Henry Ford：My Life and Work, Additional Excerpt 67

That "Model B"--the first four-cylinder car for general road use--had to be advertised. Winning a race or making a record was then the best kind of advertising. So I fixed up the "Arrow," the twin of the old "999"--in fact practically remade it--and a week before the New York Automobile show I drove it myself over a surveyed mile straightaway on the ice. I shall never forget that race. The ice seemed smooth enough, so smooth that if I had called off the trial we should have secured an immense amount of the wrong kind of advertising, but instead of being smooth, that ice was seamed with fissures which I knew were going to mean trouble the moment I got up speed. But there was nothing to do but go through with the trial, and I let the old "Arrow" out. At every fissure the car leaped into the air. I never knew how it was coming down. When I wasn't in the air, I was skidding, but somehow I stayed top side up and on the course, making a record that went all over the world! That put "Model B" on the map--but not enough on to overcome the price advances. No stunt and no advertising will sell an article for any length of time. Business is not a game. The moral is coming.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7213
Locator：Additional excerpt 67 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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