And the stylish new 1925 Chevy hit its mark, making the first serious dent in the T. But GM boss Alfred Sloan and his new head of Chevrolet saw a gap in the market just above the bare-bones T. GM was close to pulling the plug on Chevrolet, a “damaged brand” in the early twenties. And one of his best “men”, William Knudsen, found a job at GM after being sacked like so many others.
The place was run on fear and Henry’s unwavering loyalty to the world-conquering T.
To begin to comprehend what a mess Ford was in the twenties is mindboggling: no titles or job descriptions for executives and managers. It took one of his many fired executives to prove him wrong. Who could have imagined it lasting almost twenty years? Henry Ford couldn’t he was convinced it could be built forever. Of course, those often just reflected the challenges of living with a crude car still designed in the very early days of automotive history. Just try to find someone to say a bad word about it. In fact, it might well be the best car ever. The Model A was undoubtedly the best Ford ever. The whole future of the Ford Motor Company was at stake, and the result was superb, and set a standard that could never really be equaled. Nothing like dire necessity to call a truce on petty politics and focus the best minds on the task at hand. Why? Because Henry Ford, who demanded mechanical perfection, and his son Edsel, who was a consummate design executive, briefly overcame their notoriously difficult relationship and combined forces to create the Model A. The two have never combined so fortuitously and timelessly as in the Ford Model A.
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