Today in Automotive History
1958 And 1966
On this day in 1958, the Ford Motor Company produced its 50,000,000th car, a Thunderbird. Ford averaged nearly a million cars each year since the company's inception.
Ford and General Motors (GM) are the largest car manufacturers in the United States.
To put their relative sizes in perspective, on this day in 1966, General Motors produced its 100,000,000th car, an Oldsmobile Toronado. GM's larger production is the result of always having been a conglomeration of automotive companies, while Ford was, for a very long time, a centrally run, vertically administered family business.