Former Ford Motor Company executive Donald Frey explained to David Crippen (1986) why he thought that the automaker’s “cockamamie” decision-making structure led to major quality-control problems with the 1957 Ford.
“As it turned out, preceding my days, [Ford’s decision-making structure] was probably the product of a McKinsey or a Boaz-Allen study, plus the Whiz Kids’ ideas of what industry was all about, from that Harvard think tank and statistical analysis group they ran in World War II. That’s where they all came from. . . .
Those suckers took the car business, and they chopped it up into profit centers within itself. It’s about like taking that radio there and making the division that makes the buttons — that’s a profit center. The division that makes the speaker, that’s a different profit center — a different management, all which report to the top. But they forgot who’s in charge of the device. Well, they put somebody in charge of the device all right with no authority, which was the Ford Division’s engineering offices where I was — where Hans [Mathias] was chief engineer.
I started out as executive engineer it was called. There were two or three execs — one for trucks, one for Ford and Mercury, and one for Lincoln — the big Lincoln. There were three of us. And we were to glue it all together, but we had no authority, so you had to do it with force of character and personality, because the transmission was part of Transmission Division. Chassis parts, which we designed the chassis, were made by another division. Ford Division had no manufacturing. They had the assembly plants at that time, but none of the fabbing operations, where the engineering and tooling of the parts was done, so all of the divisions that made the parts had their own engineering office, but the Ford Division engineering office was supposed to get everything together in one box, bolt it together, and see if it was an automobile. And, of course, the 1957 Ford was the perfect example of what you’d expect to get out of the system. Nothing worked. It was a collection of parts but not a car.
So I realized, after a year or so, l’ve got the problem but no solution, except I learned the method of making people part of a team. I had to extend it through all kinds of divisions over the years to come throughout the entire company — with no final authority. None. If they didn’t like the fact that I miscued myself, if I didn’t like their transmission, and I squeezed too hard, too quickly, and I said, ‘I don’t want that transmission. It’s failing. It’s your design and your tooling, etc.,’ they could go all the way up as high as Henry Ford for separate approvals and tell me to go bag my ass because I was interfering with their profit center. Now, those are all phony profits. The only profit of money is when you sold the car. The fact that we divided it all up and said, ‘For you, the transmission.’ That’s bookkeeping. That’s not market profit. . . .
I remember years later Hans said to me and we had things roughly put together and had some semblance of order and started a long process to start to make good automobiles in the full sense, which culminated in the ’65 Ford many cycles later — with his marvelous German accent ‘I do not understand. You take the same old questionable people, and you get a team with the same old people. But, you do.’ I said, ‘It’s probably fear.'”
RE:SOURCES
- Crippen, David; 1986. “Donald N. Frey Oral History.” the Henry Ford. Interview recorded Jan. 28.
ADVERTISEMENTS & BROCHURES:
- oldcaradvertising.com: Ford (1965)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Ford (1957)
Oh. My. God. I see meetings. Lots and lots of meetings. Lots and lots of “Me big man”. Lots and lots of “who’s on top”. I’ve worked at a place where from time to time, Everything was a priority. Then, Nothing is a priority.It’s amazing anything got built at all.
That’s crazy. A lot of added overhead for little or no benefit in productivity. Yet so many organizations to this day remain top-heavy. Chop staffing and customer service right to the bone, but don’t you dare even look sideways at the excess ‘executives’!
With all that circus happening, Ford was lucky to not drop behind Chrysler Corp. who got its own quality problems with its 1957 models.
An interesting trivia is Ford Australia keep the 1955-56 body for the 1957 model year as well for the 1958 model year for the Customline. Ford customers mainly buy Zodiac and Consul Down Under until the arrival of the Falcon, Anglia and Cortina.
https://oldcarbrochures.org/Australia/Ford/Ford/1957-Ford-Family-Brochure/slides/1957_Ford_Family_Aus-02-03.html
Indeed. Every time I see a picture of a 1957-58 US Ford on an American site, it seems weird. Even after all these years. As well as keeping the old body, our guys did a mix-and-match using leftover Canadian Meteor grilles and side trim to give us quite distinct ’57s and ’58s. I saw quite a few around, but these were too expensive and thirsty for the average Aussie to run.
We did get the cheaper Zephyr, but the Holden was cheaper still. Ford also sold the sidevalve Anglias and Prefects; they were fairly common.
Jim Nance is not a favourite auto executive of mine, although, he did give it a good, but not successful effort at Studebaker-Packard. But after that unfortunate fiasco, and then jumping into the Ford fiasco as described, it must have driven him to distraction. l can now muster some more sympathy.
History has noted that the 1957 Ford was quality dud that was saved from complete disgrace by the even worse 1957 Plymouth. Even Iacocca admitted that the car was problematic in his first book. (I would also wager that more than a few 1957, 1958 and 1959 Ramblers were sold because of what prospective buyers heard from disgruntled Ford and Plymouth owners.)
While Frey’s explanation makes sense, wasn’t GM structured in the same way? Fisher body was responsible for body engineering, and it assembled the bodies in a plant that adjoined the main assembly plant. The body (which consisted of the body from the firewall back) was then sent to the main assembly plant, where it was mated to the front clip and chassis.
Hydramatic was a developed by another GM division, and then sold to those divisions that wanted it. The divisions themselves may have developed the chassis and engine, but they were still relying on other parts of the corporation for major components. But GM cars were regularly given high marks for build quality and overall refinement – even by Consumer Reports – until the corporation began transferring control of various plants to the General Motors Assembly Division (GMAD).
This account is likely only partially correct: Hank the Duece hired Ernie Breech to give Ford a G.M.-type structure. He also hired Tex Thornton’s “Whiz Kids” to put some corporate controls that Ford lacked when F.D.R. pulled Henry II out of the Navy to save Ford’s World War II government commitments. McNamara and his colleagues did not engineer or design the Fords, Mercury or Lincolns; however, they helped Ford II and Breech with product planning and resource allocation.
What was partially incorrect? Frey’s point was that a more decentralized decision-making structure was imposed that made it much harder to coordinate the overall quality of a vehicle.
Which makes me wonder if the original Falcon was subject to the same development process. From what I’ve read, McNamara came up with a strict set of parameters that the car was supposed to meet, and he made sure that those responsible for the Falcon stuck to them.
Was the Falcon an early example of using a single team to develop all aspects of a new car?
Reading period reviews of the 1960 Falcon, it received good marks for build quality (the best of the Big Three’s new compacts, and better than the 1960 Ford). The main complaints centered on the performance, particularly with the automatic.
That’s an interesting point. Halberstam wrote that McNamara played a significant role in the Falcon’s development, e.g., in keeping the weight down. So if he functioned as the car’s project lead then that might point to the value of clear lines of authority.
Of course, the Falcon was not uniformly praised for its performance and styling, but the light-weight platform did set Ford up very nicely for years to come.