Former Ford Motor Company executive Henry Leland launches the Lincoln Motor Company which he later sold to his former employer.
Lincoln (formally the Lincoln Motor Company) is the luxury vehicle division of American automobile manufacturer Ford. Marketed among the top luxury vehicle brands in the United States, Lincoln was positioned closely against its General Motors counterpart Cadillac. The division helped to establish the personal luxury car segment with the 1940 Lincoln Continental.
Lincoln Motor Company was founded in 1917 by Henry M. Leland, naming it after Abraham Lincoln. In February 1922, the company was acquired by Ford, its parent company to this day. Following World War II, Ford formed the Lincoln-Mercury Division, pairing Lincoln with its mid-range Mercury brand; the pairing lasted through the 2010 closure of Mercury. At the end of 2012, Lincoln reverted to its original name, Lincoln Motor Company. Following the divestiture of Premier Automotive Group (Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin, and Volvo) and the closure of Mercury, Lincoln remains the sole luxury nameplate of Ford Motor Company.
Originally founded as a freestanding division above Lincoln, Continental was integrated within Lincoln in 1959. For 1969, the Continental-branded Mark series was marketed through Lincoln, adopting the Lincoln name for 1986. The Lincoln four-point star emblem is derived from a badge introduced on the 1956 Continental Mark II; the current version was introduced in 1980.
The current product range of Lincoln consists of luxury crossovers and sport-utility vehicles. Throughout its entire existence, Lincoln has also produced vehicles for limousine and livery use; several examples have served as official state limousines for Presidents of the United States.
In 2017, Lincoln sold 188,383 vehicles globally. Outside of North America, Lincoln vehicles are officially sold in the Middle East (except Iran and Syria), China (excluding Hong Kong and Macau), and South Korea.
Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobiles and commercial vehicles under the Ford brand, and luxury cars under its Lincoln luxury brand. Ford also owns Brazilian SUV manufacturer Troller, an 8% stake in Aston Martin of the United Kingdom and a 32% stake in China’s Jiangling Motors. It also has joint ventures in China (Changan Ford), Taiwan (Ford Lio Ho), Thailand (AutoAlliance Thailand), Turkey (Ford Otosan), and Russia (Ford Sollers). The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is controlled by the Ford family; they have minority ownership but the majority of the voting power.Ford introduced methods for large-scale manufacturing of cars and large-scale management of an industrial workforce using elaborately engineered manufacturing sequences typified by moving assembly lines; by 1914, these methods were known around the world as Fordism. Ford's former UK subsidiaries Jaguar and Land Rover, acquired in 1989 and 2000 respectively, were sold to the Indian automaker Tata Motors in March 2008. Ford owned the Swedish automaker Volvo from 1999 to 2010. In 2011, Ford discontinued the Mercury brand, under which it had marketed entry-level luxury cars in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the Middle East since 1938.
Ford is the second-largest U.S.-based automaker (behind General Motors) and the fifth-largest in the world (behind Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai and General Motors) based on 2015 vehicle production. At the end of 2010, Ford was the fifth-largest automaker in Europe. The company went public in 1956 but the Ford family, through special Class B shares, still retain 40 percent of the voting rights. During the financial crisis of 2007–08 the company struggled financially almost to the point of collapse, from which it was in large part rescued by President George W. Bush announcing his emergency financial rescue plan to help Ford Motors as well as Chrysler LLC and General Motors, making immediately available $13.4 billion to the automaker. Ford Motors has since returned to profitability, and was the eleventh-ranked overall American-based company in the 2018 Fortune 500 list, based on global revenues in 2017 of $156.7 billion. In 2008, Ford produced 5.532 million automobiles and employed about 213,000 employees at around 90 plants and facilities worldwide.