William Clay Ford (born March 14, 1925) is the youngest of the four grandchildren of Henry Ford and child of Edsel Ford.
He initially pursued a career with the Ford Motor Company and for awhile was the head of the Continental Division. A reorganization eliminated the division, and for some time he was less active in company management, although he was at least in title responsible for oversight of company design activities.
He purchased the Detroit Lions in 1964 for $4.5 million, and for some years this was his primary professional interest, but as his older brother Henry Ford II aged he became increasingly important as a Ford Motor Company director, representing the long term interests of the family investment (and by proxy, that of all shareholders). He was Chairman of the Finance Committee (an important board position traditionally held by a trusted non-executive director) for several years, eventually ceding that seat to his son, William Clay Ford, Jr..
Ford served in the U.S. Navy Air Corps during World War II. He married Martha Parke Firestone, the granddaughter of Harvey Firestone on June 21, 1947. He received a BS in Economics from Yale University in 1949.
