At 39, intent on building a car for the masses, Henry founded the Ford Motor Company on June 16, 1903. It’d been seven years since he debuted his Quadricycle. Now, with new investors, including John and Horace Dodge, who believed in his goal and his skills, he raised the equivalent of $800,000 to start the new business. With shop set up on Mack Avenue in Detroit, Ford began production of the 1903 Ford Model A. Ford produced 1,708 cars at the facility before the company moved to the Piquette Avenue plant. It was there that Ford would cement his success and conquer his dream with the development of the Ford Model T. The third time was indeed the charm.
At approximately 9:30 am on this day in 1903, in Detroit, Michigan, Henry Ford and 12 investors met to sign the paperwork necessary to form a new corporation to be called Ford Motor Company. The documents were notarized and sent to the office of the Michigan Secretary of State. The papers were dated June 16, 1903, however they were not received until the next day, which is when the company was legally incorporated. Within a month, the company had its first order for the company’s new Model A. It had a two-cylinder engine that pumped out 8 horsepower and could hit speeds of up to 30 mph.
Ford Motor Company soon earned a reputation for affordable, reliable, and mass produced automobiles that effectively changed the United States and many other parts of the world throughout the early 20th century. Among the most revolutionary products and procedures of the early FMC are the Model T, which was introduced in 1908 and put the world on wheels, and the moving assembly line for automobile production, which was implemented in Ford’s factories beginning five years later. Then In 1914 Ford began paying factory workers $5 per eight hour work day, an outstanding sum in those days, as it was a bump up from the previous rate of $2.34 for a nine hour day.
By today’s standards, the Model T remains one of the cheapest cars in history. For example, a Touring car in 1913 cost $600, inflation adjusted for 2013, that’s about $14,100 in 2013 dollars. By 1925, that same Touring car had reduced in price to just $260… about $3,800 in 2013 dollars!
