Henry Ford II

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Henry Ford II (September 4, 1917 – September 29, 1987), also known as "HF2" or "Hank the Deuce," was Henry Ford's eldest son and Henry Ford's oldest grandson.

He was president of the Ford Motor Company from 1945 to 1960, chief executive officer (CEO) from 1945 to 1979, and chairman of the board of directors from 1960 to 1980.

Ford Motor Company became a publicly traded company in 1956 under Henry Ford II's leadership.

He served as president of the Ford Foundation from 1943 to 1950.

Early life and education

Henry Ford II was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Eleanor Clay Ford and Edsel Ford on September 4, 1917. He, Benson and William, as well as sister Josephine, grew up amid ffluence. In 1936, he graduated from The Hotchkiss School. He attended Yale University, where he worked on the Yale Record, the campus humor magazine, but he left in 1940 before graduation. He became a member of the Zeta Psi fraternity during this period.

Personal life

Henry Ford II was married three times:

On September 29, 1987, Ford died of pneumonia in Detroit at Henry Ford Hospital, at the age of 70. His remains were cremated and the ashes scattered after a private funeral service at Christ Church Grosse Pointe.

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Career

Henry Ford II, his father, Edsel, died of cancer in May 1943 (during World War II), but he was unable to take over the family's leadership. Henry Ford I, the company's founder, recovered the presidency, but it was physically fit for the presidency by the majority of the company's directors. Although he had long been without a formal executive title, the elder Ford had always had de facto control over the company; the board and management had never seriously defied him; and this time was not different. He was elected by the producers and served until the end of the war. The company began to decline during this period, losing more than $10 million a month ($193,420,428 in 2021 dollars). President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration considered a government takeover of the company to ensure continued war production, but the plan never came to fruition.

Henry Ford II joined the Navy in July 1943 and joined the company's leadership a few weeks later. He took over the company's presidency in September 21, 1945, after two years. Since it was expected that Edsel Ford would remain president of the company for much longer than it did not, Henry Ford II received no preparation for the position, and the company's financial markets suffered a great deal during the war; domestic sales were also down.

Henry Ford II adopted an aggressive leadership style right away. One of his first acts as president was to order John Bugas to take over the company from its entrenched leadership and dismissing Harry Bennett, the Ford Service Department's CEO, who was hired to stymie attempts at unionization. He hired several seasoned professionals to assist him next, despite his inexperience. Ernest Breech and Lewis Crusoe, both retired from Bendix Corporation, were fired by him. Breech was to serve as HF2's business mentor, and the Breech–Crusoe team would provide the bulk of Ford's industry expertise, providing much-needed experience.

In addition, Ford recruited ten young up-and-coming youngsters, the "Whiz Kids." These ten ten, gathered from an Army Air Forces statistics team, Ford envisioned as giving the organization the ability to innovate and stay current. Arjay Miller and Robert McNamara, two of whom were going on to serve as presidents of Ford themselves, went on to serve as presidents. J. Edward Lundy, a third member of Ford Finance, served in key financial positions for many decades and helped the company establish its reputation as one of the world's top finance companies. The "Whiz Kids" design team for the 1949 Ford, which went from concept to production in nineteen months and re-established Ford as a formidable automobile manufacturer, is perhaps best remembered as a team. 50,000 orders for this car had been placed the day it was announced to the world.

In 1945, Ford Motor Company's president and CEO were appointed. The corporation became a publicly traded company in 1956 and dedicated its new world headquarters building. He lived in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, during his time as Ford's CEO. He was also elected chairman on July 13, 1960, before resigning as president on November 9, 1960. He would resign as CEO on October 1, 1979, and as chairman on March 13, 1980. After 20 years of non-Ford family ownership of the company, William Clay Ford Ford Jr., Jr., will later assume these positions. During the interim, Henry's younger brother William Clay Ford, Sr., as well as Henry's son Edsel Ford II and his nephew William Clay Ford Jr., Jr., all represented the family's interests on the board.

During the early 1960s, Ford spent long discussions with Enzo Ferrari to buy Ferrari, with the intention of increasing Ford's presence in motorsport in general and at the Le Mans 24 Hours in particular. However, talks about Ferrari's Scuderia Ferrari's racing division came to a halt due to controversies. After the deal's demise, Le Mans' Ford GT40 initiative was unveiled, aiming to put an end to Ferrari's hegemony (the Italian marque has won the race six times from 1960 to 1965). The GT40 Mark II made it to the podium at both the Daytona 24 Hours and the Sebring 12 Hours in 1966, just shy of winning for the first time in four consecutive victories at Le Mans.

Ford became interested in the creation of the Lincoln Continental Mark III in the late 1960s. He made design decisions that defied Focus groups and Ford enginers alike. Both the final exterior and interior designs were ultimately chosen by Ford. The result was a Ford Motor Company flagship that singlehandedly made Lincoln profitable and sparked a three-decade industry rivalry between the Lincoln Mark series and Cadillac's Eldorado series. The Mark III's success has been regarded as the pinnacle of Ford's career. During this period, Ford also reformed the company's European operations, merging the previously separate (and competitive) British and German subsidiaries into a single Ford of Europe with a single product line and merged manufacturing production. Ford of Europe grew strongly during the 1970s, with new factories in Saarlouis and Valencia, the latter becoming one of Ford's top plants outside of the United States.

Ford's then-President Lee Iacocca was particularly keen in purchasing powertrains from Honda Motor Company in 1973 and 1974, when it became abundantly apparent that the American car industry would favor smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles. Henry Ford II, who wrote: "No car with my name on it will have a Jap engine inside." Although strictly speaking, it was too late for that, as Ford Motor Company had been producing a Mazda compact pickup truck as the Ford Courier since late 1971, Ford did not like the prospect that flagship North American passenger vehicle models were going to move in that direction. Ford Motor Company continued to expand into a world in which Japanese, German, and American involvement in a multinational automobile industry became tightly integrated. For example, Ford's relationship with Mazda was well developed even before Henry Ford II's time of fame. However, it lags several years behind GM and Chrysler in Iacocca's view, although others led it forward despite Henry Ford II's resistance.

Henry Ford II's leadership style led the company's fortunes to fluctuate in more ways than one. For example, he allowed the selling of public stock in 1956 (raising $650 million for the company's $68,518,972 in 2021 dollars), but the Edsel, the company's "experimental car" program that began during his tenure, cost the firm more than half of what it did. In the same way, Henry Ford II recruited creative Lee Iacocca, who was instrumental in the Ford Mustang's success in 1964, but he left Iacocca due to personal reasons in 1978 (about the break in their friendship, Iacocca quoted Ford as saying, "Sometimes you just don't like someone." "If a guy is over 25% a jerk, he's in danger." Henry Henry was 95 percent." On October 1, 1982, he officially resigned from all executive positions at Ford Motor Company, but the company's legal source of authority until his death in 1987.

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Awards and achievements

• 1969, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Lyndon B. Johnson
• 1983, inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame