The U.S. auto industry might be in crisis and Big Three executives might be appealing to Congress for a $25-billion bailout, but judging by Ford Motor Co.'s plans for this week's L.A. Auto Show, Detroit's No. 2 carmaker seems to be feeling just swell.
Even as General Motors Corp. and Chrysler have scrapped plans to introduce any vehicles at the L.A. event, Ford is unveiling no fewer than six: the Ford Fusion, Fusion hybrid, Mercury Milan, Milan hybrid, Lincoln MKZ and the 2010 Mustang.
That's a big number of introductions for any show, even in a good year for auto companies, which 2008 most decidedly is not: Ford's sales are down 18.2% through October, worse than the industry as a whole, compared with last year.
What's more, Ford is considering as many as five more product launches at the Detroit auto show in January, and company executives describe a product pipeline that's jammed through 2010. Ford even opened a new shift at its F-150 plant in Dearborn, Mich., this month to pump out big quantities of the redesigned pickup.
Such an onslaught of sheet metal from Henry Ford's car company in a time of industry bloodletting is raising some eyebrows. Do people at the Dearborn, Mich., company know something nobody else does?
Ford's strategy is risky because it is tying up billions of dollars in future product at a time when low consumer confidence and frozen credit markets have made for the worst new-car sales in this country in 17 years. If Ford can't pay its bills, a garage full of promising new cars is useless.
Ford Chief Executive Alan Mulally isn't oblivious to the dangers. Flanked by the heads of GM and Chrysler, he told a Senate panel Tuesday that he supported a bailout because he feared "the prospect of further deteriorating conditions in 2009."
On Tuesday, the company said it would sell a roughly 20% stake in Mazda Motor Co. for $540 million, a fire-sale price that supports the predictions of many analysts that Ford could run out of cash before many of its new products are even released.
"I don't see Ford's position as all that different than Chrysler's and GM's," said Jim Hossack, vice president of industry consultancy AutoPacific Inc. "I think all three are in an absolutely desperate position."
