FORD MOTOR COMPANY

American automotive corporation founded in 1903 by Henry Ford (q.v.) and 11 associate investors. In 1919 the company was reincorporated, with Ford, his wife, Clara, and his son, Edsel, acquiring full ownership; they, their heirs, and the Ford Foundation (formed 1936) were sole stockholders until January 1956, when public sale of the common stock was first offered. The company today is chiefly engaged in the manufacture, assembly, and sale of passenger cars (Ford, Mercury, Lincoln, and Continental), trucks, tractors, and related parts and accessories and is also engaged in financial services. Headquarters are in Dearborn, Mich. Henry Ford built his first experimental car in a workshop behind his home in Detroit in 1896. After formation of the Ford Motor Company, the first Ford car was assembled at the Mack Avenue Plant in July 1903. Five years later, in 1908, the highly successful Model T was introduced. Demand for this car was so great that Ford developed new mass-production methods in order to manufacture it in sufficient quantities; in 1911 he established the industry's first branch assembly plant (in Kansas City, Mo.); in 1913 he introduced the world's first moving assembly line for cars; and in 1914, to further improve labour productivity, he introduced the $5 daily wage for an 8-hour day (replacing $2.34 for a 9-hour day). By mid-1914 there were more than 500,000 Model T's on the roads of the world; by 1923 the company was producing more than half of America's automotive vehicles and by the end of the 1920s had more than 20 assembly plants overseas in Europe, Latin America, Canada, Asia, South Africa, and Australia. The Ford had become the world's most familiar make of car. In 1927 the last Model T and the first new Model A were produced, followed in 1932 by the first Ford V-8. In 1922 Ford had acquired the Lincoln Motor Company (founded 1917), which would produce Ford's luxury Lincolns and Continentals. In 1938 Ford introduced the first Mercury, a car in the medium-priced range. Ford's only other independent make, the Edsel, was a financial failure and lasted but three years, 195759. As early as 1906 Henry Ford had acquired 58.5 percent of the company's stock; and, when the other stockholders balked at the idea of building the giant (and expensive) River Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Mich., he bought them out, and his son Edsel Ford (18931943) became president (1919). On Edsel's death in 1943, Henry Ford returned to the presidency, but in 1945 he turned it over to his grandson, Henry Ford II (q.v.), who reorganized the company's tangled system of financial management and reinvigorated its corporate culture by hiring talented younger managers. Henry Ford II remained chairman of the board and chief executive officer and head of the company until 1979. In the 1950s and '60s the Ford Motor Company began limited diversification, but by the 1990s it had refocused attention on its automotive concerns and its growing financial services. In 198990 Ford acquired Jaguar, a British manufacturer of luxury cars.