汽车三巨头的较量（1/4）

Ford Motor Co. is a Delaware corporation. Its main plant—the most magnificent aggregation of industrial equipment in the modern world—is at River Rouge, Mich. At the start of last year it had assets of $639,000,000, over one-half of which was in cash or liquid paper. During the past 30 years it has sold more than 22,000,000 automobiles, approximately the total number on the road today. Its principal stockholder once turned down an offer of a billion dollars for the company as a going concern. Since it was founded in 1903 with $28,000 of paid-in capital, it has grossed a few hundred millions in excess of $11,000,000,000, retained as net gain nearly $800,000,000. No man in all history has made so much money so quickly or so cleanly as Henry Ford.福特汽车公司是一家注册于特拉华州的企业。它的主要厂区在密歇根的胭脂河（River Rouge），集现代世界最壮观的工业设备之大成。去年年初它有6.39亿美元的资产，大半是现金或流动票据。在过去三十年里它售出了超过两千二百万辆汽车，大约是今天在马路上跑的汽车数量总和。它的主要股东曾拒绝了一个10亿美元的收购动议。从1903年以2.8万美元的实缴货币资本注册成立以来，它的收入总计超过110亿美元，净利润为近8亿美金。从来没有人像亨利·福特那样在如此短的时间内如此正当地争了这么多钱。

Mr. Ford is not an officer of Ford Motor Co. His only connection with the corporation is his ownership of 58% of the stock and a seat on the board of directors. With him on the board sits his son, President Edsel Bryant Ford, who owns the rest of the stock, and Vice President Peter E. Martin, one of the few survivors of the countless upheavals in Ford management. There is a secretary and assistant treasurer, and an assistant secretary of the corporation, but no other title within the whole Ford organization. Henry Ford does not believe in titles.福特先生本人并不是福特汽车公司的主管。他与公司的唯一联系纽带是58%的股票和董事会的一个席位。和他并席的还有他的儿子，总裁Edsel Bryant Ford，掌握了其余的股票。另一个是副总裁Peter E. Martin，福特管理层频频动荡的少数幸存者之一。还有一位公司的行政助理，但是整个福特公司再没有其它头衔了。亨利·福特不相信头衔。

It takes an efficient executive staff to run a business whose payroll at one plant alone has been as high as 104,000 persons, whose purchases have run as high as $40,000,000 per month and whose operations include coal mines, glass factories, steel mills and a fleet of 37 ships. Yet the Ford staff is small. All the key men in the company can sit down together at a lunch table in a maple-paneled corner room at the Engineering Laboratory where the elder Ford makes his headquarters. There for counsel and advice go untitled Fordlings like William Cowling (sales), Albert M. Wibel (purchasing) and Charles Sorensen, hard-boiled superintendent of the mighty Rouge works.* Also high in Ford councils are William J. Cameron, Mr. Ford's official spokesman, and Harry H. Bennett, who handles personnel and directs Ford Motor's notoriously efficient police. But the one & only boss of Ford Motor Co. is Henry Ford.管理这样一个公司需要一个能力出众的管理层: 仅仅它的一间工厂里就要为104,000名员工付工资，每个月有高达4千万的采购额，公司业务包括煤矿、玻璃厂、钢铁厂、以及一个由37艘船组成的船队。但是福特的管理人员很少。公司里所有的负责人可以围坐在工程实验室一间用枫木镶嵌板装修的屋子里的一张午餐桌边。老福特就把他的总部设在这里。身负咨询和建议重任的福特干将有William Cowling (销售)，Albert M. Wibel (采购)，以及Charles Sorensen，胭脂河工厂的彪悍*主管。其他的高层还有William J. Cameron，福特先生的官方发言人；和Harry H. Bennett，负责人事部门并且掌管福特汽车名声在外的精干警察。但是福特汽车公司里唯一的决策人仍然是亨利·福特。

Last week the spare, stooped grey-haired dean of the premier U. S. industry launched a 1935 edition of the Ford V8, Model 48. And for the first time in his life he launched a model at the New York Automobile Show, No. 1 of the great fairs where the men from the motormaking provinces of the Midwest each year exhibit their newest and finest transportation wares (see p. 62).上周，这个节俭、驼背、灰发的美国支柱产业掌门人发布了福特V8的1935年版本，48型。有生以来第一次，他在纽约汽车展上首先发布了这款车。在那里，中西部的汽车制造商每年都展出他们最新、最棒的交通运输产品。

Mr. Ford used to exhibit only Lincolns at the Automobile Shows because Lincoln was a member of the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce (now the Automobile Manufacturers Association) which sponsored the exhibits. But Ford, characteristically, never joined the industry's trade association. This year the show was staged not by the manufacturers but by their local dealers. Hence Mr. Ford exhibited. He sent cross-section displays, a team of two mechanics who could pull down a V-8 motor in six minutes, assemble it in ten, a cutaway car on a traveling belt which, when big blocks were tossed under its wheels, demonstrated what Ford calls "Center-Poise," balanced riding quality. And he also sent a modern car. 福特先生一度在汽车展上只展出林肯车，因为林肯分公司是展览会的赞助商，全国汽车商会（现在的汽车制造商联盟）的成员之一。但是福特本人的个性招牌是从不参加业界的贸易组织。今年展览会不是由生产商，而是由他们的地方经销商来组织。因此福特参展了。他送来了剖面显示屏，一个机械师两人组。他们能在六分钟内把一部V8的马达拆卸，十分钟内重新组装起来。还有一辆传送带上的裸车，在有大块挡路的东西扔到它的轮下时，能够展示福特所称的“中央平衡”，减轻颠簸。他也送来了一辆摩登的汽车。