"Think about it," Alan Mulally implored: Just 14 months ago, the top executive at Ford Motor Co. was seated alongside his compadres at soon-to-be-bankrupt General Motors and Chrysler, at a congressional panel considering pleas for emergency taxpayer loans.
"Isn't that incredible?" Mulally said, wide-eyed and proud as he wound back the clock Friday morning during an unusual stop in Philadelphia.
With global rival Toyota hobbled by a recall crisis and Ford hot off its first reported full-year profit since 2005, the lone U.S. automaker that avoided bankruptcy and bailout aid is on a recession roll that would have seemed unimaginable a year ago.
And Mulally, an aeronautical engineer and longtime Boeing Co. executive who took over at Ford less than four years ago with a plan to make the beleaguered automaker more like Toyota, is starting to look like the smartest guy in Motor City.
Ford took no bailout aid. Ford did not declare bankruptcy. And now, Ford is posting profits and unveiling a host of new models on which Mulally has staked the century-old automaker's future.
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