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In 2003 the Ford Motor Company celebrated it's 100th Anniversary. A milestone in the life of any company, the Ford story began when the Ford family who were tenant farmers near the village of Ballinascarthy in West Cork emigrated to America in 1832.
In 1863, Henry Ford was born to William & Mary Ford and he grew up on his parents farm. Tired of farm work, at the age of 16 he left for the nearby city of Detroit to serve his time as an apprentice machinist. In 1891 Ford qualified as an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company. Two years later he was promoted to Chief Engineer, which gave him the time and money to devote his attention to his personal experiments on internal combustion engines. |
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In 1896 he completed his own self-propelled vehicle and in 1903 he founded his own company, the Ford Motor Company. He held the position of Vice President and Chief Engineer. |
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By 1918 half of the worlds vehicles were Model T Fords and the decision was made to build assembly plants in Europe. Henry never forgot his family roots and Cork was selected as one of the locations. The site selected was the old Cork Racecourse on the Marina. The name of the new company would be Henry Ford & Son. That name survives today, the only part of the Ford empire to bear the name. In 1984 Fords decided to cease production of cars in Cork, but retained their sales personnel for the sale of Ford vehicles to the Irish market. We congratulate Fords on reaching their centenary and wish them well as they enter their second hundred years in business. |
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Ford Motor Company entered the business world on June 16, 1903, when Henry Ford and 11 business associates signed the company's articles of incorporation. With $28,000 in cash, the pioneering industrialists gave birth to what was to become one of the world's largest corporations. Few companies are as closely identified with the history and development of industry and society throughout the 20th century as Ford Motor Company. As with most great enterprises, Ford Motor Company's beginnings were modest. The company had anxious moments in its infancy. The earliest record of a shipment is July 20, 1903, approximately one month after incorporation, to a Detroit physician. With the company's first sale came hope—a young Ford Motor Company had taken its first steps. |
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| Perhaps Ford Motor Company's single greatest contribution to automotive manufacturing was the moving assembly line. First implemented at the Highland Park plant (in Michigan, US) in 1913, the new technique allowed individual workers to stay in one place and perform the same task repeatedly on multiple vehicles that passed by them. The line proved tremendously efficient, helping the company far surpass the production levels of their competitors—and making the vehicles more affordable. |
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| Henry Ford insisted that the company's future lay in the production of affordable cars for a mass market. Beginning in 1903, the company began using the first 19 letters of the alphabet to name new cars. In 1908, the Model T was born. 19 years and 15 million Model T's later, Ford Motor Company was a giant industrial complex that spanned the globe. In 1925, Ford Motor Company acquired the Lincoln Motor Company, thus branching out into luxury cars, and in the 1930's, the Mercury division was created to establish a division centered on mid-priced cars. Ford Motor Company was growing. Today, Ford Motor Company is a family of automotive brands consisting of: Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Mazda, Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin, and Volvo. |
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