The 15 Millionth Model T and the End of the Line

This is the story of that one car and the weeks around it, not the whole run of the T; for that, see the Model T years 1908 to 1927.

May 26, 1927: the last day at Highland Park

Ford announced the end of the Model T on May 25, 1927. The next day, at Highland Park, the 15 millionth Model T came down the line, and Henry and Edsel Ford drove it out together. That was the end of the Model T at Highland Park, though not quite everywhere else, as the next sections show. The car was a 1927 touring, one of the Improved Model Ts, the facelifted cars Ford sold for 1926 and 1927 (more on that here).

It is worth pausing on the pairing. Edsel had been president of the company since December 1918, but Henry kept final say, and the Model T was Henry's car more than anyone's. The two of them in one car on the day it ended is the kind of photograph a company plans. Ford had done the same thing three years earlier with the 10 millionth Ford, a Model T, in June 1924. That car went on a tour of the Lincoln Highway.

Then the plants went quiet. Ford shut its factories in early June 1927 and laid off about 60,000 workers. The changeover took the rest of the year. Model A production started on October 20, 1927, and the public saw the new car on December 2.

Was it really the 15 millionth Model T?

Here is where the paperwork gets interesting. Ford's own description calls it the 15 millionth vehicle, a figure that counts more than the cars built in Detroit. The US production table, year by year, adds up to 14,689,525. The difference is foreign and Canadian output. Worldwide totals land just over 15 million, with 15,007,034 the figure most often cited and Ford itself saying simply "more than 15,000,000." So the number on the celebration was honest in the way company milestones usually are: it was the 15 millionth Ford-built Model T counted the way Ford chose to count it, and close enough that nobody at the time argued.

The other wrinkle is the date. Most sources, and The Henry Ford's own overview of the car, give May 26, 1927. The museum's object record lists a subject date of May 27, and at least one archive gives the 27th as the day production officially ended. When a club member tells you the 27th, they are not making it up. They are just reading a different line of the same file.

"Every famous car has two stories: the one people tell and the one on the catalog card. With the fifteen millionth, the card is the better story. It even admits it has two dates."

Wayne Coburn

The end of the line, but not the end of the T

Highland Park stopped on May 26. The Model T did not stop everywhere, not even in the United States. Ford's branch assembly plants kept putting cars together from the parts on hand, and The Henry Ford's own caption for the ceremony photograph says another 458,781 cars were assembled in branch plants, calling May 26 the symbolic end of production. The Cleveland branch, for one, sent its last Model T down the line on May 31, 1927. The very last Model T built anywhere came out of Cork, Ireland, in December 1927, where production ran until the end of the year.

So "the end of the line" is accurate for Highland Park and slightly generous for the branch plants and the rest of the world. That is the kind of distinction a judge at a meet will catch you on, and the kind you should catch first.

Where the 15 millionth Model T is today

The car belongs to The Henry Ford in Dearborn, catalogued as object 00.136.124, "The Fifteen Millionth Ford." As listed in October 2026 it is on display in Greenfield Village, in the Ford Motor Company (Mack Avenue Plant) building, a re-creation of the shop where Ford started building cars in 1903, which makes it a fitting spot. The words "The Fifteen Millionth Ford" are still painted on its side. The museum's record lists it as a black and green 1927 touring car, 22.5 hp, on the standard 100 inch wheelbase.

That is the best kind of provenance a car can have: built on a known day, driven by known people, and held by one institution with a public record. No family legend required, no "my grandfather said." For a club raconteur that is almost a disappointment. There is nothing to argue about except which of two dates to say out loud.

Why the car still matters

The 15 millionth Model T marks the point where Ford admitted the world had moved on. The car that had put most of the country on wheels was replaced by something new, and the company paused for months to do it. More than seventy years later, the Model T was named Car of the Century, a story told in the Car of the Century vote. The touring car in Greenfield Village is the closing page of that record, and unlike most closing pages, it is still there to look at.

Sources and notes

• The Henry Ford: 1927 Ford Model T Touring Car, The Fifteen-Millionth Ford
• The Henry Ford: Henry Ford and Edsel Ford with the Fifteen-Millionth Ford Model T, May 26, 1927
• History.com: Last day of Model T production at Ford
• Cleveland Historical: Ford Model T Plant in University Circle
• Wikipedia: Ford Model T
• Wikipedia: Ford Model A (1927 to 1932)