50 Fun Facts About Henry Ford

Which 1908 car is credited with revolutionising both transportation and American industry?

It cost $825 at launch, and by 1918 it accounted for half of all cars in the United States.

In what year did Ford found the Ford Motor Company?

It was his third attempt after the Detroit Automobile Company and the Henry Ford Company both failed him.

Ford's father William was born in which country?

He came from County Cork; Ford's mother was the daughter of Belgian immigrants.

What reputation did the 15-year-old Ford earn by dismantling and reassembling neighbours' timepieces?

His father had given him a pocket watch when he was 12.

What did 12-year-old Ford see in 1875 that he called 'the first automobile other than horse-drawn that I had ever seen'?

He named that sighting and the gift of a watch as the two significant events of the year.

How did Ford sum up his feelings about the place where he grew up?

His mother died in 1876, and he left home at 16 to become an apprentice machinist in Detroit.

Which firm employed Ford as an engineer from 1891, promoting him to chief engineer in 1893?

The job gave him the time and money to experiment with gasoline engines.

What did Ford name the self-propelled vehicle he completed and test-drove in June 1896?

He built three of them in his home workshop.

Which famous inventor encouraged Ford's automobile experiments after they met in 1896?

They became close friends and later neighbours in Fort Myers, Florida.

What did the Henry Ford Company become after Ford walked out in 1902?

Henry Leland, brought in as a consultant, renamed the company; Ford later bought Leland's next luxury firm too.

Which siblings supplied over $160,000 in parts to the young Ford company and became shareholders?

John and Horace Dodge demanded payment for their first shipment, forcing a reorganisation.

On what frozen surface did Ford set a land speed record of 91.3 mph in a demonstration run?

Race driver Barney Oldfield then took the car, named 999 after the fastest locomotive of the day, around the country.

What did the Model T cost when it debuted on October 1, 1908?

The price fell every year, reaching $360 for the basic touring car by 1916.

Which design feature of the Model T did every other car company soon copy?

Its four cylinders were also cast in a single block, and it was simple to drive and cheap to repair.

In what year did Ford introduce moving assembly belts into his plants?

Contemporary sources credit employees such as Clarence Avery, Peter Martin, Charles Sorensen and Harold Wills with the concept.

Ford's famous line said customers could have any colour they wanted 'so long as it is' what?

Black was mandated because it dried fastest on the assembly line; earlier Model Ts had come in other colours, including red.

How many Model Ts were built in total by the time production ended in 1927?

The record stood for 45 years.

To whom did Ford hand the presidency of Ford Motor Company in December 1918?

Henry kept final say and sometimes reversed his son's decisions.

What ruse did Ford use to scare minority shareholders into selling him their Ford Motor stock?

It worked, and the family took sole ownership of the company.

Which luxury car maker did Ford buy in 1922?

It had been founded by Henry Leland, the man whose arrival had once driven Ford out of his own company.

Which car succeeded the Tin Lizzie in 1927 after an 18-month production shutdown?

More than four million were made through 1931, built at the huge new River Rouge plant.

What engineering 'bombshell' did Ford drop in 1932?

Ford had first considered a radical X-8 design; the V8 gave the brand a hot-rod reputation.

What daily wage did Ford astonish the world by offering in January 1914?

It more than doubled most workers' pay, and the best mechanics in Detroit flocked to him.

What was the name of the Ford unit whose 50 investigators vetted workers' private lives for profit-sharing?

It frowned on heavy drinking and gambling; Ford later admitted such 'paternalism has no place in industry'.

On May 1 of which year did Ford's factory workers switch to a five-day, 40-hour week?

Ford said leisure for workers was neither 'lost time' nor 'a class privilege'.

Ford called labour unions what?

He gave his views on unions in Chapter 18 of My Life and Work.

Which former Navy boxer ran Ford's Service Department and its intimidation of union organisers?

His men beat Walter Reuther and other UAW members in the 1937 Battle of the Overpass; Henry Ford II fired him first thing in 1945.

Who told Ford in 1941 that she would leave him if he broke up the company rather than sign with the UAW?

Ford relented, and overnight signed the most favourable UAW contract in Detroit.

What was the nickname of the Ford Trimotor aircraft?

Made of corrugated Alclad metal, it first flew in 1926 and was the first successful US passenger airliner.

What did Ford fund in 1915 to try to end World War I, leading 170 activists to Europe?

He was widely ridiculed and left the ship as soon as it reached Sweden.

Which president urged Ford to run for the US Senate from Michigan in 1918?

Ford lost by about 7,000 votes out of more than 400,000 to Truman Newberry.

How much did the jury award Ford in his 1919 libel win over the Chicago Tribune?

He had asked for $1 million.

What was the name of the hometown newspaper Ford bought in 1918 and used to publish antisemitic articles?

Every Ford dealership was required to carry it; the articles were bound as The International Jew.

Ford is the only American mentioned favourably in which infamous book?

Hitler kept a life-size portrait of Ford behind his desk and in 1931 called him 'my inspiration'.

What lawsuit prompted Ford to close his newspaper in December 1927?

Ford issued a public apology to the ADL that year, though his signature was reportedly forged by an aide.

What was Fordlandia?

Ford wanted to escape reliance on foreign rubber; he also funded a Florida lab with Edison and Firestone to find a native source.

Ford agreed in 1929 to help build the first automobile plant of which country?

The GAZ plant near Nizhny Novgorod assembled $30 million of knocked-down Ford cars and trucks in its first four years.

What share of the world's automobiles was Ford manufacturing by 1932?

He had dealerships on six continents by 1929.

Which bomber did Ford's Willow Run plant turn out at a rate of one every 58 minutes by 1945?

Willow Run built 9,000 of them, half of all B-24s produced in the war.

Who forced the ailing Ford to hand control of the company to his grandson Henry Ford II in 1945?

They threatened to sell their stock, three-quarters of the company's shares.

Which charcoal briquette brand grew from Ford wood scraps and is named for his brother-in-law?

Edward G. Kingsford made the briquettes from the scraps.

Ford's 1942 patent covered a car made almost entirely of what?

It weighed 30 percent less than steel, ran on ethanol, and never caught on.

Which agricultural scientist did Ford cultivate a relationship with over soybean plastics?

Soy-based plastics went into Ford horns, paint and other parts through the 1930s.

What was the name of Ford's estate in Dearborn where he died in 1947?

A public viewing drew up to 5,000 people an hour.

What open-air museum did Ford create in Dearborn by collecting and moving old buildings?

He had first tried the idea in Sudbury, Massachusetts, buying the Wayside Inn and moving a schoolhouse linked to 'Mary Had a Little Lamb'.

In which 1932 novel are the years dated 'A.F.', Anno Ford, and people say 'My Ford' instead of 'My Lord'?

Aldous Huxley replaced the Christian cross with a capital T for Model T.

What anti-smoking book did Ford circulate to young people in 1914?

Opposition to cigarettes was unusual at a time when smoking was ubiquitous.

How many US patents was Ford awarded during his life?

They included the 1911 transmission mechanism used in his most famous car.

Whom did Ford defeat in a race car named 'Sweepstakes' on October 10, 1901?

Ford raced as both constructor and driver from 1901 to 1913 before handing the wheel to hired drivers.

In 1927 Ford, Edison and Harvey Firestone each put up $25,000 to found a research body seeking what?

The Edison Botanic Research Corporation was based in Fort Myers, Florida.