Two weeks back, we discussed the early history of Chevrolet, tracking their rise from a small automobile company to a household name. In this article, we’re going to do the same for Ford. While Ford are a larger company than Chevrolet, there are a few reasons this is a worthwhile exercise. One, like Chevrolet, they are a household name with a reputation for reliability. Two, they are Chevrolet’s infamous rivals. Finally, they helped to revolutionize the American automotive industry. This will, as with Chevy’s history, be warts and all. Henry Ford was not the most savory character, nor were all of his automobiles success stories. Despite this, his influence is unmistakably massive. That’s what we’re here to explore.

Henry Ford’s car building did not begin with the establishment of Ford in 1903. Several years earlier, in 1896, he built his first vehicle, the Ford Quadricycle, at his home in Detroit. The site of this important project is now the Michigan Building. The Quadricycle was primitive, but helped establish what cars should look like. It was powered by an ethanol-fueled engine, and developed just 4 horsepower. Ford sold four of the Quadricycles, eventually buying the first one back for posterity. If you’re interested, you can see the original vehicle at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. Three years after the Quadricycle was developed, Ford made his first teetering steps into the nascent automobile industry, founding the Detroit Automobile Company. This marque produced 20 vehicles before it was reorganized into The Henry Ford Company in 1901. Two years later, with funding from coal dealer Alexander Young Malcomson, banker John S. Gray, and a slew of local businessmen, the Ford Motor Company started in earnest.

Despite Ford and Malcolmson owning the most shares, Gray was elected as President, with Ford as his VP. Just as business was not all rosy at Chevrolet, it wasn’t particularly kind at Ford, either. Malcolmson and Ford disagreed virulently over Malcolmson’s other business, the luxury car maker Aerocar. Gray backed Ford, and Malcolmson was essentially left by the wayside. He later sold his stock, invested in Aerocar, and added his name to the list of terrible decision makers throughout history.

Regardless, that would be a few years later. Business was kicked off by the Model A, not to be confused with the later model of the same name. This two-seater was expensive, priced $150 higher than the Oldsmobile Curved Dash. To top it off, it had a fair few issues, with chronic overheating a common complaint. Other cars of this era include the “Doctor’s Car” that was the Model C (that was again outpriced by competitors), and the inline-six powered Model K. If I seem to be rather jogging through the early models, it’s not without reason. While these early models are important, they weren’t massive successes. That success would come with the Model T in 1908.

Henry Ford assumed the presidency after Gray died in 1906, and two years later, motoring was changed forever. The Model T, while a rip-roaring success, did not begin that way. The assembly line production we associate with it was not there from the off. Just a few a day were built. Then, in 1913, the assembly lines’ components had all been established, and production really began to fly. The large Highland Park plant played its part, and Model Ts began to be built on a moving assembly line. Instead of taking several men a day to produce, they could now be made, from scratch, in just over an hour and a half. Output soared. In 1914, 202,667 of the cars were built, compared to 10,666 in 1909. The Model T’s efficient production satiated supply, while the Tin Lizzie’s low price of $440 in 1914 granted massive demand. Ford’s goals were simple: build a car for everybody.

“I will build a car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God’s great open spaces.”

Building the Model T was punishing work. Its rabid speed of production made for hard labor, but Ford was mindful of this. In 1914, wages were doubled to $5 per day, and hours were cut from 9 hours to 8 hours per day. Workers could afford a Model T with just four months worth of their pay. It was also a startlingly progressive company in its hiring practices. Ford employed the best workers, regardless of who they were or what they looked like. Disabled people were hired, while other companies would throw them aside. They were one of a handful of corporations happy to hire large numbers of black workers.

When the First World War reared its head, Henry Ford’s position vacillated back and forth. Originally, he was a staunch pacifist, and even embarked on a peace mission to Europe in 1915. The mission was far from successful. The voyage took place on a ship called the Oscar II, nicknamed the Peace Ship, and it was a disaster. There was a vast amount of infighting between the activists, with opinion split over Woodrow Wilson’s increase of spending on the Navy and Army. To cap it off, influenza broke out on the ship, with one person dying from pneumonia. Despite Ford’s earlier public pacifism, the company would go onto be an important linchpin in the war effort, producing the Model T Ambulance and the M1918 tankette.

Following the war, Ford were in a dominant position in American motoring. Henry Ford had bought out all other shareholders in 1919 for $125 million, a huge amount at the time. He also dramatically expanded production, building several important new plants. His son, Edsel Ford, assumed the presidency that same year. In 1921, a staggering 61 percent of all cars sold were Model Ts. There was just one problem. Fords were getting somewhat stale. Despite their acquisition of luxury car firm Lincoln, they began to lose market share to GM and Chrysler, who were putting out cars with fresher tech, such as four-wheel brakes. They also had a greater range of models available, and had begun extending credit to customers, which Ford rejected on principal. In 1927, the company finally began to offer it. Production on the Model T ended in 1927, and that hot rodders’ favorite, the Model A, entered the market that same year. By 1929, two million of these had been sold. Ford’s days were far from over.

A part of Ford’s massive success lies not only in its American plants, but in its overseas ones. Its first overseas plant had been established in Manchester, England, in 1913. By the end of the 1920s, Ford had spread across five continents, producing a massive amount of cars. There was even an agreement reached with the Soviet Union, with a factory founded in Nizhny Novgorod producing GAZ cars, developed by Ford engineers.

In an attempt to ensure a constant supply of rubber, Ford purchased eight and a half square miles of land in the Amazon rainforest, founding a town called Fordlandia, which today has a population of 3000. The Brazilian government had been promised nine percent of all profits. It was an unmitigated failure. Workers caught tropical diseases. The managers sent by Ford had little knowledge of agriculture or rubber farming. The land was infertile. Workers were expected to work under the blazing tropical sun and were fed only American food that led to a revolt, requiring the Brazilian army to put it down. Eventually, the project was relocated to an area with better soil, but shortly after, synthetic rubber was developed. When the land was sold back to the Brazilian government in 1945, the project had lost $20 million.

The Great Depression took a heavy toll on Ford and its workers, with the nadir of employer-worker relations taking place in March 1932. In the Ford Hunger March, thousands of unemployed people recently laid off from Ford marched to the gates of the River Rouge plant, demanding support. Tear gas was fired into the crowd by police, and eventually, after rocks were thrown, live rounds, leading to the deaths of five men.

As World War II looms, we must discuss Henry Ford’s politics. For all of his innovations, and indeed, openness in employment, he was a man of great personal prejudice. In the company-owned newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, he published numerous anti-Semitic articles, which were reprinted in Nazi Germany under the title of The International Jew, The World’s Foremost Problem. Said newspaper also reprinted the anti-Semitic screed The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It is not for nothing that both Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Hitler were admirers of Henry Ford, with Hitler regarding Ford as an “inspiration.” During the early years of the Second World War, while the United States remained neutral, Ford was unwilling to support the Allied war effort. Nor did the company shrink from the idea of firing a manager of one of their German plants in 1936 because he was Jewish. The company was close enough to the Nazi regime that Henry Ford was awarded the Grand Cross of the German Eagle by the regime.

Following Pearl Harbor, the company began to put its massive shoulder to the wheel of the Allied war effort. Over the course of the war, 390,000 trucks, 270,000 Jeeps, and 8000 B-24 Liberator bombers were built by the company.

In 1943, Edsel Ford died of stomach cancer at the age of 49, with Henry Ford once again becoming president briefly before passing it on to his grandson, Henry Ford II. The company was beginning to stagnate somewhat in the years following World War II, but it was in these years that many legendary figures were brought into the fold. Among them was Ernest R. Breech, head of Bendix Aviation, who helped make the company somewhat lithe once again. The Air Force veterans and experts in managerial science, the Whiz Kids, followed in his footsteps, helping to greatly improve the company. Other famous faces who would join the company around this time included Robert McNamara and Lee Iacocca.

These figures ushered in an age of success in the 50s and 60s, helping Ford maintain its status as an automotive giant. After years of familial control by the Ford family and the Ford Foundation, Ford became a publically-traded company in 1956. The Thunderbird, introduced in 1955, brought a speedy European-style roadster to North America, while the Falcon and Mustang kick started the Pony Car boom. Despite the occasional failure (see the Pinto or the Edsel), Ford continued to grow and innovate, building themselves the pedestal that they stand on even now.