A star at Toyota, a believer at Ford

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At a dinner at the Bellagio hotel about two weeks ago, the ballroom buzzed with 1,400 car dealers fired up for a turnaround at the Ford Motor Co. With fresh products coming and a new ad campaign in place, they were ready to celebrate an attempted comeback by the struggling automaker.

But James D Farley was hardly in a festive mood.

He had been on the job as Ford’s chief marketing officer for all of six months, lured away from a stellar career with the Japanese juggernaut Toyota to inject similar sizzle into Ford.

The dinner capped a four-day summit of Ford’s dealers and top executives, and it should have been Farley’s time to shine, to feed off the enthusiasm of dealers eager for good news at Ford.

Yet as he sat in an empty conference room before his keynote speech, Farley was introspective. “How am I doing? You know, I can’t answer that question, how am I doing,” he said. “It’s too complicated.”

The challenges ahead were too profound for simple answers, he said. The survival of Ford was at stake, and he wasn’t about to carry his share of that burden lightly. “I’m not someone who is going to be smiling a lot,” he said.

As the lights dimmed, Farley didn’t lead cheers or shout slogans. Instead, he spoke from the heart, revealing a depth of passion for Ford that turned the room dead silent.

He talked about his grandfather, who had gone to work for Henry Ford at the celebrated Rouge plant in 1914; about his first car, a vintage 1966 Mustang; and about the dealers and their families.

Like a shy actor blossoming on stage, Farley became swept up in the emotional power of the moment. “I believe, in many ways, the future of Ford is the future of our country,” he said. “The work here is simply more important than the work I was doing at Toyota.” When he finished, the dealers rose for a standing ovation that left Farley momentarily stunned.

“These people,” he said, “want to believe.”

But it’s not easy to believe in Ford these days. The auto giant, based in Dearborn, Michigan, lost a combined $15.3 billion during the last two years.

Last year, Ford ceded the No 2 position in sales in its home market to Toyota, and its domestic sales have slid a further 9% so far in 2008. Moreover, the company has been forced to sell off prized assets like its Jaguar and Land Rover units, to raise cash for its nascent turnaround.

“Ford is at a crossroads,” said John Casesa of the auto consulting firm Casesa Shapiro Group. “The business has been declining for 30 years, and the competition is only getting tougher.” Farley says he grasps that reality quite fully, as well as the tortured path that Ford has been on over the last decade.

During an interview, he held out the tip of a finger to illustrate his point. “I cut this finger playing with a model plane when I was 12 or 13,” he said. “I didn’t really feel it. It was like, that’s weird. Then the whole finger came down and I could see the white of my bone.” He paused to let the image sink in.

“Some cuts leave a little scar, and some cuts go to the bone,” he said. “Ford’s experience in the last 10 years went to the bone. I hope that everyone at Ford never forgets what we went through.”