Henry Ford must have received some special satisfaction on February 4, 1922, because 
on that day he acquired the Lincoln Motor Company, which was being run by his long-time nemesis, Henry Leland. Some two decades before, Leland and Ford had their first run-in.
On the strength of his racing exploits, Ford was a principal participant in the founding of The Henry Ford Company, a successor to the Detroit Automobile Company that had been on of the first Michigan-based firms to enter the car manufacturing industry. Soon after, he was named chief engineer of the company that carried his name, the board of directors hired Henry Leland as a consultant.
Beginnings in the car industry
In the early Twentieth Century Detroit, Leland was a name to be reckoned with. Read more . . .
The Corvette was displayed at the 1953 Motorama, and immediately Ford designers pulled out their drafting pencils and went to work. But the real story is that the Ford Thunderbird was just the kind of car that many designers dream about, so when the formal call to work on a 2-seater came from management, Ford designers just reached into their desk drawers. 
So it is with the retractable hardtop, a phenomenon that made the mid-1950’s boy consider that in America, everything is possible, from putting a satellite up in space to creating a convertible out of a sedan before one’s very eyes. Sadly, today the retractable hardtop car, like many of our youthful symbols, has lost its novelty. They are, in fact, getting to be more common than the canvas-topped convertibles of old.
rather than the fire of their presence. So it was with the 
And just who was ultimately made to pay for it? None other than Enzo Ferrari, the former mechanic turned owner-operator-maestro of the legendary racing empire that bears his name. Though the Italian never acknowledged it, the experience did show him a peculiarly American life’s lesson. Namely, paybacks are a bitch.