Otto Explains — Brand History
The History of Ford
Short Answer
Ford Motor Company was founded in Detroit on 16 June 1903, when Henry Ford and 12 other investors put in $28,000, and it sold its first car, the Model A, in July 1903. The Model T of 1908 and the moving assembly line of 1913 made Ford a mass producer, and in 1919 Henry, Clara and Edsel Ford bought out the other shareholders. Ford became a public company in 1956, owned and later sold Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo, and is still based in Dearborn, Michigan; its Class B shares carry 40 per cent of the voting power.
Who was Henry Ford?
Henry Ford was born on 30 July 1863 in Springwells Township, Wayne County, Michigan, the eldest of William and Mary Ford’s six children. He built his first steam engine at 15, trained as a machinist in Detroit, and in 1891 joined the Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit as an engineer, becoming its chief engineer in 1893. Ford’s own biography of its founder says Thomas Edison became his lifelong mentor and friend.
What was Henry Ford’s first car?
Ford’s first engine ran on the kitchen table of his home at 58 Bagley Avenue in Detroit, and his first car, the Quadricycle, was finished in June 1896 in a shed behind the house. It rode on four bicycle wheels, had a four-horsepower engine, was steered with a tiller and had two forward gears and no reverse. Ford sold it for $200 and used the money to build his second car.
How did Ford Motor Company begin?
Two earlier ventures came first. In 1899 Ford joined a group that founded the Detroit Automobile Company, and he left within a year. On 10 October 1901 his 26-horsepower Sweepstakes beat Alexander Winton’s 70-horsepower Bullet at Grosse Pointe, and the win led to the Henry Ford Company, which he left in early 1902 and which became Cadillac. On 16 June 1903 Henry Ford and 12 others invested $28,000 in Ford Motor Company; Ford held 25.5 per cent and was vice president and chief engineer. At the Mack Avenue factory in Detroit a few cars a day were assembled from bought-in parts, the first Model A was sold in July 1903, and by 1 October 1903 the company had made a profit of $37,000. Ford became president and controlling owner in 1906.
What happened when the Model T arrived?
The Model T went on sale on 1 October 1908 at $850. In 1910 Ford moved into its Highland Park plant, where the moving assembly line was developed in 1913 and fully in use by 1914, eventually cutting the time to assemble a Model T chassis from 12.5 hours to 1.5. In January 1914 Ford announced the $5 Day, $5 for eight hours against $2.34 for nine, at a time when labour turnover had reached 380 per cent. When the 15 millionth Model T left Highland Park on 26 May 1927, its price had fallen to as little as $260. Why the Model T mattered so much to Ford is told in Otto’s article on the legendary Fords.
How did Ford spread beyond Detroit?
Ford Motor Company of Canada was founded in 1904 at Walkerville, now Windsor, Ontario, as Ford’s first plant outside the United States, set up to sell across the British Empire. Ford opened its first overseas branch in Paris in 1908, followed by England and Australia in 1909, and began building cars in Europe in 1911. In 1917 work started on the River Rouge Complex, which by the next decade was the largest integrated factory in the world, with its own steel mills, glass factory and power plant; the same year Ford built its first truck, the one-ton Model TT. In 1922 Ford bought the Lincoln Motor Company from Henry Leland.
What changed under Edsel Ford?
In 1919 Henry Ford’s son Edsel became president, and Henry, Clara and Edsel Ford bought out every minority shareholder to become the company’s sole owners. After the last Model T in 1927, Ford closed its plants for six months to retool; the new Model A, sold as a 1928 model, was the first Ford to wear the Blue Oval. In 1932 came Ford’s V8, cast in a single block, and in 1938 Edsel created the Mercury brand to sit between Ford and Lincoln.
What did Ford do in the Second World War?
Ford began building Jeeps for the US military in 1941, and in 1942 it stopped making civilian cars in the United States. At its Willow Run plant it built more than 8,000 B-24 Liberator bombers, at its peak finishing one every 63 minutes. Edsel Ford died in 1943, and Henry Ford returned as president.
How did Henry Ford II rebuild the company?
In September 1945 Edsel’s son, Henry Ford II, became president, and with ten former US Army Air Force officers known as the Whiz Kids he brought in modern management. Henry Ford died at his Fair Lane home in Dearborn on 7 April 1947, aged 83. The F-Series trucks arrived in 1948, and the 1949 Ford was the first new Ford of the Henry Ford II era. In 1956 Ford became a public company, in what was then the largest share offering in history. Not every bet paid off: the Edsel, launched in 1957 as a recession began, lasted three model years.
Which turning points shaped Ford from the 1960s to the 1990s?
In May 1963 talks between Ford and Ferrari were called off, and Ford answered on the race track: the GT40 won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966, breaking Ferrari’s six-year run, and kept winning until 1969. The Mustang was unveiled in April 1964, the Fiesta followed in 1976 from Ford of Europe and a new plant near Valencia, the Taurus in 1985 and the Explorer in 1990. In 1980 Philip Caldwell became the first chairman and chief executive from outside the Ford family. Ferrari’s side of the Le Mans story is in Otto’s history of Ferrari.
Which other car brands has Ford owned?
Lincoln, bought in 1922, is still Ford’s luxury brand, while Mercury, created in 1938, was closed in 2011. Ford also owned Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo Cars, and sold them as it refocused on its own name. It agreed to sell Aston Martin to an investor consortium on 12 March 2007, Tata Motors completed its purchase of Jaguar Land Rover on 2 June 2008, and on 2 August 2010 Ford completed the sale of Volvo Cars to Geely, a step chief executive Alan Mulally said would sharpen its focus on the Ford brand. Otto tells two of those stories in the history of Aston Martin and the history of Jaguar.
How did Ford get through the 2008 crisis?
Alan Mulally became president and chief executive in 2006. Under his One Ford plan, Ford came through the financial crisis of 2008 as the only American carmaker that did not take a government bailout loan, and it kept investing in new products. In 2009 it began offering its turbocharged EcoBoost engines, which the engines article explains.
What has changed at Ford since 2015?
The 2015 F-150 moved to an all-aluminium body that saved up to 750 pounds. Ford revealed the electric Mustang Mach-E in 2019, the first new member of the Mustang family in 55 years, then the E-Transit van in 2020 and the F-150 Lightning pickup in 2021, and in 2020 it brought back the Bronco. Jim Farley became chief executive in 2020 with his Ford+ plan. On 4 September 2025 the performance division, Ford Performance, took back the name Ford Racing, and in 2026 Ford returned to Formula 1 with Red Bull Ford Powertrains.
Who owns and runs Ford today?
Ford Motor Company is a public company based in Dearborn, Michigan. Its common stock carries 60 per cent of the general voting power and its Class B stock the other 40 per cent, and the Class B shares are held in a voting trust whose trustees include William Clay Ford Jr. As of October 2026 Ford’s website lists James D. Farley Jr. as chief executive and William Clay Ford Jr. as executive chair, with Henry Ford III and Alexandra Ford English on the board. Ford reports three businesses, Ford Blue for petrol and hybrid vehicles, Ford Model e for electric vehicles and software and Ford Pro for commercial customers, alongside Ford Credit, and in 2025 it employed about 174,000 people.
Common Questions
- Why is the Ford badge a blue oval? The Ford script dates from the company’s first years and was registered in 1909. The oval was first used in 1907 by Ford’s British agents, the 1928 Model A was the first Ford to carry it as a radiator badge, and since 1976 the blue oval has been the badge on every Ford vehicle.
- Did Henry Ford invent the assembly line? Ford’s own timeline says it introduced the integrated moving assembly line to car production in 1913. The Henry Ford museum describes it as a combination of interchangeable parts, divided labour and the steady movement of materials, and says Ford’s engineers adapted the “disassembly line” used in slaughterhouses.
- Did Henry Ford race cars himself? Yes. He won with his own Sweepstakes car at Grosse Pointe on 10 October 1901, and on 12 January 1904 he set a world record for the mile, 39.4 seconds, in his 999 racer on the frozen Lake St. Clair.
- Where is Ford based? In Dearborn, Michigan. The company began in 1903 in Detroit, at its Mack Avenue factory.