Ford Takes Off

The challenge of guided missiles last week lured Ford Motor Co. The company set up Aeronutronics Systems Inc., a new subsidiary incorporated in Delaware, built around a nucleus of 30 top scientists and engineers formerly organized as Systems Research Corp. of Los Angeles.

The new outfit will concentrate at first on guided missiles but will undertake almost anything dealing with technological research and development, including "serious exploration of outer space." Ford is putting an initial $10 million into the venture, plans to build a $13,500,000 research and development facility, probably in the Los Angeles area, to be completed in 1958 and employ 1,000 to 2,000. Absorption of Systems Research, composed mainly of scientists who quit the Lockheed missiles program in a policy squabble, gives Ford a readymade, topflight scientific team plus a batch of government contracts.