Roadcar Articles

Henry Ford and the Automotive Golden Jubilee

Avatar photoBrad Jansen

Henry Ford was truly one of a kind: egotistical yet compassionate; rich yet thrifty; genius yet ignorant. No man— industrialist, philanthropist or entertainer—before or since, has garnered as much fame and notoriety as Henry. Yet, he was a man like every other. A close Ford acquaintance wrote, “So much has been written about Ford—how great he was, and how he put America on wheels—that the public has lost sight of the eccentric flesh-and-blood man behind the cardboard poster.”

The rise of Henry Ford began on June 16, 1903, when he and eleven other men staked their hopes, aspirations, and savings on the creation of the Ford Motor Company. Those who stayed with Ford for 16 years walked away multimillionaires, but Henry was the driving force in the company. He had a vision of building lightweight, well-made, inexpensive automobiles that the average man could afford; he sold them by the millions, and it made him a fortune.

Related
Members only$29 / year

Keep going. This is where it gets good.

Sports Car Digest Membership is for people who'd rather spend an hour with one chassis number than skim ten headlines. The rest of this story — and every other one like it — is a few seconds away.

  • 5,000+ members-only stories

    Concours, auctions, race history, driven classics and the full archive.

  • No ads. None.

    The whole site reads like a magazine, on every device.

  • The market, every week

    Auction results and classic-car values from the people who were there.

  • 30% off the shop

    Every Sports Car Digest shirt and piece of merch, all year.

Join Sports Car Digest — Keep Reading

$29 a year. Cancel anytime, no hoops.
Already a member? Sign in

BY CAR PEOPLE, NOT A NAMELESS MEDIA COMPANY. Your membership keeps a small independent team of historians, photojournalists and racing drivers doing this.

Join — Keep Reading $29/yr