Henry Ford II | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Ford in 1963 | |
| Born | (1917-09-04)September 4, 1917 |
| Died | September 29, 1987(1987-09-29) (aged 70) Detroit, Michigan, U.S. |
| Education | Yale University (did not graduate) |
| Occupation | Automobile executive |
| Employer | Ford Motor Company (1943–1982) |
| Title | |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 3, includingEdsel II |
| Father | Edsel Ford |
Henry Ford II (September 4, 1917 – September 29, 1987), commonly known as "Hank the Deuce," was an American businessman in theautomotive industry. He was the oldest son ofEdsel Ford I and oldest grandson ofHenry Ford. He served as president of theFord Motor Company from 1945 to 1960,chief executive officer (CEO) from 1947 to 1979, and chairman of the board of directors from 1960 to 1980.[1] Under his leadership, Ford Motor Company became a publicly traded corporation in 1956. From 1943 to 1950, he also served as president of theFord Foundation.
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Henry Ford II was born in Detroit, Michigan, toEleanor Clay Ford andEdsel Ford on September 4, 1917. He, brothersBenson andWilliam, and sisterJosephine, grew up amid affluence. He graduated fromThe Hotchkiss School in 1936.[2] He attendedYale University, where he served on the business staff ofThe Yale Record,[3] the campus humor magazine, but left in 1940 before graduation.[4] During this time, he became a member of theZeta Psi fraternity.[5]
When his fatherEdsel, president of Ford, died of cancer in May 1943 (duringWorld War II), Henry Ford II was serving in theUS Navy and unable immediately to inherit the presidency of the family-owned business. The elderly and ailingHenry Ford I, company founder, decided to re-assume the presidency, though mentally inconsistent, suspicious, and considered no longer fit for the presidency position by most of the company's directors. For the previous 20 years, although he had long been without any official executive title, the elder Ford had maintainedde facto control over the company; the board and the management had never seriously defied him, and this moment was not different. The directors elected him, and he served until the end of the war.[6] During this period, the company began to decline, losing over $10 million a month (equivalent to $224,000,000 in 2024[7]). The administration of PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt considered a government acquisition of the company to ensure continued war production, but the idea never progressed to execution.
Henry Ford II left the Navy in July 1943[8] and joined the company's management a few weeks later. He assumed presidency of the business on September 21, 1945. Since it had been assumed that Edsel Ford would continue in his capacity as president of the company for much longer than turned out to be the case, Henry Ford II had by then received little preparation for the position. He inherited the company during a chaotic period; its European factories had suffered a great deal of damage during the war, the company was losing money, and domestic sales were in decline.
Henry Ford II immediately adopted an aggressive management style. One of his first acts as company president was to placeJohn Bugas in charge of company management, dismissing much of his grandfather's inner circle, especiallyHarry Bennett, chief of the Ford Service Department, whom the elder Ford had hired in 1921 to oversee security at the vast Ford Rouge Plant complex, and nearly two decades later had become a lightning rod in efforts to preventunionization of the Ford labor force, by violent means if necessary. Next, acknowledging his inexperience, Henry II hired several seasoned executives to support him. He hired formerGeneral Motors executivesErnest Breech and Lewis Crusoe away from theBendix Corporation. Breech was to serve in the coming years as the young Ford's business mentor, and the Breech–Crusoe team would form the core of Ford's business expertise, offering much-needed experience.
Additionally, Ford hired ten young up-and-comers, known as the "Whiz Kids". These ten, gleaned from anArmy Air Forces statistical team, Ford envisioned as giving the company the ability to innovate and stay current. Two of them,Arjay Miller andRobert McNamara, went on to serve as presidents of Ford themselves. A third member,J. Edward Lundy, served in key financial roles for several decades and helped to establish Ford Finance's position as a major worldwide financial operation. As a team, the "Whiz Kids" are probably best remembered as the design team for the1949 Ford, which they took from concept to production in 19 months, and which re-established Ford as a formidable automotive company. It was reported that 100,000 orders for this car were taken the day it was introduced to the market.
Ford became president and CEO ofFord Motor Company in 1945. In 1956, the company became a publicly traded corporation and dedicated its newworld headquarters building. During his term as CEO of Ford, he lived inGrosse Pointe,Michigan. On July 13, 1960, he was elected chairman before resigning as president on November 9, 1960. He would resign as CEO on October 1, 1979, and as chairman on March 13, 1980.[9] His nephew,William Clay Ford Jr. would later assume these positions after 20 years of non-Ford family management of the company. During this interim, the family's interests were represented on the board by Henry's younger brotherWilliam Clay Ford Sr., as well as Henry's sonEdsel Ford II and his nephew William Clay Ford Jr.
During the early 1960s Ford engaged in lengthy negotiations withEnzo Ferrari to buyFerrari, with a view to expanding Ford's presence in motorsport in general and at theLe Mans 24 Hours in particular. However, negotiations collapsed due to disputes over control of Ferrari'sScuderia Ferrari racing division. The collapse of the deal led him to launch theFord GT40 project, intended to end Ferrari's dominance at Le Mans (the Italian marque won the race six consecutive times from 1960 to 1965). In 1966, after two difficult years in 1964 and 1965, the GT40 Mark IIs had top 3 finishes at both theDaytona 24 Hours and theSebring 12 Hours before taking the first of four consecutive wins atLe Mans.[10]
In the late 1960s, Ford became personally involved in the development of theLincoln Continental Mark III. He gave his enthusiastic approval for both the final exterior and interior designs. The result was a Ford Motor Company flagship that single-handedly made Lincoln profitable and spawned a three-decade market rivalry between theLincoln Mark series and Cadillac'sEldorado series.[11] During this time, Ford also reformed the company's European operations, merging the previously separate (and competing)British andGerman subsidiaries into a singleFord of Europe with a common product line and merged manufacturing operations. During the 1970s, Ford of Europe expanded substantially, with new factories inSaarlouis andValencia, the latter becoming one of Ford's biggest plants outside the US.
In 1973–74, as it became clear that the U.S. automobile market would begin to favor smaller, more fuel-efficient cars,Ford's then-PresidentLee Iacocca was highly interested in buyingpowertrains fromHonda Motor Company as a way to minimize the cost of developing a small Ford car for the North American market, such as a modified version ofFord of Europe'sFord Fiesta. The plan was rejected by Henry Ford II, who said, "No car with my name on the hood is going to have a Jap engine inside."[12] Although the Ford Motor Company had been selling a Mazda compact pickup truck as the Ford Courier since late 1971, Ford did not like the idea of flagship North American passenger car models moving in that direction. Ford Motor Company did go on to adapt to the era in which Japanese, German, and American participation in a globalized automobile industry became tightly integrated. For example, Ford's relationship withMazda was well developed even before the end of Henry Ford II's period of influence. However, in Iacocca's view, it lagged several years behind GM and Chrysler, due to Henry Ford II's unappealable influence, before others led it forward despite his resistance.[citation needed]
Henry Ford II's management and management style caused the company's fortunes to fluctuate in more ways than one. For example, he allowed the offering ofpublic stock in 1956, the IPO raising $650 million for the company (equivalent to $7,500,000,000 in 2024[7]); but the "experimental car" program instituted during his tenure, the "Edsel", cost the company almost half that. Likewise, Henry Ford II hired in 1964 the creative Lee Iacocca, who was fundamental to the success of theFord Mustang, but fired him due to personal disputes in 1978. (On the break in their relationship, Iacocca quoted Ford as saying, "Sometimes you just don't like somebody." Iacocca later retorted, "If a guy is over 25 percent a jerk, he's in trouble. And Henry was 95 percent."[13])
Henry Ford II formally retired from all positions at Ford Motor Company on October 1, 1982, upon reaching the company's mandatory retirement age of 65, but remained the ultimate source of authority at Ford until his death in 1987.
Henry Ford II was married three times:
Ford died ofpneumonia in Detroit atHenry Ford Hospital on September 29, 1987, at age 70. After a private funeral service atChrist Church Grosse Pointe, his remains were cremated and the ashes scattered.[21]
Henry Ford II is portrayed byTracy Letts in the 2019 filmFord v Ferrari (released under the title "Le Mans '66" in some parts of Europe).[24]
He appears in a few scenes in the 2002 movieMonday Night Mayhem. Footage of him appears in the documentary television seriesThe Cars that Built America.[25]
| Business positions | ||
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| Preceded by | Executive Vice-President ofFord Motor Company April 10, 1944 – July 1, 1946[1] | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | President of theFord Motor Company September 21, 1945 – November 9, 1960 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | CEO of theFord Motor Company September 21, 1945 – October 1, 1979 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chairman of theFord Motor Company July 13, 1960 – March 13, 1980 | Succeeded by |
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