As some of you may know, I buy and sell old parts for trucks. Not just Fords, any old trucks I can get my hands on. While I surf the Net in search of answers to questions regarding certain Makes and Models, I stumble across interesting Posts. Here's one for Fomoco Lovers. This is a quote from another site.
Hello all,
> Had a disturbing event happen yesterday, the drivers door to my '47
appears
> to be the original mariner blue inside. The passenger door is a nice RED,
> and since I know that the truck was blue originally, I am thinking that it
> was replaced. ANYWAY, the glass in the '47-2's driver's door has FOMOCO
in that nasty script! Is this right?
> Could our beloved '47-2 blue "bowtied" trucks have really had nasty blue oval glass?

Here's a response that Numberdummy can probably verify.

If memory serves me correct, FOMOCO bought out Libbey {Libby} Glass many, many years ago and they probably manufactured glass for many auto/truck manufacturers.

So what you guys/gals think? Fomoco Rules

 

An interesting gripe ...but I recall seeing someplace not so long ago that lots of the glass shops get their material from overseas....As for a bowtie with FoMoCo on it...no better then FoMoCo with GM on it...or SoftRay as is on their OE glass...along with LOF as I recall in a box diagonally...


- cs65

 

You don't get it. Back in 47 or there abouts there was glass with FOMOCO on it being placed into chevys. Because FOMOCO bought out libby and kept making the glass only with Fomoco logo on it. Where in 47 or there abouts did you see a Ford coming off the line with anything saying CHEVY? Whatever happened afterwards were acts of owners putting different things in different vehicles. Glass companies buying from overseas or different vendors happened later, a whole lot later.

 

aaaah...I wasnt aware of that...

 

Uh Robert, you don't get it either, cuz you've confused one company with another.

Libbey-Owens was the original name of the glass company. In the 1930's, they merged with the Edward Ford Plate Glass Co., forming Libbey-Owens-Ford (L-O-F).

So, GM glass was marked Libbey-Owens-Ford, not Ford or FoMoCo, because Ford Motor Company never owned Libbey-Owens-Ford!

The cluck with the 1947 Chevy was clueless, thought Libbey-Owens-Ford refered to FoMoCo. I'm aware of L-O-F cuz I've owned a fair share of GM piles and my dad was an Olds Dealer.

When one has been associated with old rolling piles of misery since the day they were hatched, worked for decades in the biz, has over 3,000 books on auto history and is a member of the Society of Auto Historians...

One tends to learn worthless trivia like this...and here's a few more tidbits...

Did'ja know that the Cadillac Motor Car Co. was originally named the Henry Ford Co?

Did'ja know that before going into the autobiz, Dodge made Model T engines?

Did'ja know that the Prez and Chief Engineer of the Cadillac Motor Car Co. also founded the Lincoln Motor Co?

 

I didn't know.




John

 

Hey Bill not necessarily worthless trivia. Some of these questions may show up when playing the trivial pursuit game. I say keep the tidbits comming when the situation presents itself. Never to old to learn a little more about the big old car & truck hobby and the big three history. Got to love your description of the (Rolling Piles of Misery). My dad was an auotmotive engine rebuilder when I was growing up and he would stay away from certain makes of cars simpley because he knew they were exactly like you describe them.

 

A tidbit of Ford, FoMoCo, Cadillac, Lincoln and Packard history:

In 1902, after Henry Ford left the company he founded (before a single car was assembled), his former financial backers hired Henry Martyn Leland as President & Chief Engineer.

Leland was well known as a master of precision. Formerly worked for Brown & Sharpe and Colt's Pat'd Firearms Manufacturing Co.

The first thing Leland did was change the company name, naming it after the founder of Detroit, French explorer Antoine Walter de la Motte Cadillac.

In 1916, Leland left Cadillac, started his own company to manufacture Liberty aircraft engines for the war effort. The Liberty V12 water cooled aircraft engine was designed by Packard's Chief Engineer, Col. Jesse Vincent (pilots back then refered to the Liberty as "The Flying Coffin!").

Leland named the new company after his favorite President: Abraham Lincoln.

In 1921, the Lincoln motorcar was introduced. It was a mechanical marvel, but a styling disaster. Lincoln soon went bankrupt.

In 1922 Henry Ford bought Lincoln for 8 million dollars in US Bankruptcy Court...he was the only bidder. He bought Lincoln as a gift for his son Edsel.

Leland was supposed to stay with the company, but left after only a few months, after constantly arguing with "Cast Iron" Charlie (Charles Sorensen, FoMoCo's production engineer), over the multiple changes Sorensen was making inre to how some Lincoln parts were now being produced.

Sorensen applied the same techniques to manufacture Lincoln parts as he did for Ford parts. Leland argued that the changes would cheapen the parts.

btw: Henry Ford founded the 'current' Ford Motor Company in 1903.

 

OT but if you want to see a Ford part in a GM car, flip over any mid 1960's to early 1970's GM that had a 3 speed manual trans. You may find a Ford "303" top-loading, full synchro trans.

 

Henry Ford and Thomas Edison were close friends.
I saw an old documentary recently that showed some
old photos of their annual camping trips that included
some of the most powerful people of the day.
Ford, Edison and Firestone all were friends.
Really interesting stuff. Here is one guys story about it.

Four Vagabonds Henry Ford John Burroughs Thomas Edison Harvey Firestone David L. Lewis

 

Riddle me this one, my dad pastors a church in MT that was built in the 80's. It has two commercial style glass doors in the front and in the bottom corner of the glass there is a white Ford logo with Ford scrip in it (I need to remember to get a picture of that when i'm up there). Both doors have it, seems to be imprinted in the glass. Looks just like the Ford oval on a pickup. It's just flat glass for the door, maybe 3' X 6'.