Vrooom At The Top

By Gordon Bock

"Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black," decreed an entrepreneur named Henry Ford in 1909. Nowadays shoppers browsing through a Ford showroom can choose models in everything from basic blue to racy red, but the founder's favorite color remains popular with the company's executives and shareholders. And with good reason: the profit-and- loss statements of Ford Motor Co. have lately come only in black.

Since 1986, when the firm's annual earnings topped those of General Motors for the first time in 62 years, Ford has kept its accelerator to the floor. In 1987 it posted an all-time industry high of $4.6 billion in profits, with sales of $71.6 billion. In 1988 Ford is already ahead of last year's blistering pace. First-quarter earnings rose by 8.9% from the same period in 1987, to $1.62 billion, topping the combined profits of GM ($1.1 billion) and Chrysler ($184 million). Though 75% of Ford's earnings come from the U.S., it is also doing well around the world. Revenues in Western Europe went up by 25% last year, to $15.7 billion, and even in Japan, Ford has scored persistent, if modest, sales increases. Looking at the figures, Auto Analyst Ann Knight of Paine Webber observes, "It would be hard to imagine them doing a better job."

Almost everything Ford produces these days seems to fly out of showrooms. The smoothly styled Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable midsize sedans and wagons (nearly 460,000 sold in the U.S. last year at prices starting at about $11,800) remain among the most popular cars on the road. The revamped Lincoln Continental ($26,600 and up) is in such demand that some customers must wait as long as five months for delivery. To appease impatient Continental buyers, Ford has started to send them $20 Cross pen-and-pencil sets along with an apologetic note; one customer returned the gift, expressing a preference for the car. Hottest of all are Ford's trucks: last year more than 550,000 of the F-Series pickups (base price: $10,176) were sold, putting them ahead of any other truck or car line in the U.S.

Under the innovative leadership of Chairman Donald Petersen, Ford is not simply coasting with its established models. Last month it introduced the Probe, a sporty two-door hatchback that may turn out to be nearly as successful as the Taurus. For a base price of $10,459, the Probe offers front- wheel drive, a zippy but economical four-cylinder engine and the sleek, aerodynamic look of a European or Japanese import. That should not be surprising, because Ford designed and developed the Probe in a joint project with Mazda, the Japanese company in which Ford owns a 25% interest. Mazda's plant in Flat Rock, Mich., will be turning out 600 Probes a day by September. All the cars that can be produced through next October have already been sold to dealers. The product seems to be attracting young buyers who have previously leaned toward such imports as the Honda Prelude ($13,640) or the Toyota Celica ($11,548). Ford and Mazda are so confident of the Probe's quality and appeal that they plan to export 6,000 of the cars to Japan this year.

Most of Ford's success has come at the expense of the much larger GM, which has been slow to respond to changing consumer tastes. In 1984 GM owned a 46% share of the U.S. passenger-car market, compared with Ford's 19%. At last count, GM had dropped to 37%, while Ford had risen to capture 22% of the $130 billion-a-year domestic market. Chrysler is chugging along with 12% of U.S. sales, in contrast to 10% in 1984.

The flood of imports -- more than 3 million last year -- has leveled off because the fall of the dollar against other currencies has made Japanese and European cars much more expensive in the U.S. While the cost of many Japanese models has gone up by 25% or more since 1985, Ford has been able to hold price hikes during the same period to an average of 7% (and only 4% on the smaller cars that compete most aggressively with imports). Still, Japanese imports managed to win 21.3% of the U.S. market last year, up from 18.4% in 1984.

Ford knows that the competition remains formidable and that prosperity in ! the auto business is never assured. Perhaps the greatest danger to the company's momentum is a slowdown in the U.S. economy. At 5 1/2 years, the current expansion is unusually old, and many economists expect a recession to hit next year. Already, interest rates are on the rise, which could slow auto sales by making it harder for customers to afford car loans.

But if any car company is prepared to weather a downturn, Ford is. The bleak years of 1980 through 1982, when it lost $3.26 billion, taught the company how devastating a recession can be. Philip Caldwell, Ford's chairman at the time, was forced to cut costs drastically and boost productivity. When Petersen took over as chairman in 1985, he oversaw an equally relentless slashing of expenses.

As a result, the Ford Motor Co. of 1988 is sleeker and stronger than the bloated Ford of the 1970s. Since 1979, the firm has shut down 15 of some 165 plants worldwide and eliminated 60,000 of 165,000 blue-collar jobs and 20,000 of 73,000 white-collar positions. That enabled it to reduce annual operating costs by $5 billion, to an estimated $65 billion in 1987. Over the past few years, the company has amassed cash reserves of $10 billion, which should make a recession bearable.

Cost cutting, though, was only one part of the recovery plan. Under Petersen, the company has developed a worldwide strategy for prospering in an increasingly competitive business. Ford has always had a major presence overseas, especially in Europe, but its operations around the world often duplicated one another's efforts. A European subsidiary, for example, would make cars for its market, while Detroit was building similar vehicles for the U.S. There was remarkably little coordination, specialization or division of labor, even though domestic and foreign vehicles were becoming more alike.

Now Ford has started to operate like a fully integrated global company. It has turned its technical facilities in five countries into what Petersen calls "centers of excellence." Each center is assigned projects that will benefit the company as a whole. Some of the facilities may work on a particular engine, while others may design and engineer common platforms -- the suspension and other undercarriage components -- for an entire family of autos. Ford of Europe, which has its headquarters in Brentwood, England, has been delegated to develop platforms for all three of Ford's compacts: the Tempo, the Topaz and the European Sierra model. At the same time, a team at Ford headquarters in Dearborn, Mich., is working on platforms for a new generation to replace the midsize Taurus and Sable and the European Scorpio. A Ford design center in Hiroshima is working with Mazda to develop a replacement for the subcompact Escort, while a plant in Melbourne, Australia, is building the two-seater Capri sports car.

One of the savviest parts of Ford's strategy is its alliance with Mazda. Instead of continuing to engineer its own small cars, Ford decided to rely on an acknowledged expert. Each partner brings strengths to the collaboration: in general Ford provides the styling while Mazda supplies engineering and manufacturing expertise. The first Mazda-engineered Ford, an $8,500 compact called the Mercury Tracer, appeared in March 1987 and was followed two months later by the two-door Festiva subcompact ($5,900). Last year cars that Mazda helped develop accounted for 3% of Ford's sales, and that percentage will rise substantially with the introduction of the Probe.

Another factor in Ford's surge is a new spirit of cooperation between labor and management. Last September the United Auto Workers union, which represents 104,000 Ford employees, agreed to accept a contract that calls for a moderate average wage increase of 3% this year. The pact includes concessions by both sides. The union said it would help Petersen achieve his goal of creating more Japanese-style teamwork. In exchange, Ford agreed to a provision that bars the company from laying off workers in all but the sharpest of economic downturns. Says Ford Executive Vice President Philip Benton: "The union has come a long way in recognizing the need to be competitive." Adds U.A.W. Vice President Stephen Yokich: "I can see a totally different attitude. We're meeting and talking about our problems." Working together has its rewards: this year's $636 million profit-sharing disbursement is believed to be the largest such payout ever made by an American company. The workers received average bonuses of $3,700, up from $2,100 in 1987.

To protect itself from the vicissitudes of a fickle business, Ford has been moving to diversify. Since 1985, it has bought an 80% stake in Hertz (for $1.3 billion); California's First Nationwide Bank ($493 million), the fourth largest U.S. thrift institution; and BDM International ($425 million), a military research firm that will supplement Ford's longtime aerospace expertise. Ford is rumored to be interested in using its $10 billion cash hoard to go after a much larger acquisition, perhaps a company the size of Boeing, Lockheed or Singer.

Petersen is focusing most of his attention, though, on ensuring that Ford offers a continuous stream of fresh cars. Some will be gussied-up versions of existing models -- known in the trade as "re-skins" -- while one will be a completely new model. Later this year the firm plans to unveil a Ford Thunderbird with styling resembling a BMW. Also in the works: face-lifts for the Ranger pickup and Bronco II sport-utility vehicle; a nip and tuck for the Taurus; a version of the Aerostar van that will stretch 15 in. longer than the current 14 1/2-ft. model; and by 1991 a compact four-wheel-drive van designed by Nissan and made by Ford to compete with Chrysler's line of Voyagers and Caravans, which now command 49% of the U.S. minivan market.

Ford will need a fleet of attractive cars to hold its own against the flood of rival models coming into the market. U.S. plants owned by Japanese companies, including Nissan, Honda and Toyota, are expected to produce 2.2 million cars annually by 1992, up from 618,000 in 1987. That will surely cut into the sales of the U.S. Big Three, which produced 15 million vehicles last year. Detroit fears the new competition because the Japanese plants, which generally employ nonunion labor, have been able to keep operating costs 15% to 20% below those of the Big Three. "We have more vacations, more holidays and more relief time than the Japanese," says Ford Vice Chairman Harold ("Red") Poling. "Those things will be an impediment to achieving the same degree of productivity."

But as always, Ford's chief nemesis will be GM. With 1987 sales of $102 billion, GM remains 41% larger than Ford. Auto experts say GM could rebound sharply with its planned line of stylish front-wheel-drive cars called the GM- 10 series. "General Motors is waking up," says Auto Analyst Maryann Keller of Furman Selz Mager Dietz & Birney. "Ford is going to face tough competition in the 1990s."

Others think Ford has the ability but needs the desire to overtake GM as the world's largest automaker. Says Vladimir Pucik, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan's business school: "Nobody goes to the Indy 500 trying to be a strong No. 2."

With reporting by B. Russell Leavitt/Detroit