The Ford Motor Company (usually called Ford; ) is an American company with its global headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, that manufactures automobiles and sells popular vehicles globally. The automaker was founded by an American legend, Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb in Metro Detroit in the United States and incorporated in 1903. Ford is still the world's second largest automaker, despite much misreporting by Ford's media critics. Globally, Ford Motor Company outsells Toyota, excluding Toyota's half-owned subsidiary Daihatsu which is included in Toyota's reported sales totals. With Ford's Mazda subsidary expected to sell 1.25 million vehicles for 2006, Ford's total sales exceed rival Toyota and Daihatsu combined. Marketing Week (2006) Why Ford Needs Mazda Ford remains one of the world's ten largest corporations by revenue. In 1999, Ford ranked as one of the world's most profitable corporations. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks and a severe decline in the stock market, many American companies including Ford experienced a pension and benefit funds crisis. Ford is pursuing a turnaround plan it calls "The Way Forward."

Ford introduced methods for large-scale manufacturing of cars, and large-scale management of an industrial workforce, especially elaborately engineered manufacturing sequences typified by the moving assembly lines. Henry Ford's combination of highly efficient factories, highly paid workers, and low prices revolutionized manufacturing and came to be known around the world as Fordism by 1914.

History

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Ford was launched from a converted wagon factory in 1903, with $28,000 cash from twelve investors. During its early years, the company produced just a few cars a day at its factory on Mack Avenue in Detroit. Groups of two or three men worked on each car from components made to order by other companies. Henry Ford was 40 years old when he founded the Ford Motor Company. It would go on to become one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world. It was one of the few to survive the Great Depression. The largest family-controlled company in the world, the Ford Motor Company has been in continuous family control for over 100 years.

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