Cars Simplified: Everything Automotive Explained

Ford Motor Company

The Ford Motor Company (publicly traded as stock ticker: NYSE: F) has been around for over a century, mass-producing vehicles since the company was founded June 16th, 1903. The founder of the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford, is often mis-credited with inventing the automobile. He did, however, master the automotive assembly line, allowing the mass-production of cars, which lowered the price of personal transportation drastically. It could be said that Henry Ford invented the affordable automobile. The Ford headquarters is in Dearborn, , , and sells cars worldwide.

More than just a passenger car company, Ford has produced a wide range of vehicles, including the hugely popular Mustang muscle car, and the Ford GT, a mid-engined supercar based on one of their 1963 race car designs.

Henry Ford

Born July 30, 1863 on a farm in Springwells Township, , Henry was interested in mechanical objects at a young age. In his childhood years he would take apart and reassemble watches.

In 1891, Ford entered the workforce by becoming an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit, . Over time his interest in building motorized vehicle led him to starting the Ford Motor Company.

Henry had a number of professional interests beyond automobiles, such as farm tractors, vanadium steel alloys, soybean-based plastics, corn ethanol and oil as a fuel source, charcoal, and growing rubber trees.

At the age of 83, Henry Ford died on April 7, 1947 at Fair Lane, his estate in Dearborn, , and left most of his wealth to the Ford Foundation.

In his lifetime, Mr. Ford was awarded 161 patents.

Ford Performance

For Performance is the current brand for Ford's in-house speed and handling upgrade division. This brand replaced Ford Racing in some regions, which replaced SVT.

Ford SVT

Ford's old official tuning company SVT (which stands for Special Vehicle Team) created a number of high-performance models, such as the F-150 SVT Lightning and Raptor. They sometimes built entire cars for the company, such as the Ford GT (built with help from Saleen, which has worked with Ford V8s before in Mustangs). This division was formerly known as SVO (Special Vehicle Operations), and was known as Ford Team RS in Europe, and FPV (Ford Performance Vehicles) in .