An ode to the Model T from Eric Peters at theburningplatform.com:
You will probably never hear a TED talk about it, but the fact is the most autonomous car ever made was last made almost 100 years ago.
It was the Model T Ford – produced from 1908-1927.
Here was a car that did almost everything on its own – the defining essence of autonomous. It needed almost nothing from the external world except some gas in the tank. Not even a starter.
You were the starter.
Which meant that as long as you had at least one good arm and there was gas in the tank – gravity fed, so no worries about a fuel pump failing – you would probably not be walking.
It didn’t even have to have gas in its tank.
The Model T’s cast iron, 177 cubic inch four cylinder flathead engine could – and would – also run on alcohol or benzene or kerosene. Almost any combustible liquid would work in a pinch.
It was a “flex-fuel” engine decades before the term was coined.
