The Ford Motor Company is an American multinational corporation based in Dearborn, Michigen, a suburb of Detroit.The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury brands, Ford also owns Volvo cars of Sweden, and a small stake in Mazda of Japan and Aston Martin of England.Ford's former UK subsidiaries Jaguar and Land Rover were sold to Tata Motors of India in March 2008.

Ford introduced methods for large-scale manyfacturing of cars and large scale management of an industrial workforce using elaborately engineered manyfacturing sequences typified by moving assembly lines. Henry Ford's methods came to be known around  the world as Fordism by 1914.

Ford is currently the fourth-largest automaker in the world based on number of vehicles sold annually, directly behind Volkswagen.In 2007, Ford fell from second to third in Us annual vehicle sales for the first time in 56 years, behind only General Motors and Toyota.

However, Ford occasionally outsells Toyota in shorter periods  (most recently, during the summer months of 2009). As of 2008, Ford has become the second largest automaker in Europe (only behind Volkwagen), with sales that occasionally exceed in the Unitet States and large markets in Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.

Ford is the seventh-ranked overall American-based company in the 2008 Fortune 500 list, based on global revenues in 2008 of $146.3 billion. In 2008. Ford produced 5.532 milion automobiles and employed about 213,000 employees at around 90 plants and facilities world wide. Starting in 2007, Ford received more initial qality survey awards from J.D.Power and Associates than any other automaker. Five of Ford's vehiclesranked at the top of their categories and fourteen vehicles ranked in the top three.