Any Ford historians here I have been told,more than once,that after WW2 Ford motor company was nearly bankrupt.Seems impossible after all the juicy war contracts but supposedly "gangsters" stole all the money from who ever was running the company. What is the real story here?
Anyone seriously interested in Ford Motor Company history should invest in the three books written by Allan Nevins and Frank Ernest Hill: Ford: The Times, The Man, The Company 1863-1915; Ford: Expansion and Challenge 1915-1933; and Ford: Decline and Rebirth 1933-1962. These are the most scholarly studies of the company of the many that have been published-replete with facts and details and no attempts to "Gild the Lily". They can usually be found on Abebooks .com or ebay. Having said all that, Chapter 12 of Decline and Rebirth describes the situation facing HF II in 1945. The biggest problem was NOT financial; the company actually had a cash balance of over $685,000,000. Rather, it was the challenge of successfully converting the facilities back to domestic car production and ridding the organization of the legacy of the elder HF's irrational management style.
our car companies sacrificed to make war machines---they were a symbol of patriotism for the whole country---God bless America...
Old Henry was just about bat**** crazy by the war. Kept interfering, refused to put anything on a vehicle that did not have the Ford logo on it. Was messing with war production at Willow Run B24 plant. The US Navy called home Henry Ford II, Edsel's son to take over. Ford's wife Clara and Edsel's widow told Henry if he did not retire they would sell their stock, last thing he wanted. Henry Ford II (aka the Deuce) broght together the "wizz kids" including Robert Mcnamara tha had been the logistics brains behind the war effort. The Ford Motor Company was nearly bankrupt but the post war boom and the wizz kids saved them. A great book is FORD The Men and the Machine by Robert Lacey
Ford was in bad shape BEFORE WW2. For many years they had been the biggest producer of cars in the world but Henry stuck with the Model T too long. In 1927 when he shut down the factory to change over to the Model A, Chevrolet took the lead in sales and after that Ford was second to Chev every year. In 1941 they fell into 3d place behind Chrysler. Plymouth never outsold Ford but Chrysler was very strong in the medium price field with Dodge, DeSoto and Chrysler sixes selling against Mercury and Chrysler straight eights against Lincoln. Chrysler was tough compe***ion, going ahead with hydraulic brakes, independent suspension, and other advances while Ford was marking time. Henry Ford was born in 1860 which means in 1935 he was 75 years old. By that time he was past it but wouldn't admit it, and day by day control of his company p***ed into the hands of his right hand man, a tough character named Bennett, originally hired to protect the Ford family from kidnappers, and who knew nothing about running a car company. As Ninos dad said, in 1943 the government took Henry Ford II out of the Navy and sent him to run the Ford company. By this time Edsel Ford, Henry's son and Henry II's father, was dead and the Ford company was like a ship without a rudder, going down fast. The government and military experts could see the company was not producing anywhere near its capacity and they needed all the production they could get for the war effort. Henry II quickly fired Bennett and put together a brand new management team they called "The Quiz Kids" around the factory, for their habit of wandering around, poking their nose into everything, and asking questions. This soon changed to "The Whiz Kids" as they eliminated bottlenecks, streamlined production, and put in place modern management methods in a stark contrast to Henry Ford's horse and buggy, country store methods. It is possible Bennett and his cronies were lining their pockets but the real problem was bad management, rampant waste, nobody in control had a clue what was going on or how to run a modern corporation.
I'm not sure Henry Ford ever knew how much money he was making, or if he was making anything at all. His accounting methods would have been a disgrace to a country feed and grain store. His method of estimating costs was to stack the invoices on a scale and weigh them. No I am not kidding, that is how they did it. His son Edsel tried to do something about this. Behind Henry's back, he hired a team of accountants and set them up in a secret office. It did not stay secret long. As soon as Henry got wind of it, he went over and fired all the accountants, threw their desks and adding machines in the garbage, installed drafting tables and turned it into a design office.
There was an article in a car magazine (Motor Trend, Car and Driver?) a long time ago that compared the importance of the Taurus to the 1949 Ford. The gist of the article was that Ford pinned their furture to both cars, and that they saved the company. Maybe the ***le was "The Car that Saved Ford". It was years ago that I read it.
Another little story. In 1943 when Henry II came aboard they already had their postwar products all worked out. They had all new designs for Ford, Mercury and Lincoln. Except not long before that, Henry I announced that after the war there was to be no more Mercury or Lincoln, they would s**** their whole postwar line, and design a brand new Ford much smaller than anything they made before. Then they would make Fords and nothing but Fords, just like the Model T days. When Henry II arrived everything was a mess. The new small Ford was obviously no good and would never sell. They ended up sending it to France where it was made by Ford of France as the Vedette. But even the French wouldn't buy it. Then they looked at the postwar Ford, Mercury and Lincoln as the design office wanted to make them. Unfortunately nobody had bothered to calculate how much they would cost to make. When they did this, it turned out they would be so expensive to build there is no way they could sell them at a profit. So they kept on making the old prewar designs until 1949. Very quickly, they hired an outside design team led by a guy named Walker to come up with a new Ford they could afford to build. This resulted in the 1949 Ford. Then, they turned the Ford into the 1949 Mercury, the Mercury into the 1949 Lincoln Capri, and kept the Lincoln as the 1949 Lincoln Cosmopolitan. This explains why the 49 Ford is so different from the 49 Mercury and Lincoln line, and how they ended up with 2 different Lincolns.
Somewhere on the HAMB is a photo showing a Ford clerk measuring a stack of money with a ruler instead of counting it!!
Yes, absolutely a great read; it goes into detail how Harry Bennett was almost the #2 man at Ford. Henry II fired Bennett as one of his first acts when he ***umed control! Bennett and his "Service Department" were nothing but street thugs and bullies who took care of "labor problems" and so on! Also shows a little different side of the Lee Iacocca story, I think HFII did the right thing in firing him. It did Iacocca good, getting fired usually does, (I've been fired 5 times, came out better each time!), he saved Chrysler, but he got lazy again and Chrysler got rid of him!! Henry II realized it was too big of a job to handle alone, I really admire that, instead of going in and wrecking everything!! I've seen kids get a business and destroy it!
The 49 ford was a break thru car. No more buggy spring suspension, an updated flathead engine with the ignition out of harms way, & a modern body. Not traditonal Ford. Im old enough to remember its introduction & it was a big thing & yet GM remained the dominate auto maker.
Wasn't it Ford Motor Company that was offered the ***ests of Volkswagon right after WW II for something like 100K, but p***ed? Seems like the statement about little cars not selling in the U.S. had something to do in the decision making process.
They tried to give the VW factory to a lot of different people but they all p***ed. At that time the VW plant was a bombed out wreck. A few workers survived by making pots and pans out of s**** aluminum from wrecked airplanes. The French army had already cleaned it out of any machine tools of value. The British Army Engineers took it over, first as a plant for reconditioning army trucks and equipment, then started making a few cars. The first cars were supplied to the occupying British army motor pool. This is when they tried offering it to Ford and others. Ford sent an expert to appraise the plant. His report in a nut shell: "Frankly Mr. Ford, what we are being offered here isn't worth a damn". The British equivalent of the SAE did a report that said the car was a loud noisy crude thing and no one would ever buy it. They offered it to the leading British car makers first, as the plant was in the British zone, but none of them wanted it. The Russians offered to move the border a few miles and take it over but this was voted down. The British Army kept it running for several years, when no one wanted it they set it up as an independent company and bowed out. It wasn't until 2 or 3 years after the war that they began operating on their own. Major Ivan Hirst, REME, is given credit for saving the VW company and finding employment for thousands at a time when Germany was starving. When he turned the company over to civilian management and left , the VW people tendered him a dinner and offered to give him a free VW. He turned it down, saying Army regulations forbid him taking such an expensive gift. They asked if he could accept a model car, he said that would be all right. So they presented him with a hand made model VW that cost more to build than the real car.
GM was the largest company in the world going into WW2 and came out and into the 50's as the mega company selling nearly 60 percent of the US auto market.
I have been told, but can't say how true it is, that the 46, 47,and 48's were just thrown together to try to keep up with demand of the returning GI's. I know there are some things on my 47 that seem kind of, "why did they do it that way?".
When they were new it was fairly obvious that the 46 - 47- 48 Fords were cheapened in many small ways from the very similar prewar model. There were different factors involved. One was to try and turn out as many cars as possible to fill the backlog of orders. Another reason was they knew they could sell anything with 4 wheels and a motor. Then too, everything was more expensive after the war, the cost of making cars was practically double yet they were limited by price controls to a "ceiling price" set by the government. And some materials were simply no longer available, cheaper subs***utes being the only thing they could get. This was not exclusive to Ford, a lot of other cars were not what they were but Fords seemed to be cheapened more than some others.
and it hasn't happened since, which is why those that lived through those times are called the "Greatest Generation" because they were. Today's generation is a joke, an embarr***ment and I am sad to say that it was my generation (boomers) that opened Pandora's Box (they thought they knew better than the greatest generation).
When I look at some of the **** being pulled today I can't help thinking in the sixties and seventies they never would have gotten away with it. Thousands would have been demonstrating in the streets, and any politician who voted to give the big banks a $700 billion dollar bailout and cut off Granny's Social Security wouldn't have dared show his face. I never thought I would miss the hippies and protesters but there you go.
Henry Ford was born in 1863, not 1860 Ford was number one in production from 1906-1926, 29-30, 34-37, 46, 49, 54, 57, 61, 66, 70, 71, 78 Chevrolet was number one in production 1927-28, 31-33, 39-42, 47-48, 50-53, 55-56, 58-60, 62-65, 67-69, 72-87, 89 Saying that Ford was third to Chrysler (meaning all the makes from Chrysler Corporation, rather than a single make) in 1941 is comparing apples to oranges. If you're gonna do that, then compare General Motors, Ford Motor, and Chrysler Corp. Ford was second in 1941. Production figures from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Automobile_Production_Figures Nice summary on Henry Ford here as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford
I believe he's taking exception to this quote "In 1927 when he shut down the factory to change over to the Model A, Chevrolet took the lead in sales and after that Ford was second to Chev every year." Clearly, the Ford division of Ford Motor Company was not behind the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors "every year" after 1927.
Perhaps I should have been more specific. I was talking about General Motors and Chrysler Corporation outselling Ford Motor Company in terms of total number of automobiles sold. I apologize for the confusion.
Chevrolet outsold Ford every year from 1937 onward EXCEPT 1957 and 1959......I am not as sure when that reign finally ended, but the real irony is, the '57 Chev went on to become the icon it is and the '59 is still an ugly beast.......the '59 Ford was no prize either........ Regarding Volkswagen, one of the most authoritative books ever written on the that subject was ***led "Small Wonder" and chronicles the development of the car, designed and supervised by Dr. Ferdinand Porsche, through the '30s as Hitler's "KdF Wagen" and utilizing German Army soldiers as "test drivers". The new plant in Wulfsburg, Germany was built to produce the car, but that was delayed when the war needs took precedence VW car production. Their were some sedans built for Army Officer use as well as the far more common Kubelwagen and some Schwimmwagens. Rusty's account of post war history is generally correct, except that when the British left in 1948, Heinz Nordhoff, an engineer at Adam Opel AG, (a GM subsidiary since 1934 as I recall), was given responsibility for the VW plant and guided it's rebirth to the point that by 1960 or so (only 12 years later) VW's were being sold in 140 Countries around the world and were a model of production quality control. Some people, many on the HAMB it seems, dislike VW's....and that's OK...but the story of that product/company is one of the great business successes of all time. Ray
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