The Industrialists.(NEWS)

Father: Henry Ford

Son: Edsel Ford

AUTOMOTIVE HISTORY IS replete with father-son duos: Henry and Wilfred Leland, Augie and Fritz Duesenberg, the Walter P. Chryslers, and of course, the Fords, a lineage that stretches to Ford chairman William Clay Ford Jr. and his father, owner of the NFL's Detroit Lions. None of those relationships has been more closely scrutinized than that between Ford founder Henry and his only child, Edsel.

Historians describe Henry Ford as a man of simple tastes but high standardsunbending and fiercely competitive. Edsel Ford was a stylist at heart. The son was confident in his own judgment and aesthetics and was one of history's great philanthropists. Lore suggests that Edsel was the browbeaten son of a domineering father, but that is patently false.

Edsel grew up in the shadow of a forceful, unimaginably successful father. He drove the era's coolest cars from the age of 10; for his 21st birthday, he received $1 million in gold from his dad. Edsel's relationship with Henry was complex and shifting, and as the son grew to manhood, he was viewed as a subordinate second fiddle. Yet in the late 1930s, an interviewing reporter described Edsel as a man whose "mind is as incisively complex as his vision is clear. The son had become adept at dealing with a stubborn, powerful father.

As a stylist, Edsel introduced horizontal grilles to American design. He also convinced Henry that annual styling changes were ...