“There’s a Ford in your future,” proclaimed a 1944 Ford Motor Company advertisement. Fifty-seven years later, DaimlerChrysler found a Ford in its future, and an Edsel as well, when the great-grandson of Henry Ford bought DaimlerChrysler Aviation in 2001. Today, Edsel B. Ford II, 47, still chuckles from time to time at the irony of a Ford owning the company that began in 1964 as Chrysler Air Transportation.
Chrysler Air Transportation began as Chrysler’s corporate flight department 60 years ago. When the company expanded the role of the flight department in 1980 to include business jet charter and FBO services, it renamed the division Pentastar Aviation. Then German automaker Daimler-Benz acquired Chrysler the motor company in 1998, and Pentastar Aviation became DaimlerChrysler Aviation. When Edsel Ford bought the company he promptly restored the Pentastar Aviation name.
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