FIRST MASS PRODUCED AUTO

So tell me Jim, what was the first American car to be mass produced?


Though many people think it was Henry Ford who invented mass production, that technique had been around for a hundred years. The first American car to be mass produced was the Oldsmobile. Ransom E. Olds, started manufacturing his "curved dash" Oldsmobile in 1901. That year, 425 were built and by 1904, 5,508 Oldsmobiles were built in a year. What Henry Ford did do was to incorporate the moving assembly line into car production. That brought the car to the worker rather than the workers moving to the car. Henry had the foresight to build a car that was affordable by the working man, thus turning the United States from a horse and buggy nation to a automobile nation.

As was common at the time, there were car men and there were money men. The car men would come up with the idea and design for a car and the money man would finance the venture. Inevitably the two paths would diverge and the car man went elsewhere. This happened to Ransom E. Olds and he went on to start another car company using his initials "REO". The REO originally manufactured cars, but later moved production to trucks. One model, the Speedwagon, was the inspiration for the name of the band.