Ford History


Ford Motor Company – American Automobile Company specializing in manufacturing passenger cars of “Ford”, “Mercury”, “Mercury” marques, as well as trucks and farm machinery.

In addition Ford Company owns Jaguar automobile company. Ford is headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, right not far from the site where Henry Ford’s parents owned a farm.

Ford Company was founded by Henry Ford in 1903 and from the very initials was aimed at issuing widely available cheap automobiles. That was the start of Ford history.

The first model was A, in 1908 it was followed by T model nicknamed by caricaturists as “Tin Lizzy”. The popularity of Ford T model was so scalable and overwhelming that constantly growing Ford factories could hardly cover demand for Ford automobiles. During the first manufacturing year of T model Ford sold out 10 660 cars that hit all known records in automobile industry.

In 1913 Ford Company by inserting in production interchangeable parts standardization method and the automobiles conveyorized assembly left important mark in automobile history. This also enabled to enhance labour productivity 40-60%; at the same time the salary of workers for Ford rose so that twice exceeded the industry average rate. At every Ford factory 8-hour working day was implemented. By 1915 Ford T model was manufactured in 500 000 numbers and in 1923 every second car in the US was issued by Ford factories.

In 1920-30s Ford Motor actively establishes its offices in many countries of the world including Soviet Russia as “GAZ” and “Amo” factories were erected. Although Henry negatively regarded October revolution he saw that Russia had promising future given industrialization.

In 1922 the purchase of “Lincoln” Company marked important step in Ford history. Lincoln management was entrusted to Edsel Ford. Authoritarian ruling style of Henry Ford was constantly under criticizing pressure of mass media while his trade unions aversion caused even real baiting campaign.
At the same time by the end of 1920s the Americans become palled on by the Ford T model and the leading positions were seized by General Motors.

In response Ford Company introduced A model but still Chevrolet and Buick popularity is more scalable.
In 1929 the Great Depression sharply decreased automobiles market that finally lead to salary downfall two times.

In 1932 came another significant milestone in Ford history as the V8 type engines mass manufacturing was launched. Ford Motor Company was the first automobile manufacturing company that managed to construct monolithic 8-cylinder block while its main competitors performed that after many years. By the time Ford cars given their reliable engines became favorites of practical Americans. The Company established new assembly factory in ...
Cologne.

Initiated in 1938 Mercury automobile make gained considerable success. Formally the company was ruled by Edsel Ford but his authority was incomparable to his father’s. In fact, this period till the WW II start known in Ford history as stagnation. During the war the company was activated and loaded by military demands.

Between 1942 and 1947 passenger cars manufacturing was sharply stopped as Ford Company invested its efforts to military purposes. Enormous military production program initiated by Edsel Ford entailed in assembling 8 600 V-24 Liberator four-engine bombers, 57 000 engines for air-crafts and over 250 000 tanks, anti-tank mount added by other military machinery within less than 3 years.