“[P]robably the guy that was most admired [by Ford Motor Company executive Lewis Crusoe] was [Robert] McNamara. He was a very concise speaker, he was a logician and prided himself that he was. He knew how to handle those for whom he worked and impressed them, and, in coming out of the service, was, as I recall, second in command to Tex Thornton who was the colonel. I believe that Bob was a major, but, if not by rank, certainly by responsibility. He was his second in command. So he had those things going for him, going in.
Frankly, Bob was not one of my favorite types and demonstrated it pretty much when given the responsibility for the Ford Division. He tried to apply logic to everything, and, frankly, in product, you’re not trying to tell the person that the car he must have, you’re trying to find out the car he wants, and, in that, there is an awful lot of emotionalism. In fact, the design business is probably 40 percent logic and 60 percent emotion whereas Bob was 100 percent logic and zero emotion. And this not only applied to product but it also applied to people, and you can’t — people that worked for him — and you really can’t handle people that way.
I remember Sevrain [Sev] Vass, who was the controller, first for Lincoln-Mercury, then, as I recall, for Ford. [He was] a very dear friend of mine. We made strange bedfellows considering the practically diametrically opposite position that we had on things, but, regardless, we were dear friends. And I remember having a quarrel with him once and Sev said, ‘Well, Bob, is so smart that I feel perfectly comfortable having him take — me being a book in his library, he can take me down, open me up, take out what he wants, put me back and that makes me happy.’ And I said, ‘Well, you’re obviously a whore,’ whereupon we had a big argument, but people were that way.
Now had Bob stayed — he became [Ford Motor Company] President, as you know, and was for a month before he was drafted by Kennedy for Secretary of Defense — but, had he stayed at Ford, it is my judgment that at the end of eight or so years that the people — and then had he left — the people that he would have left in charge would have been rudderless because they were all order takers and saluters and going out and doing [a] beautiful job of what they were told to do, but all the orders would be coming from Bob McNamara, and there wouldn’t have been any input at all from other people. Now that’s, obviously, a very subjective view, but I think that Ford’s savior was not necessarily the country’s good luck.”
— Eugene (Gene) Bordinat, Jr. (1984)
RE:SOURCES
- Crippen, David; 1984. “The Reminiscences of Eugene (Gene) Bordinat, Jr.” Automotive Design Oral History Project, Automobile in American Life and Society.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcarbrochures.org: Ford (1960); Ford trucks (1961); Lincoln (1961)
Also see ‘1962 Ford: Harbinger of stylish trucks rots in the woods’
Interesting that Bordinat criticizes McNamara for surrounding himself with “yes men,” and suggesting that this would have hurt the company if he had stayed on as president instead of leaving for a position with President Kennedy’s cabinet. Everything I’ve read said that Iacocca essentially did the same thing. Iacocca was not known for tolerating dissent, and he deliberately built up a cadre of supporters in the management ranks. That was one of the reasons why Henry Ford II fired him in 1978. He didn’t like that executives were loyal to Iacocca instead of the company.
Judging Bordinat’s assessment of McNamara against the cars he actually introduced during his tenure suggests a more complicated legacy. McNamara championed the four-seat Thunderbird, which was not a very practical car, along with the 1959 1/2 Galaxie, which was a Ford with a Thunderbird roofline. The 1959 Galaxie was all about style, but customers loved it, and the Thunderbird roofline became a Ford styling trademark in the early 1960s.
The Falcon and Fairlane were very conservative cars, but they also sold well. If there was a problem with both cars, it was that they cannibalized sales from the low-end, full-size Fords. But the Fairlane, in particular, did force GM and Chrysler to respond. The model proliferation spurred on by the four-seat Thunderbird and the intermediate Fairlane played a key role in undermining GM’s Sloan Brand Ladder. The four-seat Thunderbird also did what the Edsel failed to do – increase the company’s presence in the medium-price market with an inherently desirable vehicle.
McNamara was also concerned about quality control, which was critical in the wake of Ford’s 1957 models, which were almost as bad as the 1957 Mopars in build quality and rust resistance. He worked to ensure that the 1959 models were well-built, although this went out the window with the 1960 models, which were rushed to market after Ford saw blueprints for the 1959 Chevrolet. But Ford did continue to work on quality control in the early 1960s. Also note that the Falcon was praised by reviewers for having the best workmanship and build quality of the first round of Big Three compacts.
Those are good points about the four-place Thunderbird and 1959 Galaxie. McNamara wasn’t so much against glitz as he eschewed slavishly copying General Motors. He was quite inventive for the times in exploring new markets.
That said, I would like to know more about why the 1960 Ford turned out to be so big and heavy; that was a bad call. In addition, GM ate Ford’s lunch in the mid-sized field even though it was a late comer (go here for further discussion). Sometimes being first into a market can be a disadvantage.
The original 1960 Ford was to be a facelifted version of the 1959 model. But, via industrial espionage, Ford got hold of the blueprints for the wild, batwing 1959 Chevrolet. Management panicked, and turned to a styling exercise dubbed “Quicksilver” for the 1960 model.
From what I understand, the weight and width were the result of the rushed production. The irony here is that the 1959 Ford turned out to be far more successful than even Ford had imagined it would be – particularly the Galaxie. Even with Chevrolet sporting an all-new body, Ford made considerable progress in closing the gap that Chevrolet had opened up for 1958. The 1960 Ford lost much of that ground, although it was also hurt by the new Falcon.
GM ate Ford’s lunch in the mid-sized field because it had designed an all-new platform for the A-bodies, while the Fairlane came across as an upsized Falcon. The Fords looked narrower and less substantial than their GM counterparts. Plus, the Mercury version wasn’t a very compelling alternative to the Ford Fairlane.
At GM, each A-body had distinctive styling, and the Buick, Oldsmobile and Pontiac A-bodies did a great job of maintaining the family resemblance to each division’s B-body, while still seeming much more youthful. (After 1966, the A-bodies were more attractive than their big brothers.)
The GM divisions also did more with their A-bodies. Pontiac had the GTO, which was an effective halo car for the Tempest/LeMans line. Oldsmobile had both the 442 and then the Supreme, while the Buick Skylark could be optioned up as a smaller Electra, complete with fender skirts for a few years. Ford’s intermediates didn’t offer that much variety – or excitement. And even Chrysler beat Ford on the performance front, with the optional Hemi and then the Plymouth Road Runner.
I guess Ford Australia dodged a bullet where they soldiered with the 1955-56 body for 2 more years.
http://www.oldcarbrochures.org/Australia/Ford/Ford/1957-Ford-Family-Brochure/index.html
Some factors to considers was Australia was a smaller market and most of the Ford buyers mainly go to the smaller Zephyr/Consul.
And interesting to note then Ford Australia decided to keep the 1959 body for 1960.
http://www.oldcarbrochures.org/Australia/Ford/Ford/1960%20Ford%20Fairlane/index.html
I think McNamara was an interesting choice as he rose through Ford’s executive hierarchy. But in retrospect, he was not an engineer, but a financial / data analysis guy, so his decisions were based on numbers: Costs, sales revenues and output, etc. McNamara even turned the lemons known as the Edsel and The Big M into lemonade by using the added production capacity for the Falcon and Comet. Most important, Robert S. McNamara did not try to hog the spotlight. H.F.II was still large and in charge.