News of his venture spread in Detroit. The cars sold before they were built. Men found their way to the crude shop, talked to Ford in his greasy overalls, and paid down deposits on cars for future delivery. Often these deposits helped to buy material for the same cars they purchased. Ford was working on a narrow margin. Every dollar which could be squeezed from the week's earnings after expenses were paid went directly into more material for more cars. At first his machinists went home at the end of their regular hours; then Ford worked alone far into the night, building engines. Before long the men became vitally interested in Ford's success and returned after supper to help him. Meantime a few men had been found who were willing to buy stock in the new company. It was capitalized at $100,000, of which $15,000 was paid in. Then Ford set to work in earnest. The force was increased to nearly forty men, and Wills became manager of the mechanical department. Carloads of material were ordered, on sixty days' time, every pound of iron or inch of wire calculated with the utmost nicety so that each shipment would be sufficient to build a certain number of completed cars without the waste of ten cents' worth of material. Then Ford and Couzens set out to sell the cars before payment for the material came due. Ford set a price of $900 a car, an amount which he figured would cover the cost of material, wages and overhead and leave a margin for buying more material. A thousand anxieties now filled his days and nights. Fifteen thousand dollars was very little money for his plant; wages alone would eat it up in ten weeks. The raw material must be made into cars, sold, and the money collected, before it could be paid for. Many times a check from a buyer won the race with the bill from the foundry by a margin of hours. Often on pay day Ford faced the prospect of being unable to pay the men until he should have sold a shipment of cars not yet built. But the cars sold. Their simplicity of construction, their power, above all their cheapness, in a day when automobiles almost without exception sold for $2,500 to $4,000, brought buyers. In a few weeks orders came from Cleveland for them; shortly afterward a dealer in Chicago wrote for an agency there. Still the success of the venture depended from week to week on a thousand chances. Ford, with his genius for factory management, reduced the waste of material or labor to the smallest minimum. He worked on new designs for simpler, cheaper motors. He figured orders for material. His own living expenses were cut to the bone--every cent of profit on sales went into the factory. Nearly a thousand cars were sold that year, but with the beginning of winter sales decreased, almost stopped. The factory must be kept running, in order to have cars for the spring trade. Close figuring would enable them to keep it open, but an early, brisk market would be necessary to save the company in the spring.