Ford was a more or less typical self-made man with a dominant and even autocratic character, maintaining a tight grip on his industrial empire right into his 80s. And even though General Motors became a bigger corporation, hardly anybody today has ever heard of its founder William C Durant.
Henry Ford though is a household name throughout the world. A reason for this probably is the fact that the industrial dynasty has maintained the family name to this day. After having been assisted by his son Edsel, Henry Ford was succeeded by his grandson and today’s head of the company is William Clay Jr. a forth-generation Ford.
Born in 1863, Henry Ford was the son of a farmer, fleeing the potato famine in Ireland, and grew up on a farm in Dearborn, Michigan. Henry Ford had no ambition to take over the family farm as the sight of a steam traction engine at young age encouraged his natural aptitude for mechanical things. From school he went straight to a machine shop in Detroit and later became chief engineer at the Edison Illuminating Co.
Unlike his fellow pioneers who were still pretty young, Henry Ford already was in his 30s when he built his first car and 40 when finally settling down to series production.
He built his first car, a quadricycle with a simple two-cylinder engine driving through a two-speed epicylical transmission and chain drive in a workshop behind his house. In the end Ford had to use a sledgehammer to get it out there as is was too big for the door.
The car being capable of 20mph was soon sold and Henry Ford started to build a more sophisticated version. He had a proper financial backing and the car could have gone into production. But the newly founded Detroit Automobile Co. flopped as Ford fell out with his backers.
The Henry Ford Company followed and the famous 999 built there broke several records. Even Henry Ford himself drove it to 91.37mph on frozen Lake St Clair. But once again disagreements with his backers ended the cooperation.
In 1903 Alexander Young Malcomson agreed to finance Henry’s third company and this was the breakthrough. Another simple chain driven car was built which was very similar to a Cadillac recently built by the Henry Ford Co. Hardly surprising as both cars were designed by Henry Ford. Even though the Model A was a car made of bought-in parts, it was a success and 670 cars were sold over the next 15 months.
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