The Rebel Driving Ford

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Bill Ford's biggest triumph so far is the company's commitment to a $2 billion plan to transform the vast Rouge complex outside his office window into a global showcase of sustainable manufacturing. The Rouge was an Industrial Revolution icon, embodying Henry Ford's vision of massive vertical integration, with iron ore being unloaded at one end and cars and trucks rolling off assembly lines at the other. But it had fallen into obsolescence.

For a decade the company had been wrestling with whether to demolish the complex when prominent ecoarchitect William McDonough sold Bill Ford on the idea of a 1,100-acre monument to sustainability, with a vast, open gallery of a factory and a 454,000-sq.-ft. "natural habitat" for a roof.

The board didn't approve Ford's ambitious plan until last October, after the designers provided analysis showing that the spending made sense because of long-term savings. "I remember thinking, 'There are a lot of intangibles here,'" says board member and former Secretary of the Treasury Bob Rubin. "But as hard as they are to measure, there are some compelling benefits. Bill is a kind of unique, maybe special, person with a real feel for maximizing success over a longer-term horizon than most of us look at."

Ask Ford, and he'll tell you that if he couldn't take the long-term view, he would have quit the company a long time ago. "I grew up in a wealthy neighborhood where there were plenty of second- and third-generation kids who were crushed by their family's expectations," he says. "I always thought I was good enough to go beyond that, but I was never sure whether I'd have the opportunity."

Ford's goals have always defied his pedigree. His parents drove the teenager from tony Grosse Pointe to the working-class neighborhood of St. Clair Shores to play hockey. Although he prepped at Hotchkiss and went on to Princeton, when he started working at Ford Motor 22 years ago, Ford made a reputation for himself as a guy more comfortable in a union hall than at headquarters. And his migration up the corporate ladder was a strange odyssey of brief stints working for bosses who were never quite sure how to deal with a Ford who wasn't just along for the ride.

His family was different. His father William Clay Ford Sr. is a man of wry humor and good sense who at one point oversaw planning for the Lincoln division (he's a design buff). Although Ford Sr. eventually became vice chairman, he and his wife, the former Martha Firestone (yes, those Firestones), encouraged the family to aspire to a non-billionaire-like existence.

Then again, most fathers don't own an NFL franchise. After Ford Sr. bought the Detroit Lions, Junior was deeply impressed by the beating his father took in the local papers when the team went downhill. After all, football matters. "There were days when I was a kid when the local columnists would just rip into my father, and I'd just cry," says Ford. "But it also taught me not to believe in your own press, because once you do, the house of cards just falls in."

By most accounts, Ford fought for almost everything he has at the company. When Bill and his cousin Edsel were appointed to the board in 1988, he fought off demands that he stop dealing with environmental groups. CEO Don Petersen refused to let either Ford serve on any board committees. Even when he was named chairman, Ford was taunted as "Prince William" by outgoing chief executive Trotman. "I had to decide whether to get in the dirt and wrestle or walk away," Ford recalls. He chose to rumble. "I'm a very competitive person, and it made me mad. I wasn't going to let the company beat me."

He also burnished his public image as co-owner and manager, with his father, of the Lions. When his father ceded him control of the team in 1996, Ford reorganized the team management and won a battle with the other NFL owners to keep the Lions' lock on the annual Thanksgiving game. The Lions are still mediocre, but Ford raised about $200 million to build a new stadium downtown, then persuaded his fellow owners to bring the 2006 Super Bowl to Detroit.

Last year Ford learned a lesson about the limits of soft and fuzzy when the Firestone crisis engulfed the company. Ford instinctively wanted the company to get out in front of the issue. Were there problems with the Explorer? "That was the first question I asked," he says. Some evidence showed the Explorer was safer than other SUVs. But Ford execs didn't have time for a full investigation when lawyers, Congress and the media were rolling out damaging allegations daily.

As late as September, Ford asked the board to allow him to be more visible on the Firestone issue, but it was decided that Nasser should take the heat. And he did. Nasser appeared on television ads, did interviews and charged down to Washington to beat back Congress. Everywhere he went, he blamed Firestone. Ford would stay in the background, in part to preserve his image. In the event that there was real evidence of wrongdoing on Ford Motor's part, then the credible Ford could step up and fess up. He is still being held in reserve on this issue.