A self-trained mechanic with a lifelong disdain of experts with university degrees, Ford built his firsts automobile in 1893, and a decade later he founded the Ford Motor Company.
Ford Motor Company was established in 1903 by Henry Ford and 11 business associates. At that time, the US was home of 87 other car companies. Before Ford, cars were luxury items, very expensive and only affordable by the wealthy. Ford’s genius was to recognize that with the right technology, cars can be made available to the public at an affordable price.
He intended to produce “the car for the great attitude,” and to do he had to harmonies mass production with mass consumption. Ford was not the first manufacturer to use interchangeable parts or to run an assembly line, but in his quest to produce an inexpensive and standardized product he perfected assembly line production techniques.
The result proved dramatic. In 1908, before he introduced the assembly line, Ford made 10,607 Model Ts – the “Tin Lizzie” – which he sold for $850 each. It was a powerful car with a possible speed of 45 mph. It could run 25 miles on a gallon of gasoline. It carried a 20-horsepower, side-valve four-cylinder engine and two-speed planetary transmission on a 100-inch wheelbase.
He shifted to an assembly line in 1913, and production quickly rose to 300,000 cars a year.
In 1916 he sold 730,041 Model Ts for $360 each, and in 1924 he produced two million of the cars retailing at $290 each. A total of fifteen million Model Ts rolled out of Ford plants before production ceased in 1927.
Prior to Ford, it took over twelve hours to assemble a car. By contrast his first assembly line turned out a model T every 93 minutes, and by 1927 Ford was making a Model T every 24 seconds.
In 1919, after a conflict between Henry Ford and the stockholders, several investors left and the company became wholly owned by the Ford family.
In 1922, Ford bought Lincoln Motor Company, named after Abraham Lincoln, for $8 million. Lincoln became the first "outsider" to join the Ford family of vehicle brands and initiated the company's entrance into the luxury market.
In the mid-1950s, Ford went public. In the same decade, Ford introduced the legendary Ford Thunderbird at Detroit’s first auto show after World War II. The Ford Motor Company became not only the world’s largest automobile manufacturer but the world’s largest industrial enterprise.
History of Ford Motor
