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50 free Henry Ford trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Henry Ford trivia quiz follows the farm boy from Dearborn who hated farming, took apart neighbours' watches at 15, worked for Edison's electric company, and built a Quadricycle in his shed in 1896. It covers the two failed companies before Ford Motor, the record run on frozen Lake St. Clair, the Model T and the moving assembly line, the $5 day and the five-day week, the Peace Ship, the Senate race, the Dearborn Independent, the Battle of the Overpass, Fordlandia, the Trimotor, Willow Run and the family coup that finally handed the company to his grandson. The easy questions are ones most people know: the car, the colour, the company. The medium ones ask about his mentors, his rivals, his racing days, his labour policies and his aviation ventures. The hard ones dig into the Dodge brothers, the 999, the six-cent libel verdict, the soybean car, Kingsford charcoal and Brave New World. It suits a business or American history round, a car-club quiz or anyone who wants to look past the assembly line. Every answer has been checked against a reference encyclopaedia, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which 1908 car is credited with revolutionising both transportation and American industry?
The Model T
It cost $825 at launch, and by 1918 it accounted for half of all cars in the United States.
Q 02In what year did Ford found the Ford Motor Company?
1903
It was his third attempt after the Detroit Automobile Company and the Henry Ford Company both failed him.
Q 03Ford's father William was born in which country?
Ireland
He came from County Cork; Ford's mother was the daughter of Belgian immigrants.
Q 04What reputation did the 15-year-old Ford earn by dismantling and reassembling neighbours' timepieces?
Watch repairman
His father had given him a pocket watch when he was 12.
Q 05What did 12-year-old Ford see in 1875 that he called 'the first automobile other than horse-drawn that I had ever seen'?
A Nichols and Shepard road engine
He named that sighting and the gift of a watch as the two significant events of the year.
Q 06How did Ford sum up his feelings about the place where he grew up?
'It was the mother on the farm I loved'
His mother died in 1876, and he left home at 16 to become an apprentice machinist in Detroit.
Q 07Which firm employed Ford as an engineer from 1891, promoting him to chief engineer in 1893?
Edison Illuminating Company
The job gave him the time and money to experiment with gasoline engines.
Q 08What did Ford name the self-propelled vehicle he completed and test-drove in June 1896?
The Quadricycle
He built three of them in his home workshop.
Q 09Which famous inventor encouraged Ford's automobile experiments after they met in 1896?
Thomas Edison
They became close friends and later neighbours in Fort Myers, Florida.
Q 10What did the Henry Ford Company become after Ford walked out in 1902?
Cadillac
Henry Leland, brought in as a consultant, renamed the company; Ford later bought Leland's next luxury firm too.
Q 11Which siblings supplied over $160,000 in parts to the young Ford company and became shareholders?
The Dodge brothers
John and Horace Dodge demanded payment for their first shipment, forcing a reorganisation.
Q 12On what frozen surface did Ford set a land speed record of 91.3 mph in a demonstration run?
Lake St. Clair
Race driver Barney Oldfield then took the car, named 999 after the fastest locomotive of the day, around the country.
Q 13What did the Model T cost when it debuted on October 1, 1908?
$825
The price fell every year, reaching $360 for the basic touring car by 1916.
Q 21Which car succeeded the Tin Lizzie in 1927 after an 18-month production shutdown?
Model A
More than four million were made through 1931, built at the huge new River Rouge plant.
Q 22What engineering 'bombshell' did Ford drop in 1932?
The flathead V8, the first low-price eight-cylinder engine
Ford had first considered a radical X-8 design; the V8 gave the brand a hot-rod reputation.
Q 23What daily wage did Ford astonish the world by offering in January 1914?
$5
It more than doubled most workers' pay, and the best mechanics in Detroit flocked to him.
Q 14Which design feature of the Model T did every other car company soon copy?
Steering wheel on the left
Its four cylinders were also cast in a single block, and it was simple to drive and cheap to repair.
Q 15In what year did Ford introduce moving assembly belts into his plants?
1913
Contemporary sources credit employees such as Clarence Avery, Peter Martin, Charles Sorensen and Harold Wills with the concept.
Q 16Ford's famous line said customers could have any colour they wanted 'so long as it is' what?
Black
Black was mandated because it dried fastest on the assembly line; earlier Model Ts had come in other colours, including red.
Q 17How many Model Ts were built in total by the time production ended in 1927?
About 15 million
The record stood for 45 years.
Q 18To whom did Ford hand the presidency of Ford Motor Company in December 1918?
His son Edsel
Henry kept final say and sometimes reversed his son's decisions.
Q 19What ruse did Ford use to scare minority shareholders into selling him their Ford Motor stock?
He announced a rival firm bearing his own name
It worked, and the family took sole ownership of the company.
Q 20Which luxury car maker did Ford buy in 1922?
Lincoln
It had been founded by Henry Leland, the man whose arrival had once driven Ford out of his own company.
Q 24What was the name of the Ford unit whose 50 investigators vetted workers' private lives for profit-sharing?
The Social Department
It frowned on heavy drinking and gambling; Ford later admitted such 'paternalism has no place in industry'.
Q 25On May 1 of which year did Ford's factory workers switch to a five-day, 40-hour week?
1926
Ford said leisure for workers was neither 'lost time' nor 'a class privilege'.
Q 26Ford called labour unions what?
'The worst thing that ever struck the earth'
He gave his views on unions in Chapter 18 of My Life and Work.
Q 27Which former Navy boxer ran Ford's Service Department and its intimidation of union organisers?
Harry Bennett
His men beat Walter Reuther and other UAW members in the 1937 Battle of the Overpass; Henry Ford II fired him first thing in 1945.
Q 28Who told Ford in 1941 that she would leave him if he broke up the company rather than sign with the UAW?
His wife Clara
Ford relented, and overnight signed the most favourable UAW contract in Detroit.
Q 29What was the nickname of the Ford Trimotor aircraft?
The Tin Goose
Made of corrugated Alclad metal, it first flew in 1926 and was the first successful US passenger airliner.
Q 30What did Ford fund in 1915 to try to end World War I, leading 170 activists to Europe?
A Peace Ship
He was widely ridiculed and left the ship as soon as it reached Sweden.