Man of Steel

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Illustration By Rob Kelly

The crowd rolls forward, like a wave in slow motion, security guards eyeing the crushing throng cautiously. Occasionally they pull someone out of line to check an overstuffed bag, but there’s little else they can do. It’s the first press day at the North American International Auto Show, and already nerves are frayed as reporters, photographers, and Web bloggers jostle each other for the best vantage point inside Cobo Arena.

Suddenly, a command is whispered and the security guards spring into action. They link arms as the doors to the big hall slam shut. “What gives?” a local TV reporter cries out plaintively. “No more room,” grunts a guard, his determined stare making it clear there’ll be no second opinion. The blow-dried anchorman, along with hundreds of other late arrivals, race for the Ford booth, where a big-screen TV has been set up to handle the overflow.

With somewhere north of 8,000 journalists and thousands more PR executives and other hangers-on registered for the 2008 auto show, Detroit’s is one of the most heavily attended media events in the traveling auto show circus. Still, it’s rare when any single product preview has to turn the crowds away. But Ford’s opening news conference is more than just a chance to stare at the latest sheet metal. It also provides an opportunity to check out the new kid on the automaker’s block, the guy it seems like everyone in the industry is talking about — and the man who could help make or break the ailing automaker.

As the last stragglers take their seats and the lights dim, music begins to blare and a stream of pyrotechnics is ignited. Cobo Arena has played host to many a superstar over the years and, in some ways, Jim Farley fits the mold. Sure, he’s wearing a neatly creased and well-tailored suit, but his shaggy mop of hair is tossed and tousled, hanging down over his eyes, which crinkle into a grin as he steps onto the stage. Indeed, his boyish face looks more like that of a rock star than a bespoke-suited executive. But Farley won’t be playing any instrument this afternoon — nor will he be telling jokes, like his oversized cousin, the late comedian Chris Farley. But he will be working the crowd.

Those looking for deep insight might come away a bit disappointed. “It’s hard to imagine a better opportunity,” Farley opines, as the new Flex “people mover” rolls onto the stage, before announcing a new line of more fuel-efficient power trains — “Ford’s populist solution to sustainability.” But if Farley is ready to stick to someone else’s script on-stage, he’s going to follow his own message when he’s talking face-to-face. And it doesn’t take long to realize that what Farley has to say isn’t the sort of happy-speak that has traditionally echoed out of the Glass House, Ford’s monolithic headquarters in Dearborn. 

“It’s one thing to get an opportunity for yourself; it’s another to have an opportunity to make a difference,” says Farley, a day after his public debut as Ford’s newest senior executive. He’s leaning back on a couch in one of the private rooms on the upper level of Ford’s huge auto show stand, watching from above as a Japanese competitor crawls all over the new Flex armed with a tape measure and notepad.

Farley is wearing another executive power suit, but it’s offset by a decidedly retro digital watch. And his long brown hair still has a windblown look. Over the course of a gloomy January morning, Farley touches on a surprisingly wide range of subjects, from his little-known roots in Detroit, to the painful, personal tragedy that nearly scuttled his move back from California — and, of course, his dramatic vision for a company that’s been in the process of bleeding itself dry.

Born in 1962 in Buenos Aires, the son of a senior banking executive, Farley and his family moved quite frequently before college. He settled in comfortably at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., earning a bachelor’s degree, before heading across the country, to UCLA, where he earned an MBA. He was rewarded with a slew of offers; Chevrolet and Ford were among his potential employers. But Farley viewed the automotive world rather apprehensively. It’s not that he doesn’t like cars. Quite the opposite. Jim Farley is a serious gearhead who takes pride in getting his fingernails dirty working on his private collection, which includes a classic ’35 Ford five-window hot rod. If anything, Farley says with a smile, “I was scared about going into the auto business because I thought it would ruin my interest in cars.”
The young grad briefly tried working at the classic car restoration shop in suburban Los Angeles run by legendary American Formula One racing champ Phil Hill. But while it provided an opportunity to work on some of the world’s rarest automotive collectibles, the gig with Hill was more hobby than career, so Farley finally took a job with IBM Corp. It lasted just two years. He might have been worried about the numbing qualities of life as an auto executive, but an offer from Toyota — which, in 1990, was just beginning its explosive rise up the U.S. and global sales charts — was “just too compelling.”
 

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