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History of Ford Motor Company
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INTRODUCTION
Ford Motor Company is an American automaker and
the world's third largest automaker based on worldwide
vehicle sales. Based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb
of Detroit, the automaker was founded by Henry Ford,
and incorporated on June 16, 1903. Ford Motor
Company would go on to become one of the largest and
most profitable companies in the world, as well as
being one of the few to survive the Great Depression.
The largest family-controlled company in the world,
the Ford Motor Company has been in continuous
family control for over 100 years. Ford now
encompasses two brands: Ford and Lincoln.
The founding of Ford Motor
Company
Henry Ford's initial foray into automobile
manufacturing was the Detroit Automobile Company,
founded in 1899. The company floundered, and in 1901
was reorganized as the Henry Ford Company. In March
1902, after falling out with his financial backers, Ford
left the company with the rights to his name and 900 dollars.
Henry Ford himself turned to an acquaintance, coal dealer Alexander Y. Malcomson, to help finance another
automobile company. Malcomson put up the money to start the partnership "Ford and Malcomson" and the pair
designed a car and began ordering parts. However, by February 1903, Ford and Malcomson had gone through more
money than expected, and the manufacturing firm of John and Horace Dodge, who had made parts for Ford and
Malcomson, was demanding payment.[1]
Malcomson, constrained by his coal business demands, turned to his uncle John S. Gray, the president of the
German-American Savings Bank and a good friend. Malcomson proposed incorporating Ford and Malcomson to
bring in new investors, and wanted Gray to join the company, thinking that Gray's name would attract others to
invest. Gray was not interested at first, but Malcomson promised he could withdraw his share at any time, so Gray
reluctantly agreed. On the strength of Gray's name, Malcomson recruited other business acquaintances to invest,
including local merchants Albert Strelow and Vernon Fry, lawyers John Anderson and Horace Rackham, Charles T.
Bennett of the Daisy Air Rifle Company, and his own clerk James Couzens.[1] Malcomson also convinced the
Dodges to accept stock in lieu of payment.
On June 16, 1903, the Ford Motor Company was incorporated, with 12 investors owning a total of 1000 shares. Ford
and Malcomson together retained 51% of the new company in exchange for their earlier investments. When the total
stock ownership was tabulated, shares in the company were: Henry Ford (255 shares), Alexander Y. Malcomson
(255 shares), John S. Gray (105 shares), John W. Anderson (50 shares), Horace Rackham (50 shares), Horace E.
Dodge (50 shares), John F. Dodge (50 shares), Charles T. Bennett (50 shares), Vernon C. Fry (50 shares), Albert
Strelow (50 shares), James Couzens (25 shares), and Charles J. Woodall (10 shares).
Early developments and assembly line
The first Ford factory on Bagley Street, Detroit.
During its early years, the company produced a range of vehicles
designated, chronologically, from the Ford Model A (1903) to the
Model K and Model S (Ford's last right-hand steering model)[3] of
1907.[4] The K, Ford's first six-cylinder model, was known as "the
gentleman's roadster" and "the silent cyclone", and sold for
US$2800;[4] by contrast, around that time, the Enger 40 was priced at
US$2000,[5] the Colt Runabout US$1500,[6] the high-volume
Oldsmobile Runabout[7] US$650, Western's Gale Model A US$500,[8]
and the Success hit the amazingly low US$250.[7]
The next year, Henry Ford introduced the Model T. Earlier models were produced at a rate of only a few a day at a
rented factory on Mack Avenue in Detroit, Michigan, with groups of two or three men working on each car from
components made to order by other companies (what would come to be called an "assembled car"). The first Model
Ts were built at the Piquette Road Manufacturing Plant, the first company-owned factory. In its first full year of
production, 1909, about 18,000 Model Ts were built. As demand for the car grew, the company moved production to
the much larger Highland Park Plant, and in 1911, the first year of operation there, 69,762[9] Model Ts were
produced, with 170,211 in 1912.[10] By 1913, the company had developed all of the basic techniques of the assembly
line and mass production. Ford introduced the world's first moving assembly line that year, which reduced chassis
assembly time from 12 1⁄
2 hours in October to 2 hours 40 minutes (and ultimately 1 hour 33 minutes),[10] and
boosted annual output to 202,667 units that year[10] After a Ford ad promised profit-sharing if sales hit 300,000
between August 1914 and August 1915,[11] sales in 1914 reached 308,162, and 501,462 in 1915;[10] by 1920,
production would exceed one million a year.
History of the blue oval
The Ford oval trademark was first introduced in 1907. The 1928 Model A was the first vehicle to sport an early
version of the Ford script in the oval badge. The dark blue background of the oval is known to designers as Pantone
294C. The Ford script is credited to Childe Harold Wills, Ford's first chief engineer and designer. He created a script
in 1903 based on the one he used for his business cards. Today, the oval has evolved into a perfect oval with a
width-to-height ratio of 8:3. The current Centennial Oval was introduced on June 17, 2003 as part of the 100th
anniversary of Ford Motor Company