Henry Ford founded the Ford Motor Company in 1903 with 11 investors.
Ford had already built experimental automobiles and helped establish the Detroit Automobile Company and the Henry Ford Company. His third automobile venture became Ford Motor Company, incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company’s first car, the Model A, was produced soon afterward.
Ford’s most famous achievement was not inventing the automobile but transforming its manufacture and price. The Model T, introduced in 1908, became widely affordable, and moving assembly-line production at the Highland Park plant helped reduce assembly time and cost.
Ford is often called the inventor of the car, which is inaccurate. Several inventors contributed to the automobile’s development before him. Ford’s lasting entrepreneurial contribution was industrial-scale production and mass-market distribution.