Henry Ford once said something of this nature: “A customer may have a car in any color he desires, so long as it’s black.” Today, many people have taken this quote to mean that every Model T Ford, the car which undoubtedly made the American automobile affordable and “put America on Wheels,” was painted black. This is not the case. From 1908 to 1914, Model T Fords were painted in a variety of 4-5 available colors. all colors were darker shades. Interestingly enough, black was not offered as a color initially.
However, from 1914 to 1926 all Model T Fords were indeed painted black. The reason behind this color choice was purely economic: Ford wanted to produce the most automobiles in the least amount of time. Because black paint at the time was the least expensive and dried the fastest, black paint allowed Ford to produce a single car in 90 minutes – and satisfy the nations hunger for personal transportation at a relatively inexpensive price.
