Myron "Mikey" Selik--Junior Purple Gang Alumnus

Myron "Mikey" Selik and Harry "H.F." Fleisher in Jackson Prison.

Myron "Mikey" Selik was born November 16, 1912. He reached adulthood the same year Prohibiton ended which threw the rackets into a state of confusion. Drug trafficking, gambling, and labor racketeering were the primary money earners for organized crime now, but Selik seems to have been most involved with burglary and extortion. He was mentored by Harry Fleisher--one of the original Purple Gang members.

In 1944, Republican party boss Frank McKay and some underworld Detroit gangsters wanted Michigan State Senator Warren G. Hooper killed. Hooper was scheduled to testify before a grand jury about graft payouts to legislators for voting against gambling reform in the horseracing industry. Organized crime stood to lose lots of money.

Senator Warren G. Hooper

 

 

Senator Hooper confessed under oath to Ingham County Prosecutors that he had accepted a $500 bribe to vote against a bill designed to protect against cheating in the horseracing industry. In exchange for immunity, he was willing to testify before a Michigan grand jury.

Only forty years old, Hooper was murdered at about 4:30 in the afternoon on January 11, 1945 when his car was run off the road on Highway 99 while he was driving home to Albion from the state capitol in Lansing. Hooper was shot in the head three times and his car was burning when the Michigan State Police arrived on the scene. A witness came forward saying he saw a small man looking into Hooper's car when he drove by. Selik was 5'/6.5" tall and 130 pounds.

Hooper's hat with bullet holes.

 

Hooper's body was taken from the car by two passing motorists who threw snow on his smoldering clothes and on the inside of the car to dampen the fire. From examining the crime scene and Hooper's wounds, investigators determined that Hooper was shot at close range by someone in the car with him. The car was not torched. The fire was started by a lit cigarette the senator was smoking when he was shot. Detectives noted small footprints in the snow.

Ingham County and Michigan State Police were clueless about who murdered Hooper until there was a break in the case. Sam "Sammy A" Abramowitz was out on parole for a robbery conviction. When he was implicated in the assassination plot, he plea bargained with the Ingham County prosecutor and turned informant.

Abramowitz did not know who pulled the trigger, but he did confess before a grand jury that four men tried to recruit him to participate in the hit for $500. The four men were Harry and Sammy Fleisher, original Purple Gang members; Pete Mahoney, an associate who just happened to be there; and Myron "Mikey" Selik, Junior Purple Gang member. The conversation took place at O'Larry's Bar on Dexter Avenue in Detroit--a known underworld hangout.

The men were convicted of conspiracy to murder Senator Hooper and sentenced to five years in prison. Mikey Selik and Harry Fleisher were also charged and convicted of armed robbery of the Aristocrat Club--a Pontiac, Michigan gambling resort they were shaking down for protection money. Both men were sentenced to 25 to 50 years on the robbery rap. After their appeal was denied, Harry Fleisher and Mikey Selik skipped town in 1947. They were at large for a couple of years.

Selik used the alias Max Green and went underground in New York City. Harry Fleisher traveled with a woman not his wife, under the assumed names of Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Goldwyn of Toledo, Ohio. They were sunning themselves on the beach in Pompano, Florida when the FBI caught up with him on January 18, 1950. A year later on February 1, 1951, Max Green (38)--alias for Myron Selik--was arrested with three other men in an unsuccessful $20,000 fur and jewelry robbery in the Bronx, New York. Both Fleisher and Selik were extradited to Michigan to serve their prison sentences.

When released, Harry Fleisher went straight and became a foreman in a Detroit steel warehouse. Fleisher died in 1978 at the age of seventy-five. Myron Selik is believed to have returned to the gambling rackets and ran a bookmaking operation. Selik died on August 7, 1996 at the age of eighty-three.

More on Harry Fleisher 

Early Detroit River Speedboat Racing History

The Gold Cup--officially known as the American Power Boat Association (APBA) Challenge Cup--is the oldest continually-awarded trophy in all of motorsports. This huge trophy dates back to 1904 when the motorboat race was held in New York. In those early days, boats plowed through the water rather than skimming the surface. The first winning boat measured 59 feet with an 8.5 foot beam; its 110 hp Standard motor averaged 23 mph.

In 1915, the community-owned Miss Detroit won the Gold Cup on Manhasset Bay, New York. On race day, Miss Detroit's pilot could not be found, so crew member Johnny Milot jumped into the cockpit at the last minute without any protective gear next to riding mechanic Jack Beebe. Milot took a pounding on the first turn and heaved up his guts, so Beebe took over and won the race. The Miss Detroit team earned the right to defend the Gold Cup in home waters.

The single-step hydroplane was powered by a 250 hp Sterling engine. The revolutionary hydroplane design gave the boat the ability to plane over the water's surface and break the 60 mph speed barrier. The decisive win spelled the end of the speedboat displacement era and the beginning of the hydroplane era.

Detroit, Michigan became the Boat Racing Capital of North America surplanting New York as the watersport's epicenter. The Detroit River track was 2.5 miles long for a 5 mile circuit. Beginning in 1917, industrialist Garfield (Gar) Wood became the sport's first superstar winning five consecutive Gold Cup victories. During the winter of 1921-1922, the APBA changed the Gold Cup rules to make racing more competitive and affordable because Wood's boats were unbeatable. Wood retired from Gold Cup racing.

Gar Wood also won the prestigious British Harmsworth Trophy nine times in international competition. In 1932, Wood piloted Miss America X --powered by four supercharged Packard V-12 engines producing 6,400 hp, setting a waterspeed record that went unbroken for over thirty years.

In addition to Gar Wood's unchallenged reign, I found a couple of other noteworthy Gold Cup races on the Detroit River. In the 1933 competition, Dodge Motor Company heir, Horace Dodge Jr. entered eight hydrofoils in the race. El Lagarto--also known as The Leaping Lizard of Lake George (New York)--left the Dodge boats in its wake.

Due to gas rationing for War War II, the APBA suspended its Gold Cup competitions from 1941 through 1945. The race resumed in Detroit on Labor Day in 1946 to huge interest. Big Band leader Guy Lombardo piloted Tempo VI garnering lots of pre-race publicity for the sport. After a hard-fought race, Lombardo won a spectacular victory by breaking Gar Wood's average 70.412 mph lap record for the 30 mile race by 0.478 mph. Gar Wood was in the grandstands to see his twenty-six-year-old Gold Cup record broken by the bandleader.

More on industrialist Gar Wood

The Ford V-8 Gives G-Men Run For Their Money

Henry Ford with his Miracle V-8 Engine--1932

Midway through the 1927 Model T year, Henry Ford announced he was shutting down operations in 25 of 36 Ford plants across the country to develop a new model to retain his company's hold on the low-priced market. The 1928 Model A was a big success with its new streamlined styling and a beefy, four-cylinder engine that performed favorably with Chevrolet's inline, six-cylinder. But Chevy's advertising slogan "A Six for the Price of a Four," captured the imagination of the car-buying public and Chevy was on pace to outsell Fords.

"If the public wants more cylinders, we'll build an eight-cylinder," Henry Ford told a group of hand-picked engineers. His goal was to produce an affordable V-8 engine for FoMoCo's low-cost line of cars. Ford did not invent the V-8 engine; in fact, Ford's Lincoln Division had offered them for years. But those engines were heavy, complex, and far too expensive for the low-priced market.

By casting the engine block in one piece of alloy steel, parts were eliminated and assembly was simplified. After much trial and error, FoMoCo offered its first Flathead [side valve] V-8 in February of 1932 as the successor to the Model A's four-cylinder engine. The 1932 Model 18 soon became known simply as the Ford V-8. The engineering of this innovative, affordable engine represented Henry Ford's last mechanical triumph for the company he founded. Ford was sixty-nine years old.

To accommodate the V-8's new engine dimensions, the Model 18 boasted a new frame with a wheelbase that was six inches longer than the Model A. The chassis for the Model A was simply two straight, steel rails. The Model 18 had an outward curved chassis with cross members welded-in for strength. The wider rear end gave the car more stability at high speeds which appealed to a specialized portion of the Ford V-8's fan base.

The Model 18's transmission was a manual, three-speed Sychromesh which greatly improved performance with a top speed of 65 mph in 1932. As improvements were made on the engine, horsepower climbed and speeds increased to 76 mph and beyond.

The Model 18 Ford V-8 came equipped with an electric fuel pump which allowed the gasoline tank to be positioned underneath the rear of the car for improved passenger safety. A high-pressure oil pump lubricated the internal workings of the engine. Rubber engine mounts reduced vibration and rubber weather stripping eliminated mechanical squeaks and rattles in the doors and the engine compartment.

1932 Model 18 Ford V-8

The Model 18 debuted in the Highland Park Ford Showroom on Woodward Avenue. Interest was high, but sales were slower than expected because of the Great Depression. Still the car sold a million in 1932 and the same number in 1933.

In 1934, Ford designer Joe Galamb updated the body of the Ford V-8 with a sweeping grill resembling a Medieval shield. The headlamps were built into the car's front end, rather than bolted to an old-fashioned headlamp bracket spread across the front of the car. The Ford V-8 was a brilliant performer winning road races and hill-climbing contests across the United States.

Restyled 1934 Ford V-8

The Ford V-8 became a favorite of bank robbers in the mid-1930s. John Dillinger broke out of jail in Crown Point, Indiana by whittling a piece of wood to look like a handgun. He used black shoe polish to disguise the phoney weapon and bluffed his way out of his cell. He then hijacked Sheriff Lillian Holley's new Ford V-8 parked outside of the jail and escaped. Two-months later on May 16, 1934, Public Enemy Number One John Dillinger allegedly wrote Henry Ford:

Hello Old Pal,

Arrived here at 10:00 am today. Would like to drop in and see you. You have a wonderful car. Been driving it for three weeks. It's a treat to drive one. Your slogan should be, drive a Ford and watch all other cars fall behind you. I can make any other car take a Ford's dust.

Bye-Bye,
John Dillinger

The provenance of the letter has never been established. Ford turned the letter over to the FBI, but they determined it was fake. Six weeks after the letter was received, John Dillinger was gunned down by G-Men in front of a Chicago movie theater on July 22, 1934, so the letter can never be properly authenticated.

Seventy-five years later, another Dillinger letter was found in Henry Ford's FBI file after a Freedom of Information search. This letter was dated May 6, 1934, at 7:00 pm.

Dear Mr. Ford,

I want to thank you for building the Ford V-8 as fast and sturdy a car as you did; otherwise, I would not have gotten away from the coppers in that Wisconsin, Minnesota case.

Yours till I have the pleasure of seeing you,

John Dillinger

This letter is believed to have more validity than the other letter Henry Ford leaked to the press. That letter was probably penned by some company adman. It is thought by Ford historians that because of the reference to escaping from the police, this rediscovered letter was not publicly acknowledged by FoMoCo.

Police departments all over the United States represented Ford's largest buyers of fleet vehicles, so Henry Ford, rather than risk angering law enforcement, turned the original letter over to the FBI where it languished for three-quarters of a century. That letter, though barely legible, is thought to be legitimate.

That was not the first endorsement Henry Ford's V8 received from gangsters. A month before the Dillinger letter was written, Clyde Barrow of Bonnie and Clyde fame wrote Ford on April 10, 1934.

"While I have still got breath in my lungs I will tell you what a dandy car you make. I have drove Fords exclusively when I could get away with one. For sustained speed and freedon from trouble the Ford has even other car skinned and even if my business hasen't been strickly legal it don't hurt enything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V8."

Handwriting analysts question the authenticity of the letter. Some believe Bonnie may have written the letter for Clyde; others believe it was the brainchild of the Ford publicity machine. Forty days after the letter was dated, Bonnie and Clyde were shot dead by a posse of Texas Rangers and local police on a county road in Bienville Parish, Louisiana, on May 23, 1934.

The stolen 1934 Ford V-8 Deluxe Sedan was riddled by 112 armor-piercing bullets. The coroner's report indicated 17 entrance wounds in Clyde Barrow and 26 in Bonnie Parker. When the car was returned to its rightful owner, it immediately began to tour the country as a notorious attraction at county fairs and carnivals.

Bonnie and Clyde Death Car

At least half a dozen fake death cars also toured the United States. The authenticated Bonnie and Clyde death car has the car's original registration number stamped three times on the car--the engine, the transmission, and the frame.

The original car is usually housed behind plexiglass at Whiskey Pete's Hotel and Casino in Primm, Nevada, but as of January 2022, it is part of an exhibit on loan to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Museum in Simi Valley, California.

Handwriting Analysis of Clyde Barrow's letter 

The Ukrainian Holodomor (Hunger-Extermination) of 1932-1933

Chicago American - Monday, February 25th, 1934

Not widely known by many Americans, the Holodomor was the premeditated mass starvation of the Ukrainian peasantry in the name of Soviet collectivization of Ukraine's farmland in 1932-1933. Recent international human rights research estimates the number of dead at somewhere between 2.4 and 7.5 million victims. It is impossible to arrive at an accurate figure. But there is one thing that scholars agree upon, this was the worst peacetime catastrophe in Ukraine's long and fabled history. The loss of life rivals the Holocaust of European Jews by Adolph Hitler and the Nazis.

Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by many countries as genocide of the Ukrainian people. History notes that the destruction of the Ukrainian peasantry was premeditated on the part of Joseph Stalin. The term Holomodor emphasizes the man-made causes of the famine, like the Soviet confiscation of private property, farmland, livestock, wheat crops, and all the implements of farm and industrial production.

A campaign of terror was unleashed on ethnic Ukrainians, primarily in the southeastern "breadbasket" region of the country. Those who resisted Soviet authorities were shot or deported to Siberia. Families who attempted to hide their grain stocks were killed. Even so, some families chose to burn their homes to the ground and kill their livestock rather than hand them over to their Soviet overlords.

A system of internal passports was instituted preventing the free movement of the Ukrainian populace from villages and towns to suppress widespread knowledge of what was occurring in Ukraine. When the news of the famine reached the West, the Ukrainian diaspora in Western Europe and the United States quickly raised relief funds and sent food supplies to Ukraine which were rejected at the border by Soviet authorities. As a result of growing international notice, the Soviets responded by banning all journalists in Ukraine, and among the Ukraine populace, the banning of the words "famine" and "hunger." Using either word could result in a jail term.

With the exception of grain reserves used to feed livestock and not people, the vast bulk of Ukrainian grain was exported to neighboring countries to generate revenue for fueling Stalin's Five Year Plan. The Soviet Union was able to purchase Western commodities, among them military weapons and hardware. In return, those countries turned a blind eye to the Soviet Union's internal problems.

In addition to Ukrainian farm peasants, more than 5,000 Ukrainian intellectuals were arrested and charged with plotting an armed rebellion. Those who were not summarily shot were deported to Siberian labor camps, never to be heard from again. It is believed that Stalin feared a general revolt in support of Ukrainian nationalism. The Soviet goal was to have Ukrainians abandon all nationalistic fervor. This preemptive move left the rest of the population without leadership or direction.


For more detailed information on Holodomor, visit the United Human Rights Council's site at:
http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/genocide/ukraine_famine.htm

To view the many monuments dedicated to the victims of Holodomor, tap on this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor#mediaviewer/File:Holodomormemorialbloomingdale.jpg

Ford Model A Replaces Tin Lizzie

Henry Ford posing with a Model T

From the mid 1910s through the early 1920s, the Ford Model T dominated the American car market. As the history books note, "Henry Ford put America on wheels." But over the car's eighteen-year run, cities began to pave the roadways and consumers wanted modern, comfortable, and fancier cars. The Tin Lizzie fell out of favor.

During the late 1920s and early 1930s, used Model Ts sold for five to ten dollars because they were obsolete and nobody wanted them. Bootleggers used them to smuggle liquor across the frozen Detroit River because it was no great loss if they went through the ice.

A "flivver" as they were called during Prohibition.

By the mid 1920s, General Motors upgraded their manufacturing techniques and began to offer more powerful engines like a V-6, sleek styling, convenient driver controls, various colors, and some amenities as standard equipment like headlamps. When GM came out with an electric starter, while the Model T still had a crank and magneto, Chevy sales in particular cut deep into Model T sales.

Henry Ford resisted most efforts to upgrade the appearance of his Model T during its model run from 1908 until 1927, but his engineers continued to make improvements on the powertrain. Ford's son Edsel, president of FoMoCo in name only, tried to convince his father that the car market was evolving and people wanted something more stylish with better performance. Marketplace realities finally convinced Henry Ford that a new model was necessary.

After months of secret planning, on May 2, 1927, Henry Ford telegraphed his dealers nationwide that he was starting production of a totally modern car of "superior design and performance to any now in the low-priced field."

He announced to the press that he would be closing his factories and halting production to manfacture a new model which he and his son were sure would be "the next big thing." This was in mid 1927 which allowed Chevy to outsell Ford for the first time, though it was a false comparison. Ford stopped production on the Model T halfway through the year.  

The elder Ford oversaw the mechanical engineering leaving Edsel to work with a design team on body styling. This was the first and last time that father and son worked together on the same project.

Henry decided to name the secret car the Model A, which showed a lack of imagination and marketing savvy. It was redundant. In 1903, his first commercial product was also named the Model A, but because this new car was totally re-engineered and redesigned, he chose to begin all over again with the Model A designation. Not a single component of the Model T was used in the construction of the new Model A.

Original 1903 Model A also known as the Fordmobile. This was Henry Ford's first production car.

Mechanically, the reincarnated Model A was the first Ford to use the standard set of driver controls common in more modern cars which included a clutch, brake, and gas pedal on the floorboard. The Model T controls were antiquated and awkward by comparison. The standard Model A came equipped with four-wheel hydraulic shock absorbers, four-wheel mechanical brakes, and a new L-head inline four-cylinder, 40 hp engine with a top speed of 65 mph. Rather than a Model T two-speed transmission, this new car had a three-speed, manual transmission which greatly improved performance. 

Restored Model A [notice retrofit turn signals]

In addition to a shatterproof laminated windshield, the exterior of the new Model A was lower and sleeker than the Model T. This was the first Ford to carry the iconic blue oval logo. The Model A was available in many different body styles including coupes, a cabriolet convertible, various sedans, phaetons, a station wagon, a police model, a taxi, and a pickup truck. Rather than the body being available in just black, the original Model A also came in Niagra Blue, Arabian Sand, Dawn Grey, or Gun Metal Blue.

The 1928 Model A was officially introduced on December 2, 1927, immediately becoming a big hit with the public giving Chevrolet a run for its money. In its four-year production life, 4,858,644 Model As were built. That is a healthy number considering the Great Depression was raging at the time. Because of the car's popularity then and now, the Model A is considered by many car buffs to be the best classic American car ever made.

Best American Car Ever Made video

General Motors' Rocky Start

William C. Durant

In 1904, William C. "Billy" Durant, owner of America's largest horse-drawn wagon manufacturer Durant-Dort Carriage Company, bought the ailing Buick Motor Car Company from a Flint, Michgan businessman. Durant was not keen on the new horseless carriage craze, but having an eye on the future, he knew automobilies were the future of personal transportation. Durant partnered up with Charles Steward Mott and Frederic L. Smith to create General Motors (GM) on September 16, 1908.

Durant already owned Buick which became the first nameplate in the new corporation's stable with Oldsmobile soon to follow later that year. In 1909 with the corporation's profits and line-of-credit, Durant bought Cadillac and Oakland [which later became Pontiac Motors]. Durant continued on a spending spree and acquired four other fledgling automakers and a truck company. Durant even considered buying GM's archrival Ford Motor Company, but he fell two million dollars short on the funding.

By 1910, GM was struggling. The country was in a period of recession from 1910 through 1911. The banks tightened up their lending policies and car sales dropped. Because Durant's aggressive expansion of GM left the corporation over-leveraged and vulnerable to bankrupcy, stockholders voted Durant out of the chairmanship, but he continued to hold a large share of GM stock.

In 1911, Durant lured popular Swiss racecar driver Louis Chevrolet away from GM for whom he raced Buicks. Durant wanted to capitalize upon Chevrolet's international fame, and he knew that the automobile-buying public wanted to drive something glamorous and exciting. Durant sweetened the business offer for the racecar driver by naming the new company after him--the Chevrolet Motor Company. Durant merged three small automobile manufacturers, Little Motor Company, Mason Motors, and Republic Motor Company to form the new company.

Louis Chevrolet

Two years into the partnership, the two men battled over design issues and the direction the company was taking. Chevrolet wanted to design a car for the high-end market while Durant wanted to produce an affordable car for the low-end market to compete with Henry Ford's obsolete Model T. Chevrolet chose to return to racing and sold his stock to Durant in 1913.

The dissolution agreement allowed Durant to continue using Chevrolet's name for the car's nameplate. If the gear-jammer had any business sense, he would have negotiated a licensing agreement to use his name. The Chevrolet heirs would still be earning royalties if he had. The following year, Chevys were branded with its modified Swiss Cross bowtie logo.

Original Chevrolet Bowtie Branding

Billy Durant offered a four-cylinder engine in 1912 which outperformed Ford's four-cylinder in every way and came with a magneto starter rather than a crank. Women especially appreciated that. The car had cutting-edge styling and came in grey, green, blue, or red. The Chevy, as it was soon called, was an instant success cutting into Ford's low-priced market. Chevys were a little more expensive, but consumers were willing to pay a little more to be seen in a snappy-looking car.

1913 Chevy Model

Durant wisely used the profits he made from Chevy to buy GM stock. The Chevrolet quickly became so popular with the public that Durant offered GM a five-for-one stock trade in a reverse merger. On May 2, 1918, Durant regained controlling interest of GM as the corporation's largest stockholder. Billy Durant was back in the driver's seat as corporation president. He brought Chevrolet into GM's product line in 1919, as well as Fisher Body and Frigidaire.

As co-owner of Frigidaire, Durant essentially sold his company to himself as president of GM, an example of financial sleight of hand and a clear conflict of interest. The corporation was once again debt-heavy and flirting with bankrupcy. 

In the background, Pierre S. DuPont and his family-owned chemical company had opened a line of credit with Wall Street financier J.P. Morgan. By 1919, DuPont invested 50 million dollars in GM stock. The following year, DuPont and the board of directors forced Durant out of GM for the last time because of his reckless speculation and dubious management ability.

Pierre S. DuPont

GM was the largest consumer of DuPont automotive finishes and artificial leather [vinyl] fabrics. GM's possible failure would hurt DuPont Chemical's business interests. Pierre S. DuPont stepped up and paid off Durant's debt to buy him out.

Alfred Pritchard Sloan

Alfred P. Sloan was elected president in 1923 to reorganize and manage the sprawling corporation. Under Sloan's management, GM established annual model changes which ushered in the age of planned obsolescence creating a vigorous used car market.

To prevent GM brands from competing with themselves, a pricing structure was established with Chevrolet as their most affordable brand followed by Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, and their luxury brand Cadillac. As soon as buyers could afford a more expensive car, GM had an upgrade ready for them which inspired customer loyalty.

To help car buyers finance a new car or buy more car than they could otherwise afford, GM formed the General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC) which introduced consumer installment credit ensuring the company's long-term financial success. When the stock market crashed on October 29, 1929, ushering in the Great Depression, GM was well-positioned to survive it.

"We Never Called Him Henry" 

Henry Ford II vs. Harry Bennett and Lee Iacocca

Ford World Headquarters [the Glasshouse] in Dearborn, Michigan.

After Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo) president Edsel Ford died at the age of forty-nine from stomach cancer, his eighty-year-old father Henry reinstalled himself as company president. Despite surviving two strokes, the elder Ford was not comfortable with retirement or handing his company over to a successor.

With the help of FoMoCo's security and personnel director, Rasputin-like Harry Bennett, Henry Ford was able to maintain his weakened grip on the company that bore his name. Bennett was Henry's eyes and ears in the sprawling FoMoCo industrial complex. In the Medieval world, Bennett would have carried the title of Regent as he tried to maneuver himself into the top spot.

Although Harry Bennett never exercised any real administrative power at the company, other than that delegated to him personally by Henry Ford, now he was Ford's right hand man who took advantage of his declining and infirm boss to assume powers never delegated to him. 

This disturbed Henry's wife Clara and his daughter-in-law Eleanor, Edsel's widow, who feared a power play to wrestle the company away from the family at Henry's death. Clara and Eleanor believed Bennett helped destroy Edsel's health from constant torment, and Eleanor vowed she would not allow him to rob her son, Henry Ford II, of his birth right. Both women and all of Edsel's children held Bennett beneath contempt.

Late in July 1943, Henry Ford II was released from the United States Navy by President Franklin Roosevelt. He was made executive vice-president of the company on August 10, 1943. Harry Bennett and Henry Ford II begrudgingly co-existed until Eleanor gave her father-in-law an utimatum. Retire and install her eldest son as company president, or she would sell off her stock ending the family's total ownership of the corportation. The old man was befuddled and approaching death; he had no fight left in him. On September 21, 1945, FoMoCo's Board of Directors elected Henry Ford II as the company's third president.

Henry Ford II

The twenty-eight-year-old, new Ford president's first priority was to sever Harry Bennett from the company. After a heated exchange between the two men in Bennett's basement office in the Ford Administrative Building, Bennett was told to clean out his desk because his services were no longer required. The fifty-three-year-old pretender to the Ford throne retorted, "You're taking over a billion-dollar organization that you haven't contributed a goddamned thing to!" Bennett spent the rest of the afternoon burning his personal files before he left.

To avoid a protacted and ugly legal battle, Bennett was given a "no-show" position with the company at a nominal salary for eighteen months until he could get his thirty years in with the company. Then, he drew the standard retirement benefit of $424 per month. Upon leaving FoMoCo, Bennett remarked to the press, "I feel like I'm getting out of prison." Nobody felt sorry for him.

***

The inexperienced grandson of the company's founder brought in his brothers Benson and William Clay to help with the management of the world's largest industrial giant. To make their imprint on the company and impress the auto industry, the Ford brothers set their designers, engineers, and marketing men to the task of developing the car of the future with a nameplate to honor their late father called the Edsel.

In death as in life, Edsel Ford could not get a break. His name became synonymous with epic automotive failure. After that public humiliation, it was clear to Henry Ford II that the company needed reorganization.

In a November 11, 1960 press conference at FoMoCo's World Headquarters [the Glass House], Henry, the Second, now known informally as "the Deuce," announced that his company would undergo a reorganization. He was going to step down as president after only fifteen years holding that position and installed himself as chairman of the company's board of directors, as his grandfather Henry had done when he brought his son Edsel in as president in 1919.

Forty-four-year-old Robert S. McNamara was introduced as the corporation's new president. This marked the first time a non-Ford family member held that position. McNamara announced the formation of a separate Automotive Assembly Division to oversee the seventeen domestic Ford plants spread over twelve states to streamline management and improve production.

Named to head the division as vice-president and general manager was Lee Anthony Iacocca from Allentown, Pennsylvania. Iacocca announced that FoMoCo would be introducing new, fuel efficient compact models to compete with foreign imports and Chevrolet's popular Corvair Monza. His first success was the two-door Falcon Futura with contoured bucket seats, a center console, and carpeting. The Futura was powered by a lightweight, aluminum-alloy, four cylinder engine.

Lee Anthony Iacocca

Iacocca was a marketing and promotional expert. He pitched the Futura as the "compact cousin of the popular Thunderbird." Iacocca realized that to climb out of the industry-wide recession, FoMoCo needed to appeal to an emerging demographic--the female sector of young, independent women who were looking for a stylish, economical car that was easy to drive and park. 

Ford dealers were worried about depreciation and the trade-in value of economy cars. It was no secret that dealers made more profit on their high-end models like the Thunderbird and the Lincoln Continental. One argument against the shift to a compact line of cars was salesmen felt the smaller cars downgraded their image to their customers, and the smaller cars were not big enough to hold their sample and sales kits.

Always the promoter, Iacocca contended that their full-sized, luxury models were still available for status-conscious consumers and reminded them that FoMoCo built its reputation and legacy by providing low-cost transportation to the masses.

On April 21, 1961, Iacocca announced the huge success of 20,000 advance dealer orders for the upgraded Falcon Futura. Second quarter production increased by 51% which outran the industry average of 26%. That translated to 145,000 units built during the second quarter. FoMoCo plants were working three shifts to keep pace with orders. Iacocca's star began to rise.

Not content with being a one-hit wonder, Iacocca introduced the Ford Fairlane on August 25, 1961, as a mid-sized, economy car offering. Like the Falcon line, the Fairlane quickly found its audience helping FoMoCo break sales records. Overall Ford sales in 1961 reached their highest point since the Model T in 1925.

In April of 1964, Iacocca introduced the car that would enshrine him in the annals of automobile history--the Mustang. This time Iacocca targeted the enormous market of Baby Boomers, children born after World War II, who were entering the new car market for the first time; multiple-car families, a quickly growing demographic; and the increasing ranks of young, professional women. This was the right product at the right time. Mustang sales set a record pace of 152,000 units in the first five months of production.

Interest in the Mustang was so keen that crowds of people were drawn to FoMoCo showrooms across the country. Many car buyers walked out with the a new 1964 Thunderbird, whose sales rose 65% over the previous year. The Mustang had coattails.

Iacocca was clearly Ford's Golden Boy. Both Time magazine and Newsweek used his image for their cover stories on the Mustang miracle. It took some time to rise above the ranks, but on December 10, 1970, the Deuce promoted Iacocca to company president. 

Iacocca was a respected advertising man at heart who had no trouble talking before the press or pitching new ideas to his staff. His engineering team did preliminary planning and design work on two new products which Henry Ford II summarily shot down.

The relationship between him and Iacocca declined to the point that heated arguments broke out in the board room. Ford made it clear that it was his name on the building. On July 13, 1978, the Deuce dismissed Iacocca for the oblique reason that "sometimes you just don't like someone."

Iacocca was heavily courted by the Chrysler Corporation, which was struggling to survive for quite some time. They hired Iacocca as CEO [Chief Executive Officer] four months after he was fired from FoMoCo, making him the only man in history to lead two of Detroit's Big Three [GM, Ford, and Chrysler].

Iacocca lured several disgruntled Ford executives and engineers away from FoMoCo, along with his Mini-Max concept vehicle which the Deuce had rejected. It became reincarnated as the Dodge Caravan/Plymouth Voyager minivan which, along with the K-Car, saved Chrysler from bankrupcy, prompting the Deuce to remark, "Harry Bennett was the dirtiest, lousiest son-of-a-bitch I ever met in my life, except for Lee Iacocca." Nobody felt sorry for him.

The Tragedy of Edsel Ford