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 into close friends. James Couzens, a small hardware merchant of Detroit, was one of them, and C. H. Wills, a mechanical draughts man, was another. With Tom Cooper, the bicycle champion, they spent many evenings in the old shed, or on the front steps of the Ford house, discussing projects for the Ford factory.

Couzens, who had a talent for business affairs, formed a plan for interesting a small group of other merchants like himself and financing Ford. He brought negotiations to a certain point and found himself confronted again by their demand for control of the company.

"We must do something that'll show them that they've got to have you on your own terms—something big—startling—to stir them up," he reported.

"How about winning another race?" Cooper suggested. "They're pulling one off in Ohio this fall."

"No, it must be right here, so I can take my men out and let them see it," Couzens objected. "It takes a lot to jar any money loose from those fellows."

"I could enter at the Grosse Point tracks next spring," Ford said. "But it wouldn't show them any more than they've already seen, if I race the same car. I can't afford to build another one."

He was still in debt to Coffee Jim for the cost of his firsst racer. Coffee Jim, professing himself satisfied with the results of the