Henry vs Edsel: The Family Fight Behind the Model A

The story of Henry Ford and Edsel Ford in the 1920s is the human core of the Model A. It is also a story that has collected more legend than evidence. What follows sticks to what the record supports, and says so plainly where it stops.

Henry Ford, Edsel Ford and the final word

Edsel Ford became president of the Ford Motor Company in 1919, at 25. Sources disagree on the exact day, but not on the arrangement: Henry Ford kept final authority. Edsel could run departments, sign letters and speak for the company. He could not overrule his father, and on the question that mattered most in the 1920s, he did not.

He did get room to work at the edges. When Ford returned to national magazine advertising in early 1923 with a multi-year "Ford, the Universal Car" campaign, Edsel ran the revived advertising department. In 1923 and again in 1925 he urged styling changes on the Model T, and his father eventually let color back onto the car. These were small wins, and they came slowly.

Ford's own heritage writing describes the relationship in careful words, speaking of "disagreements and different styles." Other accounts are blunter: Edsel often disagreed with his father, and Henry occasionally humiliated him in public. More dramatic stories circulate, including tales of a prototype destroyed and a board meeting rebuke, but they rest on a single secondary source and no dated, documented version has been found. They are best left as rumor.

"You can feel the strain in the record without any of the famous anecdotes. A son with the title, a father with the veto, and a car both of them knew was running out of time. That is drama enough."

Patrick Walsh

The argument over the Model T

The disagreement was not about taste alone. It was about numbers that both men could read. Ford built 1,817,891 cars in the United States in 1923, its peak year. By 1926 the figure was 1,368,383. Across town, General Motors under Alfred P. Sloan had bet that Model T owners would trade up for comfort, features and style, and Chevrolet was proving him right. For the full rivalry, read about the Chevrolet fight.

Edsel pushed to replace the Model T and was repeatedly overruled. Henry's loyalty to the car is easy to understand, even if it was costly. It had built his company and sold in the millions. He changed course only in late 1926, when he directed his engineers to begin work on a new car. The Model T ended the following spring, and the country waited six months for its successor. That sequence, and how the Model A replaced the Model T, has its own account.

Dividing the new car between them

Once the work began, the Model A became something close to a negotiated settlement. The engineering team was led by Eugene Farkas with Lawrence Sheldrick, while Harold Hicks worked with Sheldrick on the engine. Edsel directed the styling, which was described as a "baby Lincoln," a nod to the luxury make Ford had bought in 1922.

Edsel's influence reached further than the body. According to Wikipedia's biography of him, he persuaded Henry to accept a three-speed sliding-gear transmission and four-wheel brakes, two clean breaks from Model T thinking. Charles Sorensen, Ford's production boss and no soft judge of anyone, later recalled that Edsel spotted an intake manifold deficiency that, once fixed, gave the engine a significant gain in power. Henry still got a car that was unmistakably a Ford: simple, a four-cylinder, and priced for ordinary buyers. Edsel got a car that looked and drove like the decade it was sold in.

There is a story that photographers asked Henry to drive the first Model A off the line, that he declined because he had never driven a standard-shift car, and that Edsel did the ceremonial driving instead. The enthusiast site that tells it says it does not know whether the story is true, so it is best treated with caution. What is documented is that Edsel was present at the Model A unveiling, and that the public introduction on December 2, 1927, drew crowds Ford estimated at about 10 million in the first week. For the details of that week, see the details.

What the Model A settled, and what it did not

The Model A vindicated Edsel's case. Ford passed Chevrolet in 1929 and took back first place in US sales. On April 14, 1931, a black Model A Town Sedan became the 20 millionth Ford, and Henry drove it off the Rouge line with Edsel beside him. Two years earlier, Edsel had cut the first turf at Dagenham, the English plant that would build the Model A and the Model AA truck. By the end of the run Ford had built nearly 5 million Model As worldwide.

It did not change who held the final word. In October 1931 Henry Ford decided that Ford would introduce a V8 for 1932, and the Model A gave way to the Ford V8 and the four-cylinder Model B in March 1932. The pattern of the 1920s, Edsel arguing and Henry deciding, continued. Edsel died on May 26, 1943, at 49, sixteen years to the day after the two of them drove the 15 millionth Model T out of Highland Park.

The Model A is the one car where their arguments produced something both could stand behind. It carried Henry's insistence on simplicity and price, and Edsel's insistence that a cheap car could still look like it was designed. That is why it is remembered as a family car in more than one sense.

Sources and notes

• Edsel Ford, Wikipedia
• Edsel Ford, Ford Motor Company heritage page (archived)
• The 1928 Ford Model A, Ford Motor Company
• December 2, 1927: Henry Ford introduces the Model A, Mac's Motor City Garage
• Advertising the Model T, The Henry Ford
• The 20 millionth Ford, MAFCA The Restorer (PDF)