First Car Sold

On this date in 1903, the Ford Motor Company sold its first car. The first Model A went to Dr. Ernst Pfennig of Chicago, Illinois. He was a dentist, and he had placed his order for the $850 automobile the week before. The car was manufactured in Detroit, at the company's Mack Street plant. The car boasted a two-cylinder, eight-horsepower engine, and could move at speeds approaching 30 miles per hour. It had two forward gears, and one reverse. Dr. Pfennig ordered his with a tonneau, which we now know as a back seat. It was a convertible — the top didn't come standard — and it was painted red. All the original Model A's were red, in fact. The Fords that were available "in any color you want, as long as it's black" came later.

Within two months of Pfennig's order, Ford Motor Company had sold 215 cars. Within the first year, they sold almost a thousand. This was the original Model A. The next model to be produced was the Model C, which came out the following year, and then the Model T, which came out in 1908 and was sold until 1927. Ford used all the letters of the alphabet from A to T, but not all of them were manufactured and sold; most were just prototypes.

After the Model T, he came up with a design so different and new that he didn't want to just move on to the letter U; he wanted to start over at the beginning of the alphabet. And so a second, and better-known, Ford automobile known as the Model A was sold from 1927 to 1931.