The present bone of contention is a road well traveled - whether our shop world would implode without our ever-presence to take a long-anticipated drive down the beautiful Pacific Coast Highway in our elderly autos to the NSRA Street Rod Nationals in Pleasanton, California.

Before cell phones were common, I recall the torrent of shop owners and managers from NACE seminars to any available pay phone in order to "put out shop fires." It's still being carried on, only now with irritating cell phones during seminars (progress, I suppose). Entrepreneurial pressures do tend to reduce us to "control freaks."

Henry Ford was a case in point. Among his characteristic traits were idealism, engineering genius... and a tyrannical death-grip, nearly to the point of suffocation, on the reins of control of the auto manufacturing business he had created. His fear of losing control was one borne in affliction: Having twice recovered from being aced out of auto manufacturing business partnerships in which others held controlling interests in the ventures Henry engineered, he took extreme measures to assure it would never happen again. His dominant, inflexible style of management at times threatened the existence of Ford Motor Company, and was a constant source of shop and family discord, especially with his son and heir-apparent, Edsel, the man credited with moving Ford styling beyond the "tin Lizzie" rut in which Henry seemed forever mired.

One can only imagine where Ford Motor Company and the entire auto manufacturing industry would be today had Henry allowed, even encouraged, Edsel and other able engineers and craftsmen to reason and use their talents freely without fear of being belittled or summarily fired.

Whereas Henry had mechanical engineering genius, Edsel and others in the company had an eye to the future, perceiving that 'thoroughly modern Millie' (feeling her independence-oats having, among other women's victories, recently won the right to vote) had become a prime influence in auto purchase decisions. And she was more interested in style and creature-comforts than in a vehicle's ability to successfully traverse primitive rutted roads, many which had been paved by the mid to late 20's. Henry's "good enough for gramps" mindset convinced him that style and creature comforts were just frivolous passing fads.

While some Ford ads of the period depicted Fords in feats of strength and agility (one, a Ford front axle twisted like a corkscrew without breaking; another, a Center-door sedan climbing a steep flight of stairs), progressive thinking auto manufacturers honed their advertisements in on what really caught the eye of Millie and Max… the pleasures that ownership of the right motor vehicle could afford. "Won't you ride with me, Lucille, in my merry Oldsmobile?," one popular song coaxed.

As Henry strove to maintain in his product "a car for the masses… in basic black" that would "last forever," fashion had invaded the empire of the motorcar to stay, and along with fashionable autos came built-in obsolescence. Progressive auto manufacturers cut deep furrows through Ford's market share by continually improving on the design and comfort of new vehicles, promoting a certain amount of dissatisfaction with the older models.

While Edsel purchased and studied the design of popular vehicles of the day to analyze what made them outsell Fords, Henry belittled him. Henry Ford's phobia of losing control of the business he alone had created and nurtured to stunted maturity is aptly described in Robert Lacey's Ford: The Men and The Machine, in which an early Ford eye-witness described an incident that occurred in 1912.

While Henry and family were visiting Europe, some of his engineers designed and built a prototype car that embodied new low-slung eye-appealing lines "Lizzie" could never muster - four doors, and a daring bright red lacquer finish that screamed for attention, polished to a high sheen (a far cry from Henry's "any color as long as it's black"). As Ford Highland Park lieutenants unwrapped their new creation with great anticipation, Henry wordlessly circled it several times with his hands in his pockets, looking it over very closely:

"It was a four-door job, and the top was down. Finally, he got to the left-hand side of the car... and he takes his hands out, gets hold of the door, and bang! He ripped the door right off! How the man done it, I don't know! Then he jumped in there, and bang goes the other door. Bang goes the windshield. He jumps over the back seat and starts pounding on the top. He rips the top with the heel of his shoe. He wrecked the car as much as he could… As the years went by, it became clear that Henry Ford had developed a fixation with his masterpiece which was almost unhealthy. [The reason]: The Model 'T' had been the making of Henry Ford... (it) was central to his very identity, (and) attacks on his car were attacks on Henry Ford himself."

One correspondent, trying to reason with him to get with the times, put the problem in terms meat-and-potatoes Henry should have been able to digest: "Ford is a good name; so is wheat. But people (don't purchase) wheat when they want potatoes." But Henry's pride and stubbornness scarcely allowed reason, expediency, and creativity a chance to bloom, let alone flourish, as he deflected even the well-intentioned advice of many former Ford vehicle owners. How history might be different had it's commander-in-chief put more confidence in the advice of those around him in those early days!

Business ownership, specifically that of automotive repair, presents many problems and challenges for entrepreneurs. Heeding others' good advice might allow you more production with less frustration.