Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Introduction to the New Edition
- Introduction to the First Edition
- 1 First Venture
- 2 Probing for Markets
- 3 Model T: Triumph and Fable
- 4 The Alchemy of War
- 5 Steps in Expansion
- 6 The Sun Never Sets
- 7 Prosperity and Frustration
- 8 The Missionary Spirit
- 9 The Best-Laid Plans
- 10 Marriage of Convenience
- 11 Time of Desperation
- 12 A World Disturbed
- 13 Extreme of Nationalism
- 14 The British Empery
- 15 On Both Sides of World War II
- 16 The Crippled Phoenix
- 17 The New Company
- 18 Manufacturing for World Markets: From Dagenham to Geelong
- 19 New Times, New Faces, New Policies
- Appendices
- Bibliographical Essay
- Notes
- Index
- Titles in the series
- Plate section
2 - Probing for Markets
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Introduction to the New Edition
- Introduction to the First Edition
- 1 First Venture
- 2 Probing for Markets
- 3 Model T: Triumph and Fable
- 4 The Alchemy of War
- 5 Steps in Expansion
- 6 The Sun Never Sets
- 7 Prosperity and Frustration
- 8 The Missionary Spirit
- 9 The Best-Laid Plans
- 10 Marriage of Convenience
- 11 Time of Desperation
- 12 A World Disturbed
- 13 Extreme of Nationalism
- 14 The British Empery
- 15 On Both Sides of World War II
- 16 The Crippled Phoenix
- 17 The New Company
- 18 Manufacturing for World Markets: From Dagenham to Geelong
- 19 New Times, New Faces, New Policies
- Appendices
- Bibliographical Essay
- Notes
- Index
- Titles in the series
- Plate section
Summary
Early in 1904 Henry Ford received a visitor from Canada and a proposal that burst in the area of foreign trade like an explosion. Gordon M. McGregor, a thirty-one year old businessman from Walkerville, Ontario, half an hour's travel across the Detroit River from the Ford company's plant, placed before him a plan to organize a company for the manufacture of the Model A in the Dominion.
For several years McGregor had managed a wagon works and, like the Studebaker brothers and the founders of the Oakland and Pontiac firms in the United States, had become convinced that he should shift from the carriage trade to the production of automobiles. His father, William McGregor, formerly a member of the Canadian Parliament, had done well enough as half owner of the Walkerville Wagon Company; but Gordon, who had taken over as manager not long before his father's death, had found competition devastating. In a year his 102 employees (March 1903) had melted to 28. He concluded that he was in the wrong business. He had noted that in Detroit several motor car firms (Olds, Cadillac, Ford) were thriving. Wagons wouldn't sell, but automobiles would. McGregor headed for the American city with a conviction that salvation lay in the new industry.
The legend is that he first interviewed Henry M. Leland of Cadillac; what we know surely is that he turned to Ford.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- American Business AbroadFord on Six Continents, pp. 14 - 34Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011