The Ford Motor Company is a multinational corporation incorporated on June 16, 1903, with a capital of $28,000. The original investors were Ford and Malcomson, the dodge brothers, Malcomson’s uncle, John S. Gray, Horace Rackham and James Couzens.

The Ford, like other automobile companies, entered the aviation business during the outbreak of World War II. Postwar, it returned to auto manufacturing until 1925, the time when Henry Ford acquired the Stout Metal Airplane Company. Ford’s most successful aircraft was the Ford 4AT Trimotor nicknamed as “Tin Goose” for its construction made of corrugated metal. The plane was similar to Fokker’s V.VII-3m, and some say that Ford’s engineers secretly measured the Fokker plane and then copied it. The Trimotor was the first successful US passenger airliner, which can accommodate about 12 passengers in a rather uncomfortable fashion. There were also several variants used by the US Army.

Henry Ford has been honored by the Smithsonian Institution for his influence in changing the aviation industry. There were 200 Trimotors built before it was discontinued in 1933, the time when the Ford Airplane Division shut down due to poor sales during the Great Depression.