FORD OF EUROPE SEES FIRST HALF SALES UP 2.7 PER CENT POWERED BY STRONG SALES OF FOCUS AND FOCUS C-MAX

Cologne, July 8, 2004 - Ford brand vehicles continued their strong performance in the European vehicle sector, reporting a 6.1% increase for June, with 143,700 units sold. This brings the total passenger cars and commercial vehicles sold from the first six months of 2004 to more than 835,600 units. This is up 21,800 vehicles or 2.7 per cent more than in the same period in 2003. For the first half Ford earned a healthy 8.9% share of the overall vehicle market.

The Company’s overall sales performance was underlined by strong retail sales, especially of the Ford Focus, which continues to be Ford’s most successful model, with 229,600 units sold in the first six months of 2004, supported by the Fiesta and the Mondeo. With 89,000 units already sold in 2004, total Ford Focus C-MAX registrations since the vehicles launch in October 2003 have passed 100,000 units.

There were strong results as well for Ford’s commercial vehicle range, with the Transit, Transit Connect and Ranger achieving 117,600 registrations, a 12,100 unit increase over last year.

Ford’s most successful European markets in the first half of 2004 were Britain, with a 16.1% total vehicle market share (up 0.2% versus 2003) and Spain, with a 9.9% market share – an increase of 0.9%. Ford of Poland reached its highest market share ever, with 9.2%, compared to 6.5% in the first half of 2003 and 6.9% for the entire last year. In France, Portugal, Denmark, Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic Ford increased its market share as well.

In Russia, Ford’s sales volume reached 16,300 vehicles during the first six months of 2004, an increase of 125% versus the respective period last year. Ford’s market share among foreign manufacturers in Russia has increased from 5.4% in 2001 to 11.6% in the first half of 2004.

Ford in Turkey contributed heavily to Ford of Europe’s strong performance with 56,500 total vehicle sales in the first six months of 2004. This equates to 15.3% of the Turkish vehicle market.

“With 835,700 vehicles sold in the first half of 2004, we achieved our sales objective for the sixth consecutive month," said Earl Hesterberg, Vice President, Marketing, Sales and Service, Ford of Europe. "Major contributors to our strong first half performance were again our commercial vehicles and small cars, but Focus C-MAX is still growing dramatically and the Focus continued to perform strongly despite its next generation just being only a few months away from its European debut," he continued.

Ford’s sales data includes its 19 European Sales Companies (excluding Russia, Turkey and others) and includes both passenger cars and commercial vehicles.