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Ford's Last Chance

Mulally Will Try to Reverse Bill Ford's "Way Forward"

By Joe Benton
ConsumerAffairs.com

September 6, 2006

• Spit Spark Plugs Still Hobble Ford Trucks • Buy American? Not Again • Ford's Spit-Out Spark Plugs Hit Mechanics in their Wallets • Spit Spark Plug Ignites Ford Truck • Ford Mechanic: Engines "Dropping Like Flies" • 2003 Ford Trucks Now Spitting Spark Plugs • Ford Trucks Spit Spark Plugs • Petition Asks Feds to Order Ford Recall • Consumers Complain of Spark Plug Blow-Out --- • More about Ford ...

It was just a few months ago that Bill Ford was touting a secret plan to turn his great-grandfather's automobile business around. It supposedly included "designing new cars for consumers even before consumers know they want them."

If that ever happened, no one noticed.

Now time has run out and Boeing Aircraft executive Alan Mulally is rushing to the scene to try to pull the company out of its nosedive. If anyone had any remaining doubts that Ford was in big trouble, they should be resolved by the news that Bill Ford asked Mulally to take over the company his great-grandfather founded 103 years ago.

Mulally, the former executive vice president of the Boeing Co. and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, also will have the title of president at Ford and serve on the automaker's board of directors.

Ford will stick around as executive chairman of the family-controlled company, which posted a $1.4-billion loss in the first half of the year. He tried for five years to turn the family business around and failed.

The stock is down for the year and the dealer lots are filled with unsold cars and trucks as Ford cuts production to reduce the company stockpile.

Ford is fighting to just hold on. Profits, if any, are a long way into the future.

Despite mounting losses, Ford insists that he was not pressured to step aside by directors or his family, which holds 40 percent of the voting control of Ford Motor.

Both Ford and Mulally spoke at a news conference after the stock market closed to announce Mulally's arrival and the tone was one of relief, at least from Ford.

"I was wearing a lot of hats, as many of you know, as chairman and CEO, COO," Bill Ford explained. "What became clear to me is we needed somebody who had extensive turnaround experience, was a real leader and a team builder."

Mulally's resume includes a master's degree in engineering from the University of Kansas and a master's degree in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He worked at Boeing for 37 years and led the successful turnaround of the company's commercial airplane division. Business Week named Mulally one of its Best Leaders of 2005.

It's to be hoped that Mulally has a firmer grasp on reality than young Ford, who in outlining his platitudinous grand plan, ignored the thousands of consumers stranded by spark plug blow-outs in F series trucks and made no commitment to improve warranty coverage and stand more fully behind the company's often-troubled products.

"The next chapter in our history will be remembered for a renewed commitment to innovation and as the time we moved boldly to prepare Ford's North American business for global competition," Bill Ford said at a January news conference outlining the massive restructuring plan.

Maybe Ford will remember it that way. It's doubtful anyone else will.

Ford's U.S. market share has been dropping steadily for a decade, falling to an historic low of 17 percent last year.

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