The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century (Vintage) by Steven Watts Page A

current tricks of the trade by deploying slogans, logos, and images. “Watch the Fords Go By” appeared constantly, of course, as did the phrase “The Universal Car.” The company created its famous trademark of “the winged pyramid”—a pyramid shape with wings sprouting from each side, with “Ford” emblazoned across the middle and “The Universal Car” in smaller letters beneath it—to adorn its ads as well as the show windows of most Ford dealers. Company boilerplate explained this imagery from ancient Egypt: “The pyramid suggests strength, permanency, stability—the conventionalized Sacred Ibis wings typify lightness, grace, speed. And on the winged pyramid is our advertising endeavor centered.” Then there was the flowing script of Ford that appeared not only in advertisements but on the radiator fronts of the Model T itself. Thus, in the years after 1909, an array of symbols clearly established Ford's new car in the mind of the average consumer. As a 1912ad declared, “You can't get beyond the domain of 'The Winged Pyramid.' ” 28
    The company and its dealers, embracing the philosophy that the best kind of advertising is free, did not shy away from headline-grabbing stunts and promotions. Ford distributors utilized hot-air balloons with the name of their business and “Ford Model T Cars” splashed in large letters across the side, which sailed around their towns attracting enormous amounts of attention. Many dealers offered demonstrations of stair-climbing. Max Gottberg of Columbus, Nebraska, for example, took one of his Model T's to the town's YMCA building, gathered a crowd, and proceeded to drive up the stone steps to show its ability to maneuver up steep, rough grades. The
Ford Times,
in a pictorial write-up, urged all its dealers to duplicate this feat for its publicity value. 29
    Perhaps the best example of Model T publicity came in the summer of 1909with the great Transcontinental Race from New York to Seattle. Set up as part of a publicity campaign for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition held in Seattle that year, this endurance race appeared a heaven-sent advertising opportunity for the company and its new car. The race was scheduled to begin in New York City, proceed through St. Louis, and conclude in Seattle. Henry Ford immediately issued a challenge to all other automakers, offering to match the Model T against any of their models for “any sum of money that acceptants may suggest as a suitable purse.”
    The race began on June 1, with two Model T's among the field of six. The Fords pulled into a quick lead in an uneventful first stage that brought them to St. Louis on June 5. In the Western portion of the race, however, problems mounted. Torrential rains and hailstorms bogged the drivers down in mud and washed-out roads; mountainous areas in the Rockies, with roads that were little more than goat paths, caused broken wheels and bentaxles. Bad maps and lack of dependable gas and oil sources did not help matters. After a series of adventures that included skidding down a fourteen-foot embankment into a stream, suffering a fire started by a careless bystander who struck a match on the side of the gas tank, getting lost so completely that the car had to travel eight miles on railroad ties and dash through a mountain tunnel to get back on track, and sinking through the crust of a four-foot snowdrift in a mountain pass and being dug out by a railroad crew with shovels, Ford No. 2 dashed into Seattle the winner on June 22.A crowd of two hundred thousand, including Henry Ford, who had trav-eled west for the occasion, were there to cheer the Model T home. It had completed the run in twenty-two days and fifty-five minutes. Another car, the Shawmut, arrived seventeen hours later, closely followed by Ford No. 1. The other entries failed to complete the race. 30
    The Transcontinental Race generated tremendous publicity. The Ford Motor Company, boasting two out of the top three finishers, benefited