{
  "schema_version": "1.1",
  "id": "henry-ford-faster-horses-quote",
  "slug": "henry-ford-faster-horses-quote",
  "url": "https://groundedkit.com/claims/henry-ford-faster-horses-quote/",
  "api_url": "https://groundedkit.com/api/claims/henry-ford-faster-horses-quote.json",
  "claim": "Henry Ford said: \"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses\"",
  "commonly_cited_as": "\"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses\" — Henry Ford",
  "verdict": "unsourced",
  "verdict_definition": "No primary data found; the trail ends in a roundup, a disowned quote or a circular citation.",
  "confidence": "high",
  "rating": {
    "value": 1,
    "best": 5,
    "worst": 1
  },
  "origin": {
    "publisher": "Quote Investigator",
    "title": "My Customers Would Have Asked For a Faster Horse (July 28, 2011; updated Mar. 6, 2025)",
    "year": "2001 (earliest Ford attribution)"
  },
  "quote": "The earliest ascription to Ford that QI has located appeared in a letter sent to the UK publication Marketing Week in 2001",
  "method": "Quotation research: the earliest linkage to Ford is a 1999 cruise-industry interview that did not quote him; the earliest direct ascription is a 2001 letter to Marketing Week.",
  "drift": [
    "Attribution: first credited to Ford in 2001, with no earlier source"
  ],
  "interest": "Quote Investigator is an independent quotation-research site run by Garson O'Toole; no commercial interest in the quote.",
  "safe_rephrasing": "There's no evidence Henry Ford said the 'faster horses' line; the earliest attribution to him found by Quote Investigator is from 2001. Present it as an anonymous saying.",
  "sources": [
    {
      "title": "Quote Investigator — My Customers Would Have Asked For a Faster Horse",
      "url": "https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/07/28/ford-faster-horse/",
      "primary": true
    }
  ],
  "kind": "stat_check",
  "as_of": "Research updated Mar. 6, 2025",
  "last_checked": "2026-10-16",
  "stale": false,
  "date_reviewed": "2026-10-16",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0",
  "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
}