In January, Time Magazine dubbed Ford Motor Co. the single most iconic American company ever. Bill Ford, the automaker's executive chair and the great grandson of Henry Ford, used the evening of Tuesday, Sept. 29 to take a humble victory lap in light of that honor.
At Michigan Central Station (which the automaker owns) in the Corktown neighborhood of Detroit, Ford sat on a panel with United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby and Ruth Porat, the president of Alphabet Inc. (Google's parent company). Jessica Sibley, the CEO of Time Magazine, moderated the panel and probed the executives about what it takes to build and maintain influential, lucrative companies.
During the panel, the executive chair discussed what he thought makes the brand so iconic and how
the automaker decides which cars to build.
He also speculated on what the automaker will look like in 25 years.
What makes Ford Motor Co. iconic?
Ford Motor Co. has long been dedicated to America, the executive chair said.
During the Great Depression, Ford said the automaker funded food pantries and started banks for its employees. During World War II, the automaker was an essential facet of the so-called "Arsenal of Democracy," the name given the automakers who pivoted to producing defense vehicles and weaponry. And, more recently, the company began manufacturing and distributing masks and respirators during the COVID pandemic.
"I think its important that we're always there when people need us," Ford said of the company. "I think those values are timeless."
But Ford Motor Co. is, after all, an automaker — not just a company capable of pivoting when the country is in distress.
"I think one of the reasons we were (the top Time 100 company) was the fact that people love our company, they love our products," Ford said. "They like the way we behave in the communities. We have forth-, fifth-, even sixth-generations of families working for our company, because they love our company."
The products those employees build — from pickup trucks to Mustangs — Ford said, resonate with Americans because of the automaker's intentional approach to bringing vehicles to market.
"We made a decision a while ago to get out of what we call 'boring vehicles,' " Ford said, adding that the automaker is less occupied with market research because of how long it takes to bring a car from concept to showroom floor.
"Everything we're doing today has an emotional element to it, because we want people to fall in love with our products," Ford said.
Ford Motor Co. has, the executive chair said, shifted its focus from giving customers simple, bare-bones products that market research suggests buyers want to investing in vehicles that have a more artistic or emotional approach. The same theory is used in the automaker's development of technology.
"We have to anticipate where the customer is going, even though they don't know they are going there," Ford said, adding that it is a difficult job.
Anticipating where Ford Motor Co. is heading, though is much easier for Ford.
"I guess I could talk about all of the great technologies that have come into our industry, like AI, autonomous driving and other things like that," Ford said when asked by Sibley about where he sees the company heading. "But the thing that actually gets me most excited is the fact that we will still be the most American car company 25 years from now."
Liam Rappleye is an automotive reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Contact him: LRappleye@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Bill Ford boasts over Time naming carmaker most iconic American company
