Detroit – After Bill Ford won the post of Ford Motor Co. chief executive in 2001, he often ate lunch in an employee cafeteria that looks out on a sunflower field at his company’s Dearborn, Mich., headquarters. He almost never dines there anymore.
Instead, Ford, 48, the great- grandson of automotive icon Henry Ford, spends much of his time a mile away at a training center for the family-owned Detroit Lions National Football League team, people familiar with his schedule say.
Bill Ford shares this inner sanctum with his father, 81-year-old William Clay Ford Sr., the man who orchestrated his son’s rise.
“Bill Ford had no idea how difficult the job of running the Ford Motor Co. would be,” says Keith Crain, the Automotive News writer who has chronicled the erosion of Detroit automakers’ U.S. market share from 86 percent in 1971 to 56 percent today. “He’s trying to find people now who can get him out of this mess.”
Bill Ford retreated to the sports center in 2002, the people say. About that time, he tried but did not acquire Dieter Zetsche, now head of DaimlerChrysler AG, and Carlos Ghosn, chief of Nissan Motor Co. Hiring either would have freed him to delegate pressing decisions about plant closings, car designs and slumping market share to a seasoned, hands-on manager.
Bill Ford would have remained largely in the background in his role as chairman. Then Ford Motor reported a $5.5 billion loss for 2001, fired CEO Jacques Nasser and thrust Bill Ford into the hot seat of a family empire in crisis.
Ford’s leader may be running out of time to save his family’s 102-year-old automaking kingdom. Since 2000, Toyota Motor Corp. has boosted U.S. sales by 40 percent to 2.3 million vehicles last year. Bill Ford responded by trimming North American output by 27 percent during that time to 3.5 million vehicles in 2005.
Instead of giving him breathing room, the savings were swallowed up by promises Ford made decades ago to support its 300,000 workers.
