Funny it comes up here… You mentioned that those cars came with a heater…
Did you know that the last year a US-built automobile offered a heater as optional equipment was 1966, with Studebaker being the final holdout. While most American manufacturers made heaters standard equipment by the early 1960s, Studebaker continued to charge extra for them until 1966, after which federal safety standards for defrosting made them mandatory.
My first car, a 1954 /dodge Meadowbrook had both an Optional Heater and the Optional Defroster, both had their own blower motor and separate core with separate radiator hoses going to the heater and the defroster…
More than likely, the powers-that-be at Studebaker were focused on an orderly shut-down of production by the mid-60s. The last Studebaker rolled off the Hamilton, Ontario assembly line in March, 1966.
I remember the old days when mirrors,backup lights, floor mats, ww tires, full hub caps, etc. were all itemized at extra cost. The new way saves paper and streamlines production.
If they were itemized, they were extra cost. In 1968, my girl friend at the time ordered a new Malibu. She was on a budget so manual trams, no ac, and skipped the full wheel covers. I think it was the only Malibu in town with those small hub caps. Looked like a police car. Tinted windows were extra cost too in the hot South Dakota sun.
Remember Henry Ford’s famous words during a meeting with his sales team in 1909 to address their requests for more models and variety. “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.”
His response was based on the recent innovation of the Assembly Line and as long as they used a single color, the assembly line didn’t have to stop to clean equipment for color changes.
Additionally, adding options meant have special staging areas to accommodate some special option. It was time and money…
However, to meet customer demand Options became a real thing and the manufactures had toad them to remain competitive…
An example, my first car, a 1954 Doge Meadowbrook, had these options that my neighbor, who bought the car new had to pay for… the directionals, an AM radio (with 7-buttons…), a heater, a defroster (both the heater and the defroster had different cores, and blower motors to push air through the heater or the defroster). It even had an air conditioner installed in the trunk, the compressor was powered by an electric motor and it ran vents under the seats and alongside the drive-train hump to cool the front.
This page is from my Dodge’s Sales Handout… I do not know when an Oil Filter became standard equipment but apparently, at some time it was optimal…
I remember my dad telling me about the first new car he bought, a ‘63 Fairlane. He knew he had to have a V-8, but other than that he declined most of the options. Poverty caps with blackwalls, no radio (he added that after he saved for a few months, manual steering and brakes, no floormats, etc. He didn’t like the color but took delivery from dealer stock for a few bucks off. I don’t even know if the car had seat belts, I remember the rear seat didn’t.
While seat belts did not become mandatory in all vehicles in the U.S. until 1968, the state of Wisconsin was ahead of the curve, becoming the first state to require seat belts in 1961
I Rembrandt one of my teachers in the early sixties complaining Chrysler was going to accessory packages rather than allowing individual accessories to be ordered.
I play around with the build and price function on manufacturers websites. What really annoying $500 or more for a color, then further down get message you can’t order that accessory package with that color. Yeah, I know, it’s to make the assembly lines more efficient.
The actual reason for the selection of “black only” for later Model Ts was that black paint dried much faster than other colors. The early Ts were available in gray, green, red, and blue–with no option for black.
By later switching to “black only”, production time per car was reduced from 14 hours to 90 minutes, simply because of much faster drying time for black paint that was “baked” in an oven. Black paint was also cheaper.
I have to revise my overall answer… @jtsanders got it right… Antarctica….So only ONE continent did not had a Model T plant.
I thought Africa was the second continent without a Model T plant but… Ford opened a Model T plant in South Africa in 1923 to produce Model Ts from knock-down-kits shipped from Canada.
I used to call on Ford, and I recall a conversation that Ford had put a dollar figure to how much offering options cost them - and it was enough to give you pause. In other words, offering an option was way so costly that making the upgrade nearly paid for itself.
