Editing Ford Model T (section)

===Colors===
By 1918, half of all the cars in the U.S. were Model&nbsp;Ts. In his autobiography, Ford reported that in 1909 he told his management team, "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black."<!-- DO NOT TRY TO COPY EDIT THIS QUOTE; IT IS ALREADY *VERBATIM* AND ALREADY ACCEPTABLY WRITTEN. --><ref>{{Harvnb|Ford|Crowther|1922|p=72}}.</ref>

However, in the first years of production from 1908 to 1913, the Model&nbsp;T was ''not'' available in black,<ref name="McCalley 1994">{{Harvnb|McCalley|1994}}.</ref> but rather only in gray, green, blue, and red.  Green was available for the touring cars, town cars, coupes, and [[Landaulet (car)|Landaulets]]. Gray was available for the town cars only and red only for the touring cars. By 1912, all cars were being painted midnight blue with black fenders. Only in 1914 was the "any color so long as it is black" policy finally implemented.

It is often stated Ford suggested the use of black from 1914 to 1925 due to the low cost, durability, and faster drying time of black paint in that era. There is no evidence that black dried any faster than any other dark varnishes used at the time for painting,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Casey |first1=Robert |title=The Model T: A Centennial History |date=2008 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |isbn=9780801888502 |page=67 }}</ref> but [[carbon black]] pigment was indeed one of the cheapest (if not the cheapest) available, and dark color of [[gilsonite]], a form of bitumen making cheap metal paints of the time durable, limited the (final) color options to dark shades of maroon, blue, green or black.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://mtfca.com/encyclo/P-R.htm#paint4 |title=P-R |publisher=Mtfca.com |date= |accessdate=2022-08-06}}</ref> At that period Ford used two similar types of the so-called [[Japan black]] paint, one as a basic coat applied directly to the metal and another as a final finish.

Paint choices in the American automotive industry, as well as in others (including locomotives, furniture, bicycles, and the rapidly expanding field of electrical appliances), were shaped by the development of the [[chemical industry]]. These included the disruption of dye sources during [[World War I]] and the advent, by the mid-1920s, of new [[nitrocellulose lacquer]]s that were faster-drying and more scratch-resistant and obviated the need for multiple coats.<ref name="Dutton_1942">{{Harvnb|Dutton|1942}}.</ref>{{rp|261–301}} Understanding the choice of paints for the Model&nbsp;T era and the years immediately following requires an understanding of the contemporaneous chemical industry.<ref name="Dutton_1942"/>

During the lifetime production of the Model&nbsp;T, over 30 types of black paint were used on various parts of the car.<ref name="McCalley 1994"/> These were formulated to satisfy the different means of applying the paint to the various parts, and had distinct drying times, depending on the part, paint, and method of drying.