On Oct. 1, 1908, at a plant on Piquette Ave. in Detroit, the five-year-old Ford Motor Co. builds its first Model T passenger car. Production tops 15 million units by the time the last one rolls off the line at Ford's Highland Park, MI, plant on May 26, 1927. Prices for early models start at $850, and they are available in various colors with brass trim. However, Henry Ford's drive for efficiency in 1914 leads to his famous quote: "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants, so long as it is black." Bright work and colors are eliminated. Black is used exclusively because it was the fastest-drying varnish available (colored enamel paint often required up to a month or more to dry properly). By the mid-1920s DuPont had perfected fast-drying lacquer, and in 1926 and 1927 the Model T, now priced as low as $260, is again offered with color choices.
