Our SWF is one of the rarest places on the Internet where brands don't matter. Most car and truck sites are pretty open about owners with different brands too. Some aren't. I've driven and owned all kinds of cars from most major countries that produce cars and trucks. Hardly any of today's cars would ever get on my Bucket List, regardless of brand. Tupperware bubblegum styling, over-priced for what they offer, and loaded with features that most living rooms don't have. Maybe that's why they cost a small mortgage. Henry Ford was slow to get into luxury cars. He made cars for the masses, for use by anybody that needed a workhorse on wheels. He made them efficiently and passed on the savings to buyers. I think that having various members of his descendants play a role to this day, in the workings of FoMoCo, has kept the competition on its toes. Ford made their share of lemons too, but their big hits have survived over decades. So I was glad to see that although his grandson passed, that his great grandson is still on the Board of Directors. A Ford still runs the company. Here's the article, from the British press! Go figure! http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-26508258
You're kidding, right? You can look this up in about 5 seconds with a google search. Henry Ford was born in 1863. He was thus 2 years old when the Civil War ended. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford
I read a short bio in a magazine saying he went gold mining, came back to the family farm and started building wood wagons, mass-production style, and then went into engines and vehicles. Can't recall which magazine. I knew one gold miner who invented Pulse Combustion to clean pollutants from Coal and Natural Gas. Driven, is an understatement.
Without looking it up, the earliest I remember about Henry Ford was tinkering on an engine on the kitchen table of the family farm.
No shortage of history on the old man: http://archive.org/search.php?query=Henry Ford Gotta a little joke about him: Henry dies and gets to the pearly gates. Peter sees him walk in. "Hello, can I help you?" Henry gives him his name. Peter asks him what he left for Mankind, before passing. Henry says, "I invented the Ford automobile." Finally, Peter gives him his wings. "Ok, you can go down that hall to the Inventors' Mansion, about 1 mile, turn left, second door on the right." He decided to walk instead of winging it. He gets there, and recognizes a few faces. Thomas Edison! "You have no idea how glad I am to meet you." All that work on DC and AC bulbs allowed us to change our headlights from Kerosene to sealed headlights! We'll have to chat some more." A little further, and he meets up with Marconi. "Man, did you know that we've been making more cars with radios, because of you? Oh, I'm gonna like it here!" Meets up with a few others until he spots this old fellow. "What's your name?", says Henry. "My name is Adam, the first Man." Henry asks him what he invented?" "Woman!" He says, shaking his head. Henry pauses and says, "That is the worst engineering design that I've ever seen!" Adam glares at him, and asks "Why?" Henry says, "First of all the front bumpers are too low, then the rear bumpers are too high, and the exhaust is too close to the intake!" Adam agrees, "I thought were gonna talk about her mind. That's like a steel vault. I never knew what she was thinking!" They both laughed and tried to reinvent together.
Funny you mention Edison. In my neck of the wood there was this fellow named Luther Burbank. Maybe you heard of him? Rick http://www.csmonitor.com/1987/1021/uluth.html
Thanks! What an interesting report! So great that these people knew each other personally. Their creative magic rubs off onto each other.
I Still love his Russets. http://inventors.about.com/gi/o.htm...zu=http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/burbank.html
This link works: http://inventors.about.com/od/bstartinventors/a/Luther_Burbank.htm I wonder if he helped the Vodka industry with tastier spuds?
