Ford And Henry - History page 1
Henry Ford was born on a farm near Dearborn Michigan . He was the eldest of the five children of William Ford and his wife Mary , a very successful farming family . As a youngster Henry enjoyed working with Machinery and mechanical devices . He would even repair clocks and watches for his friends and neighbour’s . Farming was not really one of Henry’s true interests . In 1879 Henry left the farm , and mover to Detroit Michigan , were he served a three year apprenticeship as a machinist . Henry then returned to the farm in Dearborn , in 1882 were he spent some years repairing Westinghouse Steam Engines as well as farm equipment , for the local farmers . Henry married Clara Bryant in 1888 . He did some farming and even ran a saw mill for a time , to support his wife . In 1891 Henry moved back to Detroit were he became an engineer for the Thomas Edison Illumination Company . Henry’s only child (Edsel Bryant Ford) was born in 1893 . Henry became Chief Engineer of the Edison Illumination Company in 1893 . The pay increase that came with the permotion , gave Henry enough money to experiment with and develop his internal combustion engine .
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In 1896 Henry Ford completed his first “perfected” automobile , the Quadricycle . Henry test drove the Quadricycle in June of 1996 .
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Thomas Edison was very much empressed by Henry’s machine and encouraged Henry to continue with his experiments . Henry spent a lot of time test driving the automobile he built to find ways to improve on it , to build even better automobiles . In 1998 Henry completed his second automobile .
In 1899 Henry Ford started the Detroit Automobile Company assumed the position of manager . Henry insisted on perfection which lead to his investors becoming impatient with the delay to make profits . Henry would not begin production of automobiles to sell to the public , until it was perfected to his satisfaction . The greed of the investors and their pressure on Henry to sell un-perfected automobiles to make money sooner , led to demise of the Detroit Automobile Company and Henry dissolved the company in 1901 .
Henry than took over the company and restructured it as the Henry Ford Motor Company . Henry designed and built a 26 horsepower racer in 1901 and raced it with great success . The publicity from his race wins assisted him in raising funds he needed to finance and operate his new company which opened in November of 1901 .
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Due to financial difficulties with his partners Henry decided to leave the Henry Ford Motor Company in 1902 and sold his shares in the company for $800.00 . He also withdrew the right to use his name . Henry Leland was hired to take over the Henry Ford Motor Company renamed it , the Cadillac Motor Company . The first Cadillac automobile was built from designs that were developed by Henry Ford and then , left with the company by Henry . It was almost identical to the first model “A” Ford .
Henry Ford designed and built the Famous 80 horsepower + “999” Ford racer in 1902 which he raced with very great success in 1902 . Henry set a new Land Speed Record at that time , when he drove his “999” over a 1.5 mile course (2.4 km) on the frozen ice of Lake St Clair , at a speed of somewhere over 91 miles per hour . The ‘999’ was then taken coast to coast by Barney Oldfield (a noted race driver of that time) to further permote the “Ford” name . most automobiles of that time were expensive , beond the price rang of the average working man .
Henry’s desire was to build inexpensive automobiles that the average working could afford to buy .
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The Dodge Brothers Machine Shop was hired by Henry to manufacture parts for Henry’s automobiles as their reputation for the best quality of workmanship in the world , fit well with Henry’s insistence on perfection . Henry’s new company was first called Ford Malcomson Ltd but in 1903 it was renamed the “Ford Motor Company” .
John and Horace Dodge made an agreement to take a 10% share in the new Ford Motor Company in exchange for the first order of parts which were said to be about $166,000.00 in value . The dodge brothers continued to build parts for Henry for about 10 years . They also received about 1 million dollars per year in royalty’s for their shares in Ford . When Henry bought out all the share holders in 1914 , the Dodge Brothers received 10 million dollars for their 10% of Ford .
Henry’s Ford joined forces with Harvey Firestone design and manufacture rubber automobile tires in 1904 . The result of their engineering alliance was that the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company was the first company in the world to manufacture rubber tires for automobiles .
In 1908 Henry introduced the Model “T’ to the world .
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The Model T was the first automobile to have the steering wheel on the left side . All automobiles in North America and in many other countries of the world have a left side steering wheel even today . Other new features of the Model T were that the engine were completely enclosed and the engine had a solid cast 4 cylinder block . The model T was built very designed as a very simple and easy vehicle was easy to maintain or repair . It was also a very well built and dependable automobile . The Model T was a very easy automobile to drive . It is said that more people learned to drive in Model T ‘s than in all other vehicles of that time .
In 1910 Henry had to build a new assembly plant to keep up with the sale demand of his Model T . this plant was eventually part of the worlds largest manufacturing complex . Precision manufacturing and interchangeable parts were introduced , which helped to keep the price of Ford vehicles low and affordable . In 1913 a steadily moving assembly line was introduced , with conveyor belts that supplied parts to the worker on the line . This made the assembly of Ford automobiles a very smooth and accurate operation .
