- Henry Ford's Model T automobile created an auto boom in the US in the early 1900s.
- There were less than 200,000 cars on the road before Ford released the Model T.
- At its peak, the Model T cost just $575, which was less than the average annual salary for most Americans.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Before there were Elon Musk and Tesla, there were Henry Ford and the Model T. And between Tesla's state-of-the-art cars and the rise of self-driving vehicles, it's difficult to remember how far we've come since the first-ever automobiles built in Europe in the late 1800s.
When Henry Ford built the first Model T, specifically, in 1908, he sparked an automotive movement across the US, the effects of which we are still feeling today.
Here are 13 photos of the Model T era, which revolutionized driving in America.
SEE ALSO: The vintage-car market is melting down
Although the first car was built in Europe, the US came to dominate the industry in the early 1900s. Henry Ford was at the forefront when he implemented the assembly line.
At the start of the 20th century, Henry Ford implemented the assembly line in his factory, which allowed one person to work on a single task repetitively and then pass the product off to another person to complete a different task. The revolutionary manufacturing model helped Ford introduce the Model T in 1908.
He started the assembly line in the famous Ford factory in Detroit, Michigan.
It took 84 steps to create a Model T in the Ford factory.
Since each worker only had to specialize in one step of the car-making process, Ford was able to hire unskilled workers with no background in the automotive industry.
Feeling the threat of competition, Ford paid his workers above normal rates because he didn't want them going to other factories to find work.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider