In all the automobile plants of the Ford empire from Dearborn to Geelong V-J Day, September 2, 1945, was one of rejoicing. For three years no civilian cars had been produced, and millions of buyers now clamored for them. With a few exceptions, those units in use were relics, many with rusted bodies and patched tires. It was a magnificent seller's market, but for the moment no Ford company had anything to sell. Each was feverishly working on new designs, meanwhile beginning manufacture of prewar models with “cosmetic” changes.

Some automobile executives, recalling the boom after World War I and the searing depression that followed it, advocated caution; the majority wanted to get into the fullest civilian production. These were hampered in England by “a ceiling on car and commercial vehicle production for the home market” (although output for exports was encouraged) and by production that was “limited from day to day by unbalanced and short deliveries from suppliers.” In the United States the prices set by the Office of Price Administration on both automotive parts and complete cars, along with coal and steel strikes and a succession of difficulties with automotive workers, impeded the flow of cars. Similar conditions crippled the Canadian output. The golden day of a free market hung enticingly beyond reach, like the treasure at the end of the rainbow.

In Dearborn on September 20, 1945 a feeble, eighty-two-year-old Henry Ford tendered his resignation to the Board of Directors of the Ford Motor Company.