Editing Henry Ford II (section)

==Career==
When his father [[Edsel Ford|Edsel]], president of Ford, died of cancer in May 1943 (during [[World War II]]), Henry Ford II was serving in the [[United States Navy|US Navy]] and unable immediately to inherit the presidency of the family-owned business. The elderly and ailing [[Henry Ford|Henry Ford I]], company founder, decided to re-assume the presidency, though mentally inconsistent, suspicious, and considered no longer fit for the presidency position by most of the company's directors. For the previous 20 years, although he had long been without any official executive title, the elder Ford had maintained ''de facto'' control over the company; the board and the management had never seriously defied him, and this moment was not different. The directors elected him, and he served until the end of the war.<ref>{{Harvnb|Sorensen|1956|pp=325–326}}</ref> During this period, the company began to decline, losing over $10&nbsp;million a month ({{Inflation|US|10000000|1940|fmt=eq|r=-6}}{{inflation-fn|US}}). The administration of President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] considered a government acquisition of the company to ensure continued war production, but the idea never progressed to execution.

Henry Ford II left the Navy in July 1943<ref>{{Cite web |date=January 25, 2024 |title=Henry Ford II {{!}} Biography & Facts {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-Ford-II |access-date=February 1, 2024 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> and joined the company's management a few weeks later. He assumed presidency of the business on September 21, 1945. Since it had been assumed that Edsel Ford would continue in his capacity as president of the company for much longer than turned out to be the case, Henry Ford II had by then received little preparation for the position. He inherited the company during a chaotic period; its European factories had suffered a great deal of damage during the war, the company was losing money, and domestic sales were in decline.

Henry Ford II immediately adopted an aggressive management style. One of his first acts as company president was to place [[John Bugas]] in charge of company management, dismissing much of his grandfather's inner circle, especially [[Harry Bennett]], chief of the Ford Service Department, whom the elder Ford had hired in 1921 to oversee security at the vast Ford Rouge Plant complex, and nearly two decades later had become a lightning rod in efforts to prevent [[unionization]] of the Ford labor force, by violent means if necessary. Next, acknowledging his inexperience, Henry II hired several seasoned executives to support him. He hired former [[General Motors Corporation|General Motors]] executives [[Ernest Breech]] and Lewis Crusoe away from the [[Bendix Corporation]]. Breech was to serve in the coming years as the young Ford's business mentor, and the Breech–Crusoe team would form the core of Ford's business expertise, offering much-needed experience.

Additionally, Ford hired ten young up-and-comers, known as the "[[Whiz Kids (Ford)|Whiz Kids]]". These ten, gleaned from an [[Army Air Forces]] statistical team, Ford envisioned as giving the company the ability to innovate and stay current. Two of them, [[Arjay Miller]] and [[Robert McNamara]], went on to serve as presidents of Ford themselves. A third member, [[J. Edward Lundy]], served in key financial roles for several decades and helped to establish Ford Finance's position as a major worldwide financial operation.  As a team, the "Whiz Kids" are probably best remembered as the design team for the [[1949 Ford]], which they took from concept to production in 19 months, and which re-established Ford as a formidable automotive company. It was reported that 100,000 orders for this car were taken the day it was introduced to the market.

Ford became president and CEO of [[Ford Motor Company]] in 1945. In 1956, the company became a publicly traded corporation and dedicated its new [[Ford World Headquarters|world headquarters building]]. During his term as CEO of Ford, he lived in [[Grosse Pointe]], [[Michigan]]. On July 13, 1960, he was elected chairman before resigning as president on November 9, 1960. He would resign as CEO on October 1, 1979, and as chairman on March 13, 1980.<ref name='ford-chairmanship'>{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/67932073/henry-ford-ii-gives-up-chairmanship-at/ |title=Henry Ford II gives up chairmanship at Ford |date=March 14, 1980 |newspaper=[[Democrat and Chronicle]] |page=7D |via=[[Newspapers.com]] |access-date=January 18, 2021}}</ref> His nephew, [[William Clay Ford Jr.]] would later assume these positions after 20 years of non-Ford family management of the company. During this interim, the family's interests were represented on the board by Henry's younger brother [[William Clay Ford Sr.]], as well as Henry's son [[Edsel Ford II]] and his nephew William Clay Ford Jr.

During the early 1960s Ford engaged in lengthy negotiations with [[Enzo Ferrari]] to buy [[Ferrari]], with a view to expanding Ford's presence in motorsport in general and at the [[Le Mans 24 Hours]] in particular. However, negotiations collapsed due to disputes over control of Ferrari's [[Scuderia Ferrari]] racing division. The collapse of the deal led him to launch the [[Ford GT40]] project, intended to end Ferrari's dominance at Le Mans (the Italian marque won the race six consecutive times from 1960 to 1965). In 1966, after two difficult years in 1964 and 1965, the GT40 Mark IIs locked out the podium at both the [[Daytona 24 Hours]] and the [[1966 12 Hours of Sebring|Sebring 12 Hours]] before taking the first of four consecutive wins at [[1966 24 Hours of Le Mans|Le Mans]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.redbull.com/uk/en/motorsports/stories/1331777719573/ford-gt40-heroes-of-motorsport |title=Legends: Ford GT40 |last1=Stuart |first1=Greg |date=February 19, 2016 |website=[[Red Bull]]|access-date=June 19, 2016}}</ref>

[[File:MaxFisher.jpg|thumb|left|250px|Henry Ford II (right) with [[Max Fisher]] (center) and [[John Bugas]] at the latter's Wyoming ranch]]
In the late 1960s, Ford became personally involved in the development of the [[Lincoln Continental Mark III]]. He gave his enthusiastic approval for both the final exterior and interior designs. The result was a Ford Motor Company flagship that single-handedly made Lincoln profitable and spawned a three-decade market rivalry between the [[Lincoln Mark series]] and Cadillac's [[Cadillac Eldorado#Eighth generation (1967–1970)|Eldorado]] series.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://ateupwithmotor.com/model-histories/lincoln-continental-mark-iii-iv-v/ | title=Mark of Success: The Lincoln Continental Mark Series|website=Ate Up With Motor |date=September 12, 2009|access-date=July 24, 2024 }}</ref> During this time, Ford also reformed the company's European operations, merging the previously separate (and competing) [[Ford of Britain|British]] and [[Ford Germany|German]] subsidiaries into a single [[Ford of Europe]] with a common product line and merged manufacturing operations.  During the 1970s, Ford of Europe expanded substantially, with new factories in [[Saarlouis Body & Assembly|Saarlouis]] and [[Ford Valencia Body and Assembly|Valencia]], the latter becoming one of Ford's biggest plants outside the US.

In 1973–74, as it became clear that the U.S. automobile market would begin to favor smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, [[Ford Motor Company|Ford]]'s then-President [[Lee Iacocca]] was highly interested in buying [[powertrain]]s from [[Honda Motor Company]] as a way to minimize the cost of developing a small Ford car for the North American market, such as a modified version of [[Ford of Europe]]'s [[Ford Fiesta]]. The plan was rejected by Henry Ford II, who said, "No car with my name on the hood is going to have a Jap engine inside."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Iacocca |first=Lee |title=Iacocca: an autobiography |last2=Novak |first2=William |date=1986 |publisher=Bantam |isbn=978-0-553-25147-0 |location=Toronto u.a}}</ref> Although the Ford Motor Company had been selling a Mazda compact pickup truck as the Ford Courier since late 1971, Ford did not like the idea of flagship North American passenger car models moving in that direction. Ford Motor Company did go on to adapt to the era in which Japanese, German, and American participation in a globalized automobile industry became tightly integrated. For example, Ford's relationship with [[Mazda]] was well developed even before the end of Henry Ford II's period of influence. However, in Iacocca's view, it lagged several years behind GM and Chrysler, due to Henry Ford II's unappealable influence, before others led it forward despite his resistance.{{Citation needed|date=June 2022}}

Henry Ford II's management and management style caused the company's fortunes to fluctuate in more ways than one. For example, he allowed the offering of [[public stock]] in 1956, the IPO raising $650&nbsp;million for the company ({{Inflation|US|650000000|1956|fmt=eq|r=-8}}{{inflation-fn|US}}); but the "experimental car" program instituted during his tenure, the [[Edsel|"Edsel"]], cost the company almost half that. Likewise, Henry Ford II hired in 1964 the creative Lee Iacocca, who was fundamental to the success of the [[Ford Mustang]], but fired him due to personal disputes in 1978. (On the break in their relationship, Iacocca quoted Ford as saying, "Sometimes you just don't like somebody." Iacocca later retorted, "If a guy is over 25 percent a jerk, he's in trouble. And Henry was 95 percent."<ref>{{cite news |last=Barnes |first=Bart |date=July 2, 2019 |title=Auto industry icon Lee Iacocca dies at 94. He helped launch the Ford Mustang and saved Chrysler from bankruptcy. |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/2019/07/02/f9abc080-da34-11e0-9dca-a4d231dfde50_story.html |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |access-date=July 3, 2019}}</ref>)

Henry Ford II formally retired from all positions at Ford Motor Company on October 1, 1982, upon reaching the company's mandatory retirement age of 65, but remained the ultimate source of authority at Ford until his death in 1987.