$850, Ford promised, and delivered, a yearly decrease in its cost, to a low of $290 in 1924 (Wik, 1972, p. 231). Between 1920 and 1932, the Ford Motor Company was riding high. Henry Ford had become a folk hero, the company was making money, and the factory couldn't produce cars fast enough. From 1933 to 1941, America's economic woes hit Ford as well causing General Motors and Chrysler, who both manufactured cars for a more affluent audience, to gain a greater share of the market. During the war, Ford recaptured some of the lost market when he used company funds to develop new automotive technology for the war effort. In 1945 Ford gave up the presidency of the company and passed that job to his grandson, Henry Ford II. From then on, the Ford dream was alive only in the name. Economic difficulties and competition for market shares required that Ford Motor Company try different strategies, all which made the company alternatively profitable and deprived (Lewis, 1976).
It is with the Model T automobile, however, that the true legacy of Henry Ford survi
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