Henry Ford II Inherited Ford at the Worst Possible Moment
When Edsel Ford died in May 1943 at just 49, Ford Motor Company lost the man who had spent years trying to modernize the increasingly chaotic empire created by his father. An aging and ailing Henry Ford returned to the presidency, but the company was struggling badly. By the end of World War II, Ford was reportedly losing around $10 million per month, and the situation was serious enough that the Roosevelt administration considered whether government intervention might be necessary to protect vital wartime production.
Henry Ford II had been serving in the Navy when his father died. He was recalled and pulled into a company whose internal structure still resembled a family fiefdom more than a modern corporation. On September 21, 1945, his grandfather stepped aside and the 28-year-old Henry II became president. He later admitted just how unprepared he felt, saying, “I am green” while searching for people who knew how to repair the business.
That admission may have saved Ford. Instead of pretending he had inherited his grandfather’s instincts, Henry II started importing professional managers. Ernest Breech arrived from Bendix and became a crucial mentor, while Ford moved away from intuition-driven management toward something far more disciplined. Within a year of Breech’s arrival, the company swung back to a $66 million profit.
The Whiz Kids Turned a Family Empire Into a Modern Corporation
Lester E. Cox, Ernest Breech, Henry Ford II, and J. R. Davis at Kickapoo Prairie Farms. (Lester Cox collection)
The most famous recruits arrived in 1946. Ten former U.S. Army Air Forces statistical-control officers approached Ford as a group and offered their services on an all-or-nothing basis. They became known as the “Whiz Kids.” Their ranks included Robert McNamara, Arjay Miller and J. Edward Lundy, men who would introduce forecasting, cost controls and data-driven management methods that were almost alien inside the old Ford organization.
The transformation was profound. Henry II was not necessarily the smartest accountant or production expert in the room, but he proved unusually willing to surround himself with people who were. Ford became less dependent on family instinct and more like the professionally managed corporation we would recognize today. Several Whiz Kids eventually rose to the highest levels of the company, including McNamara, who briefly became Ford president before joining the Kennedy administration as Secretary of Defense.
Then came a move Henry Ford would probably have hated: Ford went public. In January 1956, 10.2 million shares were offered at $64.50 each in what was then the largest common-stock offering in American history, worth roughly $658 million. Yet the family did not simply surrender control. The ownership structure preserved Ford-family voting power while allowing outside investors into a company that had been privately controlled since 1919.
Ferrari Turned Henry Ford II’s Temper Into a Racing Program
Henry II’s management style could be analytical when necessary, but it was also intensely personal. That became obvious in 1963 when Ford negotiated to buy Ferrari. The deal progressed far enough that both companies publicly acknowledged talks, but the arrangement collapsed over control, particularly Enzo Ferrari’s unwillingness to surrender authority over racing. Ford executive Don Frey later recalled Henry II’s response simply: if Ford could not buy Ferrari, it would go beat Ferrari.
The result was one of the most expensive grudges in racing history. Ford created the GT program, endured humiliating failures in 1964 and 1965, and kept spending until the GT40 Mark II finally delivered a 1-2-3 finish at Le Mans in 1966. Henry Ford II personally dropped the starting flag that year. Ford returned to win Le Mans again in 1967, 1968 and 1969. What began as a failed business deal became a global demonstration of what Ford could do when its chairman decided losing was unacceptable.
That personality followed Henry II throughout his career. He could hire brilliant executives and then clash violently with them. In 1978, he famously fired Lee Iacocca, the executive closely associated with the Mustang and then-president of Ford, reportedly explaining the decision with the wonderfully blunt line, “Sometimes you just don’t like somebody.” Henry Ford II helped turn a near-chaotic family company into a modern industrial giant, but he never stopped running it like his name was on the building. Because it was. MORE: Henry Ford II, the later years.
