In 1903, 40 year old Henry Ford sought the investment of automobile pioneers among a core of 12
investors including bothers John and Horace Dodge, automobile moguls who launched their own company years later.
It took only $28,000 dollars to begin building the first Ford automobiles. The vehicles were produced
from components manufactured by other companies, but supplies moved slowly and allowed for a small team of
two men to build only two or three cars per day. Over the years, the Ford Company expanded, building
more cars with the advent of improved mechanical technology. As an innovator, Henry Ford believed it possible to
sell his cars despite a sluggish economy and established a plan to provide financing to customers, lauching the Ford
Motor Credit, a private automobile financing division. As a result, Ford vehicles sold in large numbers
during the post Depression era and is exists, now, as one of the few in America companies that survived the Great Deprerssion.
Through determination and originality, The Ford Company's wide variety of cars, eventually, became America's best selling
automobile.
Today, The Ford Motor Company produces Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicle brands and has interfaced manufacturing
operations with Canada, Mexico, the United Kindom, Germany, Turkey, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, the People's Republic
of China, and South Africa. Under the ownership of Ford in 2009, The Ford Motor Company remains
one of the largest, most successful closely held companies in the world.
