'I know and have read of your remarkable work in America,' Sun Yat-sen wrote in a 1924 letter to Henry Ford.
'And I think that you can do similar work in China on a much vaster and more significant scale.'
In retrospect, Sun, the father of modern China, and Ford, the father of modern assembly-line mass production, probably should have talked.
But it was not to be. The closest Ford's eponymous motor company got to conquering the Middle Kingdom during his lifetime was to open a sales office in Shanghai in 1928. It sold a small range of imported Ford vehicles, including tractors built in Cork, Ireland, and closed down at the outbreak of the second world war.
In 1978, with the mainland on the verge of reopening to the world, Deng Xiaoping welcomed Ford's grandson, Henry Ford II, on a visit to Beijing. The car maker began exporting trucks to the mainland the following year - but that too was destined to remain a niche business.
Indeed, the road to success in the mainland market has proven to be a long one for Ford. The world's sixth-biggest carmaker has yet to achieve the vast scale - in what is now the world's biggest car market - that Sun spoke of nearly a century ago.
That may be about to change. Ford today is embarking on its biggest concerted push in the mainland market yet, spending US$1.6 billion on four new plants that will start coming online from next year. By 2015, it expects to triple its portfolio of car models for sale on the mainland, as well as double its dealership network and employee base.