000 Model 10s.

Ford, by contrast, sells almost 20,000 Model Ts.

Durant's white streak fails to take the Model T's place

in America's heart.

- General Motors flirted with bankruptcy.

The banking community looked at him and said,

this guy's out of control.

- [Narrator] The white streak

has cost GM $30 million

(dramatic music)

and the expensive failure

means Durant's got trouble with his board.

(dramatic music)

- Gentlemen.

- Mr. Durant,

have a seat.

- This can't be good.

(upbeat music)

- [Narrator] The 20th century's first decade sees

America's passion for cars unleashed.

Two large companies dominate the new industry

and as Ford battles GM for supremacy,

the country begins to transform itself

around the new mode of transportation.

- When you look at successful businesses.

it always comes down to the human capital, leadership.

Everything runs from the top and down.

- Durant wanted to have the biggest, most successful,

most influential automobile entity in the world.

He wanted General Motors to be the automobile company.

- [Narrator] General Motors focuses on scale,

buying 30 companies,

including Buick, Oldsmobile, and Cadillac,

but after a strong start,

sales of the new Buick Model 10 drop

and the company financiers have noticed.

With its debt mounting, General Motors must do something.

- Gentlemen, to what do we owe the pleasure?

- Please have a seat.

- This can't be good.

- Now, Mr. Durant,

you've stretched this company's finances

to the point of breaking, with no plan for the future.

- I always have a plan.

That's what built this place.

- You promised to build a car that would surpass

the Model T and it failed.

- Everything worth doing takes time and money.

- Billy, your time is up.

(dramatic music)

- What's that supposed to mean?

- You're fired.

(dramatic music)

Effective immediately.

(dramatic music)

- If you lose me,

you lose everything this place was built on.

- Mr. Durant, General Motors needs

a steadier foundation than the one you've built.

This Board's decision is final.

(dramatic music)

Oh, Mr. Nash, if you could stay a moment,

we have something we'd like to discuss with you.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Durant's number two, Charles Nash,

is appointed GM's new president.

His top priority, finding a way to compete with Henry Ford

and his best selling Model T.

Nash's plan centers on innovation.

He needs to secure the engineering talent to compete.

(dramatic music)

He hopes he's found it in a young engineer

who's captured Detroit's attention.

- I'm looking for Mr. Charles Nash.

Thank you.

Mr. Nash, terribly sorry to keep you waiting

I'm Walter Chrysler.

A fella's machine broke down on the side of the road.

Couldn't rightly pass by without lending a hand.

- Now, never mind that.

I'm just glad you made it.

- [Narrator] Walter Chrysler is a self-taught mechanic

and an expert engineer who has made a name for himself

building engines at American Locomotive,

one of the largest train makers in the world.

- Walter Chrysler, in his youth, he was extremely meticulous

about how things were made

and tinkered around with all kinds of mechanical things.

- Walter Chrysler got interested in the car industry,

went to a car show, bought a car, took it home,

and took it apart to learn about it.

You know, most of us would end up with

a pile of parts in the shed floor.

Walter took it apart and was able to put it back together.

- So, well?

- I am prepared to offer you $6,000 a year.

- Six grand?

That's half my current salary.

- We're not American Locomotive.

- No, you most certainly are not.

But trains are a thing of the past.

Cars are the future.

I'm in.

- Mr. Chrysler, congratulations.

You're now Production Chief at Buick Motor Company.

- As long as you let me design cars,

you can call me whatever you want.

(dramatic music) (machinery rumbling)

- Chrysler, when he came in, found that

the entire structure of Buick lacks organization,

a lot of expenditures, and so he went to work

in reorganizing the company properly.

- The first day he was on the job,

he saw cars going out and not being signed out,

and he said, where's the manifest for his cars?

The next day, he put in a manifest system and he said,

I earned my first year salary on my first day.

- [Narrator] Chrysler soon realizes turning GM around

and catching up to the number one car maker won't be easy,

because Ford is churning out cars five times as fast.

- I will build a car for the everyman,

constructed of the best materials,

built by the best mechanics, with the simplest designs

that modern engineering can devise.

And a price so low, no man making a good salary

will be unable to afford one.

- [Narrator] The Model T becomes so successful

that Ford soon triples GM's total output,

Now with over 70,000 cars sold,

Henry Ford has become the world's number one car maker.

- Henry Ford is generally given credit for changing America.

The main reason Henry Ford is credited

was that among his other brilliant skills

was an utterly brilliant skill of self-promotion.

- Get your photos, boys.

Ha. (falshbulbs crackle)

- [Narrator] A tireless work ethic has made Henry Ford

the undisputed top car maker in America,

but he has one enemy he can't outwork,

George Seldon, who continues to battle Ford

for the millions he claims he's owed.

- It's amazing.

Dozens of car makers were eager to avoid the courts

but Henry Ford was not.

- Any questions?

- [Crowd] Ford, Ford.

- [Reporter] Ford, are you gonna pay Mr. Seldon?

- No.

- [Narrator] Another challenge for Ford

is his relationship with the Dodge Brothers,

which is starting to fray.

- One of the things that really irked the Dodge Brothers

was the fact that Ford was receiving

so much recognition for the Model T.

- [Henry] Get your photos, boys.

- [Narrator] Ford's knack for publicity

may have earned him notoriety,

but it could cost him two of his greatest assets.

By 1912, more than 130,000 Ford Model Ts

are on America's streets and country roads.

The first car built for the everyman

is helping to change the country.

- What happened in America when Henry Ford

turned loose his Model T's was the restructuring

of our entire society from top to bottom.

It broke down the ancient isolation of the farm

and people were very much aware of that

and felt very much liberated by it.

- [Narrator] The Model T makes Henry Ford

the world's number one car maker.

- When you win, everybody wants to come up there

and take you off the top.

You have to continue to build and perform

and come up with the innovative products

that keeps you ahead.

- [Narrator] Trying to compete with Ford,

America's other leading car maker, GM,

has gone into massive debt buying up

Buick, Cadillac, and Oldsmobile.

The man charged with turning the company around,

Walter Chrysler, is feeling the pressure.

GM's former chairman, William Durant,

refuses to let go of the company he built

and hatches a plan to get it back.

Starting from scratch, he has his sights set

on his own key hire, the 33-year-old

Swiss race car driver named Louie Chevrolet.

- You have quite the flair for publicity, Mr. Chevrolet.

With your charisma and my business sense,

we can be quite a team.

Imagine it, you could be the next Henry Ford.

- I'm quite happy being Louis Chevrolet, thank you.

- Yeah, well, of course.

You are your own man.

- This new company, Mr. Durant, does it have a name?

- Not yet, but I was thinking something--

- May I suggest calling it Chevrolet?

- Chevrolet.

It does have a nice ring to it.

- [Narrator] Chevrolet makes his name

by dominating the European race circuit.

- When you think of American cars,

all you think about is the Chevrolets

and Louis Chevrolet was not American.

- I think that catches some people off-guard,

that Chevrolet was founded by a Swiss racer,

but a very smart man and a man that made

the US his home, in a sense.

Now the brand is as American as it comes.

- It's great to me, as a race car driver,

to know that Chevrolet was founded by racer.

- Very good.

- So where should we start?

- I think it's a very good idea for us

to be on the same page with the design.

- I agree.

I think whatever the design is,

we need to make sure that this is

the car to beat the Model T.

The Model T's day is done.

- I agree.

- [Narrator] What Durant,

Chevrolet,

and Chrysler don't know

is Ford isn't content with the status quo.

- I think in the auto manufacturing world,

there's that tenacity, that true grit to work harder

than the next guy, continue to be smarter

in ways of assembly and efficiency

and being able to build a product the best.

- [Narrator] He focuses on increasing production.

His current production process is inefficient,

taking up to 12 hours to assemble a single Model T.

He knows getting Model Ts off the line faster

will mean more sales.

- When Ford began, automobiles

were built up like ocean liners.

The workmen would come into the frame of the car

and put things on it.

So Ford thought of ways of breaking down

all the different jobs you have to do

to build a car faster and more efficiently.

- Like a slaughterhouse butchers beef.

We will do the same for automobiles only in reverse,

each man doing one job,

perfecting and speeding the process.

As the machine moves down the line,

each station performs one duty,

without error.

Defects will be virtually eliminated.

- Excellent, Mr. Ford.

A moving assembly line.

- It led Ford to construct an automobile

of high quality in numbers that were going to

be able to drive down the average price.

- [Narrator] Using the meatpacking industry

as inspiration,

Ford designs an assembly line

with workers along a long conveyor system

where each performs a single specific task

in a continuous flow of work.

- An assembly line that does not stop.

His ideas of mass production change manufacturing.

He created the next Industrial Revolution.

It changed society.

- This will revolutionize the industry.

- [Narrator] America has fallen in love with the car

and demand is surging.

Some 1.2 million cars are on the road,

a third of them Fords.

The amazing success of the Model T

is the industry's first phenomenon

but while business is booming across the industry,

Henry Ford's competitors have one mission:

beating him.

- When your a target, it's because you're on top.

It's because you're in the lead.

And what does that do?

That just creates more pressure to perform.

- [Narrator] With William Durant

starting a new company called Chevrolet

and Walter Chrysler attempting to rebuild General Motors--

- There'll be five lines.

- [Narrator] Henry Ford looks to a revolutionary concept

to take his company to the next level, the assembly line.

- The car will come off the line

and there'll be a final team that will attach

all the special details, check the quality,

look for any final scratches, clean them up,

anything else, and the car will roll off the line.

- His ideas on how to produce cars

were the most successful of all ideas.

- [Narrator] The Model T assembly line is broken down

into 84 individual steps, from bolting the chassis together

to mounting the transmission to the drivetrain

and assembling the brakes and attaching wheels.

- All of the parts, then, are brought by

either conveyors or pulleys to the location

in which assembly process needs to take place.

- Which was not how cars were manufactured at that time.

Cars were manufactured with two or three or four people

standing around one station,

building a car from the ground up.

- [Narrator] To implement his revolutionary plan,

Ford recruits William Knudsen to manage production.

- William Knudsen was an engineer that Henry had met

when he bought a stamping company

to make the oil pans for his Model T

and Knudsen very quickly proved himself

to be one of the great industrial visionaries

of the 20th century.

- There will be virtually no chance

that there'll be a mistake.

It's simply a repeat rote motion

that they have to perform throughout the entire day.

- [Narrator] The assembly line is perhaps the biggest

manufacturing innovation ever,

but it's not without problems.

- Henry Ford is the man who brought in

mind numbing repetition.

They had to work at the same pace day after day,

hour after hour, minute after minute, doing the same task.

- [Narrator] Despite its repetition,

it's a huge benefit to the bottom line,

cutting build time for a Model T

from 12 hours to just 93 minutes.

- Henry Ford's great contribution to the 20th century

was the theory and practice of mass production

and that translated itself

to all the other industries in America.

- [Narrator] The assembly line

will change America dramatically.

Mass production of items like refrigerators

and washing machines will allow their cost

to be greatly reduced.

That creates jobs.

Ford uses the money saved on production

to cut the price of the Model T in half,

from $850

to just $390.

- To sit there and put the time and effort he did

into building the assembly line and then producing

that Model T in such numbers

that it got the cost way down where the average Joe

could afford to buy a car, that was something else.

- It changed society.

For the first time, every American could own a car.

That's a life-changing moment.

- I mean, I think we can do 1,000 of these a day.

I mean, the possibilities are endless.

- [Narrator] Ford is able to go

from making 38,000 cars in 1911

to nearly 200,000 just three years later.

Ford watches sales climb and looks to hire more workers

to keep up with productivity.

To do so, he comes up with another groundbreaking idea.

- Ford was having problems retaining good workers

and he decided that he was gonna introduce the $5 day.

This, at the time, the average wage

in the industry was about $2.50.

- [Narrator] The $5 day would be almost $300 today,

a huge increase in salary for the working man.

- As a result, this was really the beginning

of evolution of the middle class

because people now had more money.

- Nobody had ever been able to make that kind of money

for unskilled labor before.

He was getting people from Europe.

- Ford attracted a lot of African American labor

from the south, so there was a great migration to Detroit

to find jobs and start a new life.

- People came pouring in from all over the country.

They finally had that special police units out

to keep the crowds at bay.

They they had to turn fire hoses on them to disperse them

because there were such crowds.

- You have not just the people on the line

assembling the cars,

you have the people making the parts for the cars,

you have the people making the tires for the cars,

you have the people involved with the roads for the cars.

You have this entire ecosystem

that builds up around this vehicle

that affects a lot of lives.

- [Narrator] As the auto industry grows,

the population of Detroit nearly doubles to half a million.

- I see Detroit in the 20th century

as representing precisely what Silicon Valley represents

in the first 20 years of the 21st century.

It was a place where people pursued their dreams.

It brought in a stream of population to the area.

It made the area robust economically.

- The country developed where in certain regions,

you had these pockets of condensed industry

and for Detroit, it was automotive industry.

That's forever what Detroit

will be synonymous with, is the automobile.

- [Narrator] Detroit is now

the fastest-growing city in the United States.

To accommodate the growth of his company,

Ford buys up 2,000 acres on the outskirts of the city

in his childhood home, Dearborn, Michigan.

He plans to create a giant state-of-the-art facility,

that he calls the River Rouge Complex.

That will be one of the largest factories

the world has ever seen.

By 1914, the car business is transforming America

in ways no other industry ever has.

The largest car maker, Ford, develops the assembly line,

a production model adopted by

businesses across the country,

that he uses to help create the middle class.

But as Ford surges, the industry's other giant,

GM, struggles to keep up,

an advantage Ford looks to capitalize on.

- Gentlemen.

- [Narrator] Ford risks bankruptcy

battling George Seldon

for the right to sell his cars without paying millions

in patent fees.

- It's a new day.

- [Narrator] The court rules that Seldon's patent

doesn't apply to the cars Ford or anyone else builds.

- There are a lot of dramatic moments in Henry Ford's life

but he never gave up, and it made him a folk hero.

And one of the interesting outcomes of that

is that there still to this day among American car makers

very, very few patent suits in the automobile industry.

- [Narrator] It's a huge victory for Ford.

With the patent declared null and void,

someone who never thought they'd be able

to build and sell cars now might.

- Horace.

This is our chance.

If we want to start building cars

with the name Dodge on them, now's the time.

- John, we've got a good thing going.

- (laughs) A good thing?

You want to be the man serving to Henry Ford,

making him get rich or you do something for yourself?

We built this.

Dodge Brothers.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Walter Chrysler introduces his own version

of the assembly and ups Buick's production over 500%.

- The Buick became the financial engine

of the General Motors Company.

Actually the $96 million profit of GM

was made by the Buick division.

- [Narrator] To combat Buick's increased production,

Ford reduces prices.

Hoping to make it a three-way battle,

William Durant turns his new company

to building a low cost car.

But his partner Louis Chevrolet

wants to make high-performance cars.

- Chevrolet had been a mechanic in Europe

and ran in the Indianapolis 500 four times.

There's some pride behind that

because it's founded by racers.

When I was younger I didn't have any idea

that racing was such a critical part of automobile industry.

(upbeat music)

- What the hell are you doing?

We had a meeting.

- This is not my design.

- Look, he had to make some small changes

to cut back on the cost to compete with the Model T,

but it's still your design.

- Henry Ford makes crap.

If you want to make crap, find someone else to do it with.

- You're going to regret this.

- [Narrator] Chevy's first car, the Series C,

fails to catch on, selling only 5,000 units.

Durant decides the partnership won't work

and buys Chevrolet out for a mere $10,000,

$250,000 today.

On the other side of the Atlantic,

the First World War rages.

(men shouting) (guns firing)

And American automakers see a new opportunity.

General Motors ships thousands of armored vehicles

to the British and French.

Ford converts its Model T into a military ambulance,

deploying 15,000 in the field of battle.

- World War One, of course, was a tremendous lift

to the Ford Motor Company.

Selling of cars and trucks to the fighting line in France.

- [Narrator] Ford Motor Company nets over $8 million

World War One contracts.

With his competitor struggling, Ford should be riding high.

But a new problem is brewing.

For over a decade, John and Horace Dodge

have helped to make the Ford Motor Company

America's number one car maker,

but they've always been kept away from the spotlight.

Ford treated his minority partners like employees

instead of equals.

- The legacy of a man like Henry Ford is always difficult.

On the one hand, you have a man

who was incredibly successful

who took an industry and made it that much bigger.

On the other hand, you have a man who had

no sense of loyalty to his business partners.

- [Narrator] Ford continues to invest his cash reserves

back into his company, refusing to pay dividends

to his investors.

- John, Horace.

- We've come for the money, Henry.

Where are the dividend payments?

- The dividends are now being reinvested in our company,

which we all share in the success of.

- And what if we we don't want to reinvest?

What if we want to take our money and leave?

- Thinking about building cars yourself, is that it?

That's why you want the money?

- The Model T is a toy compared to the car we make.

- The car.

You two may know how to build engines,

but you have no idea build a car.

- Someday, Henry, all the people that own a Ford,

they're going to want a Dodge.

- [Narrator] Ford knows that without dividends,

the Dodges will have less money to start their own company.

Success is changing Ford, making him more determined

to be the only one with a say his company's fortunes.

- He was the most famous American.

He was beloved by everybody,

and it's sad because it's at just about that moment

that the bad Henry Ford begins to emerge.

- [Narrator] Ford starts a rumor he's leaving the company

to try to make the stock even less valuable.

It's a move that shocks the world

and it's one that will change the life

of his only son, Edsel.

- Being Henry Ford's son, I wouldn't wish that on anybody.

I mean, how can you follow up on a man

that changed the world?

That's what he was faced with, Edsel Ford.

- Henry and Edsel were very different people.

Henry Ford was raised as a farm boy, basically.

Edsel Ford was a rich man's son.

And here we begin to see a real tragedy,

of almost Shakespearean scope.

- Gentlemen.

- [Narrator] Ford who is looking to buy back the stock

he's given to the Dodges and other investors

announces a shocking change.

- The new president of the Ford Motor Company, Edsel Ford.

(crowd clamoring) (dramatic music)

Edsel, do you think you're ready

to fill your father's shoes?

- I intend to try. - Well, of course he is.

He's a Ford.

Isn't that right, son?

- [Narrator] The first few decades of the 20th century

have seen massive change across America.

Cars have been responsible for the creation

of a national road system

and the birth of the middle class.

The big players in the business are excelling.

Walter Chrysler has overseen a massive turnaround at GM,

pulling it back from bankruptcy,

and Henry Ford as a plan to restore to his family

complete control of his auto empire

while crushing his partners Horace and John Dodge.

Henry Ford's move to step down

and appoint his young son president

sends Ford stock plummeting.

- Edsel was president in name only.

Of course Henry Ford wasn't going to

take his hand off the company.

- [Narrator] Rattled investors,

including the Dodge Brothers,

are forced to take pennies on the dollar for their share.

Ford snatches up every share of his company at a cut rate

and suddenly the world's largest manufacturing firm

now sits in the hands of just one man.

- Henry Ford, he was the world's first billionaire.

He bought out his shareholders for $75 million.

- [Narrator] While Henry Ford owns 100% of his business,

oil tycoon John Rockefeller owns

just one quarter of Standard Oil.

Henry Ford is so powerful he believes

he can do whatever he wants.

Horace and John Dodge are quickly backed by investors

who know their reputation

as the best mechanical minds in Detroit.

And they start to create their own company.

- Hey, John.

- What do you need? - Come take a look.

- [Narrator] They're hell-bent on building a car

to compete with the Model T.

- All right, so even with the second seat in the back.

- Mm-hmm.

- And we're gonna have nothing up front, right here.

To fit that four-cylinder up front like that.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- What do you think?

- Ha, I like it.

- The Dodge Brothers came out with their first car.

That first car included much more powerful engine

and it sold for 795 at the time

that the Model T was selling for $490.

- [Narrator] The Dodges' first design

may be more expensive than the Model T,

but it offers Americans a new kind of automobile.

- What are gonna call this?

- This is going to be called the Model 30.

- Model 30, brought to you by the Dodge Brothers.

- [Narrator] The 1915 Dodge Model 30

features a series of technological innovations

that revolutionize the industry.

It's powered by a 3.4 liter four-cylinder engine,

good for 35 horsepower, 60% more than the Model T.

It features a three-speed manual sliding gear transmission,

a massive upgrade over the Model T's two-speed design.

The Dodge 30 is housed in the first ever

mass-produced all steel body,

making it the strongest and most durable

automobile available on the market,

all for under $800 or $20,000 today.

The Model 30 embodies the Dodge tradition of

a tough, durable, and reliable car.

- The Dodge Model 30 was leagues ahead

of what the Model T was.

Looking at a all unibody setup,

the car was safer, the car ran better,

and it was by all indications successful.

- [Narrator] Young George S. Patton uses them

to hunt down Mexican outlaw Pancho Villa

in a raid along the Mexican border.

45,000 Model 30s sell in its first year,

making Dodge the number three car manufacturer

in the country, behind only Ford and GM.

But unlike Patton,

some people see a less-than-honorable use

for the Model 30.

(gun firing)

As Congress outlaws the sale of alcohol in the US,

a new breed of criminal emerges.

- During the era of Prohibition, it makes it a lot easier

for the crooks who are delivering alcohol

that they have vehicles of their own.

Nothing like it could have emerged on the scale

that it did before automobiles.

- [Narrator] Bootleggers start customizing their cars,

adding heavy duty suspensions,

removing seats, and installing tanks to fill with liquor.

- The moonshiners, they soup up their cars

so they can outrun the revenuers, the federal agents.

Eventually these guys who have the fast cars,

they decide to race against each other.

It's no accident that the original

NASCAR belt in America is in this southeast region,

where the moonshine business originated.

- It was in their best interest to have fast cars

and great drivers, otherwise, they'd all be in jail.

They're all running moonshine.

Now all but one race team is there in the Carolinas.

(dramatic music) (men yelling)

- [Narrator] With crime on the rise

and a massive fortune to protect

Henry Ford wants some muscle.

(men yelling)

He finds it in a former sailor turned bare-knuckle fighter.

His name is Harry Bennett.

Ford hires Bennett as head of his internal security force.

- Henry Ford hired ex-thugs, ex-football players,

big strong men, and he also put Harry Bennett

in charge of protecting himself from extortion,

from kidnapping, from harm.

And Harry Bennett had to control the workforce.

The way he did that was through fear and intimidation.

- The reason Harry Bennett wore the bowtie

as opposed to a regular tie,

somebody couldn't grab it and immobilize you for a punch.

- [Narrator] Bennett is everything

Ford's son Edsel is not.

and quickly becomes Henry's right-hand man.

- Edsel was a different person than his father.

He was really interested in the way cars looked.

He was a man a wonderful taste,

loved the shapes, the curves, the colors.

- Welcome back.

How was your trip?

- What is that?

- It's a new design for the Model T.

It's just a prototype.

It's still in development,

but I think it has some improvements.

- Improvements?

(glass shattering)

- [Narrator] The US now leads the world in manufacturing,

and the auto industry is at the forefront

with three firms dominating.

Ford at number one, GM at number two,

and Dodge at number three.

These giants are reshaping the country in their image

with miles of paved roads allowing for developed land

just outside urban centers in the suburbs

and accelerating the development of the middle class

that will define America.

The third decade of the 20th century

starts with change at the Ford Motor Company.

As Henry Ford's son, Edsel, is named president,

and the transition of power is not going smoothly.

(glass shattering)

- There's nothing wrong with the Model T.

Certainly nothing that can be fixed by you.

- Henry Ford felt like motivating people

by treating them badly was the key to success,

and the way he treated Edsel,

constantly intentionally disparaging him,

intentionally rejecting his suggestions

as a way of motivating him to be better,

this is Henry Ford's philosophy of life.

- [Narrator] William Durant whose company, Chevrolet,

is quietly finding market share

quickly puts him to place his ultimate plan.

- Durant came up with an idea of how to get back

at General Motors and at the people

that threw him out of the company.

He was buying stock of General Motors

and he'd acquired quite a few shares.

- [Narrator] Once Durant secretly aquires enough GM stock

to have a controlling interest,

he merges it with Chevrolet

and suddenly William Durant

is back running the company he founded.

- Billy Durant is buying up

all of these automobile manufactures.

Bought up Frigidaire, home appliances,

anything that he felt could be a center for profit

was something that he felt should belong to General Motors.

- [Narrator] The man who saved GM from bankruptcy

now has a new boss.

- Mr. Durant,

I'm Walter Chrysler.

Welcome back to GM.

Mr. Chrysler,

I've wanted to meet with you for some time,

to talk about a few things.

By cutting the gloss coat from the undercarriage,

we've been able to reduce cost.

- It sounds like a fine idea.

I'm sure the boys upstairs will make careful note of it.

- Chrysler was an organized, practical man,

and Durant was anything but.

Durant was a visionary and he did not take time

to work out the details.

- Mr. Durant, is there a better time for us to discuss this?

- Keep up the good work, Mr. Chrysler.

Thanks for coming by.

Thank you.

Nice to finally meet you.

- [Narrator] Chrysler's attention to detail doesn't mesh

with Durant's management style.

- Chrysler has enough.

He didn't like dealing with Durant.

He said, Billy, you and I can never get along.

He had made a lot of money with the arrangement

that he had with General Motors.

- [Narrator] Walter Chrysler decides

it's time to become his own boss.

- Walter Chrysler always had an appetite for risk

but this was more than that.

He knew that he had an opportunity to be a success

beyond anybody's imagination.

- [Narrator] To raise capital,

Chrysler cashes in $10 million

of his GM stock, worth 140 million today.

- He had learned everything there was to know

about manufacturing automobiles.

- [Narrator] He uses it to buy Maxwell Motor Company.

Then, he redesigns their best selling car,

the Maxwell Model 25.

- If you're willing to spend more time working

longer and harder than anyone else

if you're passionate about the industry you're working in,

you'll stay open-minded to new things that come in

and be able to succeed.

- [Narrator] The new Model features the first mass-produced

six-cylinder engine and varnished wood spoked wheels.

It is seen by many to be one of the first

affordable luxury cars.

Chrysler sells over 30,000 in the first year,

but he knows that he needs to expand his line

to compete with industry leader Ford,

where new President Edsel Ford is struggling

to prove himself as he continues to push for new designs.

- Edsel Ford, he was a nice man, Democratic,

will consult with people, will take people's advice.

Henry Ford was the complete opposite.

He was autocratic, dictatorial, selfish,

ruthless, and cunning, and so you had two

diametrically opposed people and they had conflict

almost from the beginning because of that.

- Don't waste your time.

You know better than to think you're actually in charge.

- You'll never run this company,

not if I have anything to say about it.

(coughing)

- How are you feeling?

- Like hell.

- You've looked better.

- You don't look so good yourself. (coughing)

- [Narrator] At the country's number three automaker,

the Dodge Brothers continued to innovate

until circumstances beyond their control intervened.

- The influenza epidemic of 1918, 1919,

it changed the United States,

it changed it in every conceivable way.

- [Narrator] The Spanish flu is the world's worst pandemic,

transmitted by soldiers returning from World War One.

It kills nearly 700,000 Americans,

10 times the number killed in combat.

Worldwide, half a billion people are infected,

1/3 of the global population,

and now the disease threatens to rob the country

of two of its most gifted car makers.

(swing music)

The US car industry,

led by Ford and GM,

has become big business,

selling eight million cars and netting billions in profits

while creating a national road system,

the suburbs, and a middle-class.

But the industry is starting to experience growing pains.

(coughing)

- Here.

- [Narrator] The Spanish flu afflicted millions,

including the Dodge Brothers.

John Dodge succumbs to the epidemic in 1920,

and just a year later,

Horace follows him into an early grave,

putting the country's number three automaker in limbo.

- What a shame.

- The Dodge Brothers were really geniuses in the field.

Unfortunately there's no way to see how far

they could have gone with their company

in terms of their impact on the automotive world.

- [Narrator] The tragedy gives Walter Chrysler

just the opportunity he's been looking for.

- [Reporter] Mr. Chrysler, over here, please.

- The Dodge Brothers widows had sold the company.

It was being run by some bankers who really didn't know

that much about running a car company.

Chrysler saw the opportunities in my Dodge

which not only had big factories

but also had a good reputation as a company.

- [Narrator] Chrysler and his investors pay $170 million,

nearly $11 billion today, one of the largest

business transactions of the twentieth century.

It's a move that stuns the industry

and instantly makes Chrysler one of the three biggest

car makers in America.

- Every day decisions define who we are.

We're defined by our opportunities,

not just the ones we capitalize on as great inventors are

but also the ones we miss.

- As the market becomes more refined and more sophisticated

the big players win and the smaller players drop out

because they don't have the efficiency of scale

that the bigger players have, and pretty soon,

you had just the big three.

- [Narrator] The once chaotic American auto industry

is now dominated

by Chrysler,

General Motors,

and Ford.

Three of the most influential corporations America

and the world will ever see.

They come to be known simply as:

"The Big Three".

- The new name for progress will be General Motors.

- [Narrator] The cars they produce

drive America into the future,

but the road ahead tests the might and the will

of the nation

(engines rev)

in a battle that will soon erupt

in an all-out war.

(glass breaking)

(gunshot)

- [Narrator] On the next episode

of The Cars that Made America.

The Roaring 20s bring prosperity to the country

as the car becomes the heart of American culture.

And the big three battle to capitalize

on an auto obsessed nation.

- All I want to do is crush Henry Ford.

- [Narrator] But as economic turmoil crashes the party,

labor violence threatens to bring Detroit

to its knees.