Downfall of Ford in the 70'S

Downfall of Ford in the 70’s Interviewer: Alex Casasola Interviewee: Vincent Sheehy Instructor: Alex Haight Date: February 13, 2013 Table of Contents Interviewee Release Form 3 Interviewer Release Form 4 Statement of Purpose 5 Biography 6 Historical Contextualization 7 Interview Transcription 15 Interview Analysis 35 Appendix 39 Works Consulted 41 Statement of Purpose The purpose of this project was to divulge into the topic of Ford Motor Company and the issues that it faced in the 1970’s through Oral History. Its purpose was to dig deeper into that facts as to why Ford was doing poorly during the 1970’s and not in others times through the use of historical resources and through an interview of someone who experienced these events. Biography Vincent Sheehy was born in Washington DC in 1928. Throughout his life he has lived in the Washington DC and today he resides in Virginia. After graduating from Gonzaga High School he went to Catholic University for college and got a BA in psychology. His father offered him a job into the car business, which was the best offer available to him at the time. He started out a grease rack mechanic and did every job in the store at the Ford on Georgia Ave in the 50’s. He worked as a mechanic in the parts department and became a owner until he handed down the dealership to his kids. He got married to his wife in 1954 and currently has 5 kids. He is interested in golf, skiing and music. When he was younger he participated in the Board of Washington Opera. He himself interacted with the people by selling cars to them and was able to understand how they felt because of his understanding of psychology. He makes several connections from the past to the present. The Wheels of Ford start to Slow Down According to Author Douglas Brinkley, “Ford executives were well aware that a streak of discontent lurked underneath the booming automobile market. The popularity of cheap imports provide it… “(Brinkley 640). The imminent downfall of the American motor superpower, Ford, was inevitable in the 1970’s. Foreign competition, the oil crisis of 1973, and growing environmental awareness were revolutionizing the automobile business, and Ford Motor Company was suffering the consequences. Ford had been the dominating American automobile manufacturer since 1903, and its decline had a dramatic effect on the American automobile industry. Therefore, in order to understand the perspective of someone who participated in the decline of Ford in the 1970s, it is important to first examine the oil crisis, the changing consciousness about the environment, and the changing preferences of the American consumer. The first records of the attempts to make a vehicle to was a wind driven vehicle made by Guido da Vigevano in 1335 and author William Bottoff states, “with earlier attempts by Italian engineers”(Bottorff). Later on Leonardo de Vinci try to create a similar invention, which was a clockwork driven tricycle similar concept to Guido da Vigevano. Many years past until the next step forward in the creation of the car was made and this was made a Catholic priest named Father Ferdinand Verbiest who has been said to have built a steam powered vehicle for the Chinese Emperor Chien Lung in about 1678 (Bottonrf). This is however an uncertainty as Author Bottornf explains, “There is no information on the actual vehicle, merely the event” (Bottorff). Not until 1712 was the next step in the evolution of the vehicle was made by Thomas Newcomen with his invention of the first ever steam engine. Newcomen's engine had a cylinder and a piston and was the first of this kind, and it used steam as a condensing agent to form a vacuum and with an overhead walking beam, pull on a rod to lift water. In 1765 James Watt developed the first pressurized steam engine, which proved to be much more efficient and compact that the Newcomen engine. The first vehicle to move under its own power was designed by Nicholas Joseph Cugnot and constructed by M. Brezin in 1769. Bottorff explains that, “The early steam powered vehicles were so heavy that they were only practical on a perfectly flat surface as strong as iron. A road thus made out of iron rails became the norm for the next hundred and twenty five years” Bottorff). The vehicles got bigger and heavier and more powerful and as such they were eventually capable of pulling a train of many cars filled with freight and passengers. The development of the internal combustion engine had to wait until a fuel was available to combust internally. Gunpowder was tried but did not work out. Gunpowder carburetors are still hard to find. The first gas powered automobile did not use gas, but instead used coal. Gas generated by heating coal in a pressure vessel or boiler. A Frenchman named Etienne Lenoir patented the first practical gas engine in Paris in 1860 and drove a car based on the design from Paris to Joinville in 1862. In 1862, Alphonse Bear de Rochas figured out how to compress the gas in the same cylinder in which it was to burn, which is the way we still do it. This process of bringing the gas into the cylinder, compressing it, combusting the compressed mixture, then exhausting it is known as the Otto cycle, or four cycle engine. Henry Ford had an engine running by 1893 but it was 1896 before he built his first car. By the end of the year Ford had sold his first car, which he called a Quadracycle, for $200 and used the money to build another one. With the financial backing of the Mayor of Detroit, William C. Maybury and other wealthy Detroiters, Ford formed the Detroit Automobile Company in 1899. A few prototypes were built but no production cars were ever made by this company. The Detroit automobile Company was not a success and failed because it was unable to sell many models, but a handful of his original backers kept faith in him and bought Detroit Automobile Company in May of 1901. After a while Ford failed, but not all hope was lost. Ford had its second resurrection because auto race fan Alexander Y. Malcomson, who owned Detroit’s biggest oil company. On June 16 1903 the Ford Motor Company was founded. The first car Ford Motor Company sold was the Model A for $850. There after Ford became very interest in speed and made is first race car called 999 in 1906. Cars that Ford made after the 999 were the Model C and Model B, made the same year as 999. Then came the model K in 1905, and Model N in 1906 and finally the popular Model T in 1909. The Model T would be very popular for the next 18 years. After the Model T the next popular car was the Model A. The price of the Model A was $450, while 4.5 million were sold in the next four years. Many cars were introduced over the years featuring new styles. The Model A and B were both sold with larger engines and greater amounts of horsepower. In May of 1943 Henry Ford died of cancer. After the death of his father Henry Ford II took over as president of Ford Motor Company on September 21, 1945. During World War II production has slowed until the introduction of the 1949 line of cars. In 1949 the Ford Thunderbird was introduced with 5.1 liters and capabilities of 113 mph. Major restyling occurred in the late 1950's with such automobiles as the Falcon, a compact car, with the help of General Motors and Chrysler. During the 1960's competition increased and Ford had to become innovative in order to remain one of the top manufacturers and in 1964 the Ford Mustang GT was introduced. In 1963 The Clean Air Act was passed, which was designed to control air pollution and to enforce regulations to protect the general public. The environmental crisis made Ford Motor Company prone to criticism. In 1966 California mandated law that exhaust control devices would be placed on all new vehicles to prevent the smog that was being produced. The introduction of the Volkswagens (appendix 2) also posed a problem for Ford Motor Company because of its popularity in America. What baffled Ford Motor Company according of to author Brinkley, “was that no extraneous bodywork, no excess horsepower, but it did appeal to those who only need a means of transportation without these attributes”(Brinkley 638). Also the VW cost less than the American car, took up less space on the highways, and they didn’t take pollute as much as the large American cars. New issue arose in the 1970’s for Ford Motor Company such as the environmental awareness of the masses, oil crisis of 1973, and foreign competition. In 1970 Ford Motor Company was deemed the world’s second-largest automaker with a total production of 4.86 million vehicles. The issue of environment is enforced when author Brinkley stated, “By the early 1970’s 70 percent of Americans polled said the environment was the most pressing domestic and international problem—and the automobile industry was the primary culprit” (Brinkley 639). In 1972, Ford had a new lineup of 5 new small cars, which include the Mustang II, the Pinto, Ford Maverick and Mercury Comet and the Capri. They were selling well, but so were foreign car companies Toyota and Nissan-Datsun. The author Brinkley states, “The growing impact of Japanese cars and implementation of safety and antipollution standard should have been the biggest problems facing companies selling cars in the United States,”(Brinkley 652).

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