Gm and Ford: A History of Time

Henry Ford and eleven others filed the papers of incorporation in the State of Michigan on June 17th, 1903 with total liquid assets of $28,000 (Ford Motor Co, 2007). This was the birth of what grew and became one of the world’s largest corporations. At inception, the Ford Motor Company operated a tiny plant in Detroit and employed about ten people (Ford Motor Co, 2007). In 1904 Ford began foreign expansion and opened a plant in Walkerville, Ontario (Ford Motor Co, 2007). By 1913 Ford was producing roughly half the cars in America (Ford Motor Co, 2007). From this insignificant beginning Ford grew to have a worldwide network of manufacturing and assembly plants, sales operations, parts depots and dealers, with Ford Motor Company represented in more than 200 nations and six continents (Ford Motor Co, 2007). Also, about 60,000 other companies in the world supply Ford with various different goods and services (Ford Motor Co, 2007). Ford’s concept was to provide affordable cars for the mass market (Ford Motor Co, 2007). From the beginning Ford used the first nineteen letters of the alphabet to name its new car models ending this trend with the Model T (Ford Motor Co, 2007). Ford produced fifteen million Model T’s between the years of 1908 and 1927 (Ford Motor Co, 2007). All this but, the biggest contribution that Ford made to the auto manufacturing industry was undoubtedly the moving assembly line. This concept provided tremendous manufacturing efficiency and revolutionized not only auto manufacturing but, all types of manufacturing.

Henry Ford said; “People can have the Model T in any color so long as it's black” (Ford Motor Co, 2007). Ford’s philosophy of offering the public the best value for their money gave the consumer little variety and choice. This is where General Motors entered the scene and filled the gap with what consumers were looking for. General Motors is the world’s largest automaker and saw it’s beginnings in 1902 and was founded by William Durant (General Motors Corp, 2007). General Motors was initially founded as a holding company for Buick (General Motors Corp, 2007). Over the next few years, Buick acquired Oldsmobile followed by Cadillac, Oakland, and Elmore Motor Companies (General Motors Corp, 2007). In 1908, these companies were combined into a single business unit that we now know as General Motors (General Motors Corp, 2007). After a few years of financial hardship for the company, the stockholders were forced to intervene to save the company from financial ruin and they removed Durant from power in the company he founded. Soon after that, Durant began another car company he called Chevrolet and used the success of this company to regain power in the General Motor Company in 1915