Ford: A Century of History, Part I

Henry Ford

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Ford Timeline: 1863-1943 by Mike Davis (5/26/2003)

Books about Ford Motor Company and the Ford family are truly a cottage industry: there are more than 200 in print, not counting dozens of car books devoted to specialized Ford subjects like V-8s and Mustangs.

After Henry Ford drew international attention in 1914 with announcement of the $5 day, he became a folk hero. The press quoted him at length from every utterance. The Ford family to this day probably has received more media attention, certainly in the U.S., than even the royal family of Britain.

So it is hard for Ford historians to find something new to say. Here’s my effort, spread over three chapters, Old Henry, Young Henry and Young Bill —Mike Davis

PART I: OLD HENRY

Some thirty odd years ago, the Automobile Manufacturers Association announced that more than 3000 makes of cars and trucks had been produced in the United States. Only a handful remained then. And today the list, in order of introduction, is even shorter: Oldsmobile (soon to pass into oblivion), Cadillac, Ford, Buick, Chevrolet, Dodge, Lincoln, Chrysler, Mercury, and Jeep.

Of these, only two — Ford and Mercury —­ have been unadulterated since birth by merger, consolidation or takeover. And only Ford can be said today to be a truly worldwide brand.

If for no other reason, that is why the Ford centennial being marked June 16 is so significant. But, indeed, there are other reasons. Cadillac started out as a Ford; the first Cadillac and the first Ford are almost identical in appearance and differ mechanically mainly in that the Cadillac had a Leland engine rather than Ford’s. And, although Buick was incorporated a month before Ford, no Buick cars were produced for sale until the following year. So, with Olds slipping out of the picture, you could argue a Ford design (Cadillac) soon will be the American industry’s oldest car.

Inspiring beginning

Old Henry’s story is oft told, yet its beginnings are still inspiring.

Henry Ford first experienced a factory assembly line as a 16-year-old in his first temporary job in 1879, at the Michigan Car Company that built railroad cars. Since the cars’ wheels were already on rails, a crude form of progressive “moving” assembly was utilized. After various mechanical apprenticeships, Henry found gainful employment repairing and operating steam farm engines and sawing lumber back in the rural area west of Detroit where he had been born and raised.

In 1891 he took a $40-a-month position as a stationary steam-engine engineer with Edison Illuminating Co., one of three electric lighting companies in Detroit. He stayed at Edison for eight years, during which he bought his first bicycle and his first camera and, in off-hours, experimented with internal-combustion engines.

Henry’s first journey in his gas buggy on the streets of Detroit occurred early on the morning of June 4, 1896. He was 33 and by now held a good job as chief engineer of Edison. His choice to power a motor car might more logically have been a steam engine, familiar from farm days, or electric batteries from his work at Edison. He had, however, been working on the bicycle-and-buggy-based Quadricycle and its gasoline engine for about three years, studying reports in magazines such as American Machinist, Popular Science and Scientific American, and exchanging views with other neighborhood tinkerers.

And he still would face a seesaw of setbacks and successes before advent of the lasting Ford Motor Company seven years later. In 1899, Henry quit Edison to join the Detroit Automobile Co., which was financed by an investor group of prominent citizens and businessmen. The venture failed as Henry kept tinkering and trying to improve his design while investors wanted to get something into production to sell. They finally lost patience in early 1901.

At that point Henry was a failure, out of a job and forced to move his wife and only son Edsel, 8, back in with his father. Bravely, he decided to demonstrate his automotive expertise by winning races. The first such challenge came in October 1901 when his Number 4 nosed out the favored Winton, enabling Henry to attract a new batch of investors who formed the Henry Ford Co. late in 1901. Once again, after only four months, Henry broke with his supporters and went off to design yet another racecar, the famed “999,” significantly incorporating a front-engine rather than under-the-seat design. Meanwhile, the investors hired machining perfectionist Henry Leland to assess their assets, he brought his own engine design to the party, and the Ford company name late in 1902 was changed to Cadillac.

Ur-Ford

Speed successes with 999 that year enabled Old Henry for a third and final­ time to attract a body of investors headed by coal merchant Alexander Malcomson. The result was Ford Motor Company, incorporated on June 16, 1903 with total cash paid in of only $28,000 ­— the rest of the capitalization being notes by several investors and parts supplied by the Dodge Brothers. Almost immediately, hand-built assembly of the first two-cylinder Model A commenced in a rented one-story plant on Mack Avenue in Detroit, the first sale coming in July. Records indicate 1708 Fords were produced during the balance of 1903, behind Olds’ 3976 and Cadillac’s 2497.

Over the next five years, Ford went through an alphabet soup of different-lettered models — B, C, F, K, N, R, S ­— some radically different and others mere refinements toward the ultimate “universal car,” the Model T introduced in October 1908. Meanwhile, production and profits zoomed upwards. Without investing an initial dime, Henry became the majority stockholder and president in 1906, the year Ford overtook Cadillac and Buick to gain first place, Olds having faded. Ford built its own Piquette plant in 1904-5 and output climbed to over 15,000 in 1907.

After intro of the T, Ford discontinued its other models as production growth became astronomical: 19,000 in 1909; 35,000 in 1910; 76,000 in 1911 (when a plant opened in England to supplement Empire supply from Canada dating from 1904); 182,000 in 1912 — all before the moving assembly line!

By 1910, the company had outgrown its Piquette plant and erected a huge manufacturing as well as assembly operation at Highland Park. It was there the moving assembly line with body drop was incorporated in 1913 and the revolutionary $5 day announced in 1914. The following year, the One Millionth Ford was built and Old Henry, 52 years “old,” was being termed the First Billionaire.

World on wheels

And by then the world had literally been put on wheels by Ford. Yet the peak years of the Model T were yet to come in the 1920s, when output exceeded two million a year for 1923-25 and the price got as low as $260 for a two-place Runabout, down from $825 in 1909. Trucks and tractors had been introduced, Lincoln was acquired and the Rouge plant, the world’s largest industrial complex had been built.

When the end of the Model T came in May 1927 with production of the 15 Millionth, its design had been modified both mechanically and in appearance, urban legend not withstanding. However, the basic chassis of 100-inch wheelbase, 56-inch tread, 176-cid, 20-hp four-cylinder engine, and planetary transmission remained as in the original. A Runabout weighed 1550 pounds.

Unlike today’s “running” new model changeovers — and in a masterpiece of mismanagement by stubborn Old Henry — Ford assembly lines worldwide shut down for six months to re-tool for the 1928 Model A. The new, slightly larger (103.5-in wheelbase) and heavier (2050-lb) car was introduced December 2. This second Model A had a 200-cid, 40-hp four with a conventional three-speed, floor-mounted transmission, unsynchronized like others of its day, all incorporated to counter General Motors’ Chevrolet which had been gaining momentum and finally surpassed Ford in U.S. sales during the shutdown.

In comparison, the base 2003 Ford Focus has a 2.0-liter (121-cid) 110-hp four, a choice of five-speed manual or automatic, weighs 2593 lb on a 103-inch wheelbase platform with a track of about 58 inches. In other words, it’s close to the legendary Model Ts and As — in some selected basic specifications.

Downward spiral

Although Ford built memorable cars in the Thirties and Forties ­— V-8s, Mercury, Lincoln-Zephyr, classic Lincoln and the Continental, not to mention unique small cars in England, Germany and France — for Old Henry, it was essentially all downhill from the Twenties.

Alfred P. Sloan at GM had progressively masterminded step-up marketing, a dedicated styling department, annual model changes, extensive laboratory, and proving ground testing, plus countless technical advances like higher compression engines and quick-drying paints. Walter P. Chrysler’s new company emulated these, and Ford fell to third place in 1933.

Henry lost his common touch when he turned much of company management over to the notorious union-busting Harry Bennett, and continually dehumanized Edsel Ford, who had become nominal president in 1919 when Old Henry bought out all non-family stockholders.

Although countless once-successful auto companies fell by the wayside in the Great Depression, Ford weathered it comparatively easily since Old Henry abhorred banks and the company thus was debt-free, and the family had deep pockets. Strong manufacturing management, a veteran sales organization and outstanding styling helped over the bumps.

The crisis came when Edsel Ford died suddenly at age 49 in May 1943. The company was engaged in extensive defense production for World War II ­— quarter-ton GP (“jeep”) vehicles, trucks, aircraft engines, and especially the B-24 bombers being mass-produced at Willow Run. Ford lines had been last in the industry to close down civilian car and truck production early in 1942.

The Federal Government feared Ford Motor Company would collapse under senile Old Henry’s quirky management through Bennett. Grandson Henry Ford II, 25, was released from Navy service for return to the company to assure stability.

Would he succeed? Tune in next time for the next exciting chapter in the Ford saga.

Material in this account is adapted from "Ford Dynasty: A Photographic

History," Arcadia Books, 2002, by Michael W. R. Davis and James K. Wagner.