Ford Claims Its Americas Car Company

By Kay Lowry

DETROIT, Jan. 8 -- Ford Motor Company staked its claim as America’s car company Sunday at the 2006 North American Auto Show with an impressive display of bold new products and provocative concept vehicles.

Chairman and CEO Bill Ford, speaking to reporters, said that innovation is part of the company’s natural heritage, dating back to the Model T.

”We’re driving to build products that are innovative in design, safety, technology and the environment,” Ford said. “Innovation that is formed right here in America. Innovation that is truly American.”

Ford and other top executives, while acknowledging the company’s daunting challenge to reverse its slipping share of the market and return to automotive profitability, noted that the North American landscape is changing and that it will take a new mindset to differentiate Ford from its competitors.

“If you look at the industry you’ll see it is at an inflection point right now and so is Ford Motor Company,” said Mark Fields, president of Ford’s Americas Division. “The days of the ‘Big Three’, in my opinion, are long gone. We have to think of it like the ‘up for grabs Big Six.’ “

In unveiling Ford’s newest vehicle, the Edge crossover, Fields described it as a distinctly Ford and distinctly American product.

“This product is bold, innovative and American and unmistakably a Ford,” Fields said. “And like the Fusion is doing with midsize cars, the Edge will shake up the crossover market, which is today’s fastest growing segment.”

Jim Padilla, Ford’s president and chief operating officer, said that stronger brands, breakthrough products and improvements in quality and productivity are central to Ford’s plan to shore up its North American business.

“That includes our Oakville Assembly Complex in Canada, where today we’re announcing a major transformation to flexible manufacturing in time for production of the new Ford Edge and Lincoln Mark X crossovers this year,” said Padilla.

Also revealed at NAIAS was the company’s newest and fastest Mustang ever, the 2007 Ford Shelby GT 500, and two concept vehicles: the F-250 Super Chief truck and a small, fuel-efficient car dubbed the Reflex, which signals the company’s intention to build on the success of its truck series and reenter the small car market in North America.

Pointing out that Asian and European brands have demonstrated the increasing demand for small cars, J Mays, Ford’s chief creative officer and group vice president for design, said that Ford through American innovation can create vehicles that can capture a part of that currently untapped market.

“No company today is putting an American stamp on the small car segment,” said Mays. “That means there is a huge growth opportunity if only someone will seize it. Ford plans to seize it.”

Bill Ford pointed to recent successes as evidence that its commitment to innovation will pay off down the road. The industry’s first two hybrid SUVs, the Escape Hybrid and the Mariner Hybrid, get 80 percent better fuel economy than their regular models in city driving, and when running on pure electric power there are no emissions, he said. Savings at the pump and improvement in air quality are among the American values the company hopes will resonate with customers.

“Beyond that, I’m energized – as I believe our employees are – by the prospect of making our business distinctively better. We have a lot of work to do, some of it painful,” said Ford. “But everything we do – every step we take – will be guided by a deep commitment to American innovation, to our customers, and to building the best cars and trucks on the road today.”