Ford Motor Company history

An automobile manufacturer founded by Henry FORD and incorporated in 1903. The company originally began as the Detroit Automobile Company in 1899. The company subsequently was reorganized as the Henry Ford Company in 1901. Needing additional capital, the company again was reorganized in 1903 as the Ford Motor Company when Ford and 11 associates went into business with only $28,000 in cash. It sold its first car to a Detroit physician in 1903.

After initial success producing Model N autos, Ford introduced the Model T in 1908. The car was an immediate success, also inspiring Ford to began a new type of production that would revolutionize manufacturing. In 1913, Ford introduced the moving assembly line at the Highland Park plant in Michigan. The line allowed workers to remain in one place and perform the same task as cars moved by their workstations. Within 20 years, the results were phenomenal. Ford sold more than 15 million cars and became a household name. The assembly line also proved that economies of scale could be achieved in mass manufacturing because the cost of the Model T fell over the years.

The Ford Motor Company began to lose market share during the 1920s in the face of intense competition. The original Model T was available only in black and, despite its low price tag, began to lose its appeal for many motorists. In 1925, Ford acquired the Lincoln Motor Company, a maker of high-end luxury cars, in order to diversify its line. In 1927, when the last Model T came off the assembly line, more than 15 million of the model had been produced. It was succeeded by the Model A, which was more refined and offered a choice of colors. The Mercury brand was established 10 years later to cater to mid-market customers. In 1931, the company produced its 20 millionth car.

In the same year, Ford began production in England, building cars for the European market. It also maintained a large manufacturing operation in Germany. Ford founded the Ford Foundation in 1936. The Lincoln Continental model was introduced in 1939. After years of eschewing unions, Ford finally agreed to unionization at its plants in 1941. After Edsel Ford, Henry’s son, died in 1943, Henry again assumed the presidency. He resigned after World War II and was succeeded by his grandson Henry Ford II in 1945. The company resumed producing civilian automobiles in July 1945 after several years of devoting its production to military vehicles.

Henry Ford died in 1947, but the family tradition would continue. The postwar period brought expansion, and new models were added in the 1950s, including the Thunderbird in 1954 and the Edsel. Only the former was successful. The Thunderbird, like the Ford and Lincoln Continental, would become one of the company’s most enduring models. The Ford Motor Company remained in family hands until an initial public offering in 1956, when Henry Ford II sold some of the family holdings to raise additional capital for expansion.

The company introduced the ill-fated Edsel in 1957, but the car did not remain in production past 1959. In that year, the company created Ford Motor Credit to help provide financing for its cars. Robert McNamara was named president in 1960 but quit a year later in order to join the Kennedy administration as defense secretary. In 1964, the company introduced another model that would be phenomenally successful. The Mustang sold more than 2 million units in the first two years of production. Ford Motor continued to expand its operations in Europe in 1967 and became the largest manufacturer of cars in Britain and one of the largest in Germany.

In 1970, Lee IACOCCA was named president of the company and remained in the job for eight years. Henry Ford II remained with the company until 1980 and then served on its finance committee until his death in 1987. William Clay Ford Jr., Henry’s great-grandson, joined the company in 1979 and was named president in 1999. After poor financial performance in the 1970s and 1980s, Ford produced a new model called the Taurus that helped turn around the company’s performance and became the best-selling car in the United States by the mid-1990s. In 1997, Ford celebrated production of its 250-millionth vehicle. The company acquired foreign manufacturers in the 1990s, as a result of its success, purchasing Volvo of Sweden and Jaguar, Rover, and Aston Martin of Britain.

See also CHRYSLER, WALTER PERCY; CHRYSLER CORP.; DURANT, WILLIAM CRAPO; GENERAL MOTORS.

Further reading

• Barry, James P. Henry Ford and Mass Production. New York: Franklin Watts, 1973. 
• Brinkley, Douglas. Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress, 1903–2003. New York: Viking Press, 2003. 
• Shook, Robert L. Turnaround: The New Ford Motor Company. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1990.