p. 97 ; As cited in: EyeWitness to History (2005)
“

It took only a few days to block off the little room on the third floor back of the Piquette Avenue plant and to set up a few simple power tools and Joe Galamb's two blackboards. The blackboards were a good idea. They gave a king-sized drawing which, when all initial refinements had been made, could be photographed for two purposes: as a protection against patent suits attempting to prove prior claim to originality and as a substitute for blueprints. A little more than a year later Model T, the product of that cluttered little room, was announced to the world. But another half year passed before the first Model T was ready for what had already become a clamorous market...

— Charles E. Sorensen

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "It took only a few days to block off the little room on the third floor back of the Piquette Avenue plant and to set up a few simple power tools and Joe Galamb's two blackboards. The blackboards were a good idea. They gave a king-sized drawing which, when all initial refinements had been made, could be photographed for two purposes: as a protection against patent suits attempting to prove prior claim to originality and as a substitute for blueprints. A little more than a year later Model T, the product of that cluttered little room, was announced to the world. But another half year passed before the first Model T was ready for what had already become a clamorous market..." in the context of "p. 97 ; As cited in: EyeWitness to History (2005)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Charles E. Sorensen" (Quotes, My Forty Years with Ford, 1956: Charles E. Sorensen (1956) My Forty Years with Ford, New York, New York, USA: Norton.) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Charles E. Sorensen

About Charles E. Sorensen

Charles Emil Sorensen (7 September 1881 – 11 August 1968) was a Danish-American principal of the Ford Motor Company during its first four decades. Like most other managers at Ford during those decades, he did not have an official job title, but he served functionally as a patternmaker, foundry engineer, mechanical engineer, industrial engineer, production manager, and executive in charge of all production.