Standing at his window, the great-grandson of Henry Ford hovers under six feet, has pale hair, full lips and large, watchful green-blue eyes that seem to be slightly off-kilter, like those of a Cubist figure facing two directions at the same time. It's hard to imagine living every day with the contradictions of being green inside a beast that's belching pollution, of being an intellectual in a practical world of engineers and bottom-liners, of being antiestablishment while working at one of the most cautious corporations of all time. But perhaps that is the least of it. Now, as the Firestone tire recall winds down, he also finds himself an idealist in a situation that has invited general cynicism, chairman of a company caught up in its biggest public-relations crisis since the rear-exploding-Pinto debacle of the 1970's.

"I used to wonder if running a large industrial company would really square with my values," Ford says. It's a reasonable question.

ill Ford was characteristically optimistic when he first heard, in May at a board meeting, that there might be "some problems with Firestone tires." It seemed as if it was a Firestone problem, he thought, not an Explorer problem. In mid-July, when he heard a bit more, he again assumed the best -- that Firestone could contain it." What he was hearing wasn't yet alarming, even if it resulted in a recall. "I hate to say it, but recalls are a part of our business," he explains.

The seriousness of the situation became more obvious by the month's end. Ford was planning to attend a Firestone centennial celebration in early August (in a Shakespearean twist to the drama, his mother is the granddaughter of Harvey Firestone), and he mentioned the centennial to the company's chief counsel, John Rintamaki, "in an offhand way," he says. "And this kind of shows you how unaware I was. I mean, I knew it was a big deal but" -- and he stumbles a bit when he says this -- and then John said: 'Oooooooh. You might want to rethink that because I think this thing's about to blow sky-high."'

Clearly, the counsel's office at Ford was aware of incidents of rollovers, because lawsuits had already been settled. Overseas, some models of Firestones had already been replaced. So how did the chairman not know? The white noise at Ford -- a corporation with $163 billion in annual sales -- is an incessant hum of performance reviews, lawsuits, sales figures. It seems that there wasn't a reliable channel for a faint murmur -- a statistically unremarkable pattern but a potentially deadly one -- to rise above the din.

When the recall story broke, on Aug. 8, Ford and Jacques Nasser, the company's C.E.O. and president, decided that Nasser would be the public face of the crisis. Traditionally, the C.E.O. handles daily operations and details while the chairman steers the ship. So it seemed, at least at first, that the recall problem fell within Nasser's purview. Nasser, a short man with dark, receding hair, would explain the recall in TV commercials and testify before Congress. In newsweeklies and on "60 Minutes," he was captured in the "tire room" at headquarters, surrounded by scores of truck engineers and rubber experts, who had taken over eight conference rooms. But Ford was nowhere to be seen.

The relationship between Ford and Nasser is difficult for outsiders to grasp. Their roles are not fixed, but slightly ambiguous. Before assuming their positions in January 1999, they were asked by the board to put their job descriptions into words. They never did. John Casesa, an auto analyst at Merrill Lynch, sums up their roles this way: "Jac Nasser is paid to do the heavy lifting -- and he's expected by investors to deliver. Bill Ford is an active, motivated, influential steward for the shareholders -- not a figurehead."

Opposites attract business: Bill Ford, left, and Jacques Nasser share the reins at Ford Motor. Photograph by Andrew Sachs/Saxpix.com.

Their personal styles could hardly be more different. Nasser is a street-smart Australian and a Ford-company lifer -- his nickname is Jac the Knife because of his reputation for cost-cutting. Ford is the product of almost incomprehensible privilege -- handmade English clothes, grand houses in Grosse Pointe, an education provided by Hotchkiss, Princeton and M.I.T. Nasser began firing deadwood and looking into the purchase of Volvo as soon as he became C.E.O. Ford, meanwhile, was driving a battery-operated Ranger pickup when he became chairman, wore a union button to the office during negotiations with the U.A.W. and was having long soul-searching talks with environmental activists about the end of the internal-combustion engine.

Nasser comforts Old Detroit. Ford is unorthodox and makes the auto industry a little nervous. And yet, by all accounts, together they have made Ford Motor more dynamic. In the 23 months they have been in charge, the company has bought Volvo, Land Rover and a major service operation in Europe, among other businesses. The Ford company's long streak of rising profits continued under their leadership -- and ended only in October after the recall hit.

While Nasser ran the company's operations, Ford was busy passing out olive branches to the company's die-hard critics, and to a large extent his efforts worked. For the last 30 years, consumer groups have considered Ford Motor Company to be among the most secretive, obstructionist, compliance-driven corporations in America. To environmentalists, it was "like Satan," says Matt Arnold of World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank. As a member of the Global Climate Coalition (G.C.C.), a multi-industry group that lobbies against green initiatives, the company dismissed global warming as a lunatic conspiracy -- while making huge profits from larger and larger gas guzzlers. In 1999, the Sierra Club dubbed the nine-seat Excursion "the Ford Valdez."

Even before his new office was ready, Ford was sitting down with environmentalists, asking for advice and making course corrections. The sentiment behind these meetings was real, but Ford also understood the importance of gestures and appearances, how to communicate good intentions. He listens carefully, never sounding defensive. "I don't want you to feel co-opted," he told his former critics. "I want you to remain honest -- and to hold our feet to the fire."

It took him a year to orchestrate the first auto company pullout from the G.C.C., last December, and it sent a loud signal to any remaining naysayers. "It was so huge," Arnold says, "and bought Ford lots of room." The chairman went to Washington, thanked members of the Michigan delegation for supporting the work of G.C.C. for many years, then dropped the bomb. "The climate is changing," Ford said, "and anyone who disagrees is, in my view, still in denial."

Bill Ford's biggest P.R. coup was the unveiling in May of the company's first "citizenship report." Nasser and Ford worked hard on the report, a way for the auto company to address the longtime criticisms of progressively minded fund managers, environmentalists and others who are becoming increasingly important voices in the emerging global economy. In direct language, Ford Motor Company admitted that its popular sport-utility trucks contributed to greenhouse-gas levels and global climate changes and were a safety concern for motorists of smaller cars. The company pledged to create S.U.V.'s that were cleaner and safer -- less of a menace to smaller vehicles on the road.

The first reaction was mixed -- some on Wall Street thought it was bad business; a Car and Driver editor wondered if Bill Ford was a "guilt-ridden rich kid." But those most troubled by the report were the other leaders in the auto industry. It was bad enough to pull out of the G.C.C., but by discussing S.U.V.'s in critical tones, Bill Ford was going too far.

The report had more than the desired effect. It caused a sensation of good press for the company. Never mind that General Motors had very quietly been setting environmental goals for itself for five years and keeping them -- or that its trucks have lower fuel consumption and toxic release than Ford's. "The problem with G.M. is that they've had the performance but no leadership" on environmental matters, says one environmental consultant who works with both companies. "Frankly, Ford doesn't have the performance yet -- but, oh, what a leader. He's way, way out in front of everybody."

Ford's gift for shaping public opinion made his decision to lie low during the Firestone debacle all the more conspicuous. He explains it by saying that the "nitty-gritty of the tire recall" is not his job. As chairman, his role is to "pay attention to the big picture."

But the big picture is precisely what he missed. He seemed to have misjudged the magnitude and gravity of the crisis. It wasn't until well into August that it became apparent to him that his company's reputation was at stake. Firestone began claiming that the design of the Explorer -- its thin roof and tendency to roll over -- was a contributing factor to highway deaths. This warring between the companies resulted in two Congressional investigations and a dangerous public-relations predicament for Ford.

Image, reputation -- that ephemeral thing that causes a person to trust a big company or not, and believe in a product -- is the domain of the chairman. But Bill Ford had a hard time figuring out when to jump in. Nasser was called to testify during the Congressional investigations in early September, and he refused at first -- a move that was inexplicable. A day later, he relented. At one point, Ford considered going in Nasser's place but worried that his appearance might make it look as if Nasser were just "a figurehead," says one adviser. In the end, by staying away, it was Ford who started looking like a figurehead instead: the irrelevant green guy, the happy hood ornament, the man with the name.

or years, Bill Ford avoided thinking about his great-grandfather Henry Ford -- or reading biographies of him. He didn't want to feel overshadowed, intimidated. And his method seemed to work. "I never felt burdened the way I think some of my relatives did," he says, "that they could never possibly live up to this legacy, so why even try?"

His father, his uncle and his grandfather all worked at the family company with varying degrees of success. Bill's grandfather Edsel Ford was the only child of Henry Ford -- and was given the company to run when he was just 26. He was creative enough to come up with the idea for the Lincoln Continental but was unable to step out of his father's shadow, never making the company his own. His father bullied him and criticized him until Edsel died in 1943 of stomach cancer, an illness even his widow, Eleanor Clay Ford, blamed her father-in-law for. His family viewed his life, and death, as tragic. To make matters worse, in 1957 the company named a new car after Edsel -- one that became a worldwide joke.

Old Detroit meets New Age: Nasser, left, focuses on the day-to-day; Ford looks to the future. Photograph by Andrew Sachs/Saxpix.com.

Bill's father, William Clay Ford Sr., was a vice president for styling and design at Ford, for years working under his charismatic and self-indulgent older brother, Henry II. The younger Ford, who split his time between cars and football (in 1964, he bought the Detroit Lions), was regarded as kind, a gentleman, but not a fighter. In 1979, when Henry II retired and didn't hand over the title of chairman to his younger brother -- hiring a professional manager instead -- it was hard to tell whether it even bothered William Sr. "He's never said," Bill says. "He's very private about his feelings -- unlike me. Sometimes I think he wonders what gene pool I'm from."

Given the history, the complications -- and his own spiritual and environmental bent -- Bill Ford wasn't sure he wanted to go into the car business after graduating from Princeton in 1979. He thought about teaching or running a foundation -- his personal fortune in Ford stock was estimated at $185 million at the end of 1999, bringing him millions a year in dividends alone /- but he was pulled back to Motown instead. The place was in sad shape. His father had just been passed over for chairman. "I guess I always felt I owed everything I had to the Ford Motor Company," Ford says, "so I wanted to help."

He had a litany of jobs -- 17 at Ford in two decades. He was serious, hard-working, conscientious. In an early job, he called himself William Clay to avoid undo attention. When he was given an assignment in truck engineering, he went to driving school to learn to handle 18-wheelers. He left briefly in the mid-80's to earn a management degree at M.I.T. and married Lisa Vanderzee, whom he had met at Princeton.

He had been fascinated with Buddhism and Eastern philosophy since his early 20's, but one of his oldest friends, Mark Higbie, remembers that his conversations with Ford began to change when they entered their 30's. Their discussions were "deeper and more analytical and introspective," he says. Ford was interested in religion, philosophy, psychology -- and he had started reading up on Henry Ford too, a vegetarian who, as it happens, consulted Eastern mystics. "Bill seemed to be deconstructing his upbringing, and replacing it with a worldview very much his own," Higbie says.

His interest in environmentalism was growing, but his early attempts to introduce recycling and other environmental measures at Ford were met with derision: "I was so low on the totem pole. I don't think anybody cared." Once he climbed a bit higher, he was no longer just flaky or a wealthy meddler; he was threatening. In 1988, at a board meeting, he was told "point-blank," he says, to stop interacting with environmentalists completely. He complied.

The Explorer was in development then. Oddly enough, Bill Ford liked the idea of the S.U.V. -- it suited the outdoorsy life he was always wishing he had more of. And the contradictions inherent in the popularity of the Explorer -- a gas guzzler for people who love the outdoors -- embody Ford's own. On one hand, he loves nature. On the other, he feels great loyalty to the family legacy -- and is passionate about continuing it. By 1997, sales from Explorers and Expeditions -- even larger S.U.V's. -- were responsible for half the company's profits.

Historically, there has been friction between Ford management and the Ford family (which controls 40 percent of the voting stock, worth almost $2 billion). When Bill Ford was elected to the board in 1988, and gained allies among board and family members, the tension got only worse. "It was tough over the years," Ford says. "Very much so. I talked to my friends and family a lot -- What am I doing here?"

His ascendency was never a sure thing. Many Fords had come through the company over the years and not wound up chairman. But by the late 80's, Ford had begun to prove himself dependable, efficient and impatient. He was manager of heavy-truck manufacturing, then director of business strategy. In the 1990's, he ran the climate-control division, then was promoted to vice president for commercial trucks. As treasurer, and then vice-chairman, of the Detroit Lions, he was a successful negotiator, luring coaches and players and working successfully to pass a new stadium referendum. In 1995, he left the management side of Ford to run the board's finance committee.

There are 13 Fords in the fourth generation, and they hold biannual meetings to discuss family holdings and find ways to vote their supervoting shares in lock step. (Each share of the family's Class B stock has 17 times as much voting power as a publicly traded one.) In the late 90's, as the retirement of the C.E.O. and chairman, Alexander Trotman, approached, the Fords began plotting. They wanted a family member, if possible, to head the company. "We talked about it in family meetings," says Charlotte Ford, who, at 59, is the oldest of the 13. "Billy never said he wanted the job -- but he never said he didn't either."

By the end of 1995, it was clear that a candidate had emerged. "He had the education, the intelligence, the family loyalty," Charlotte says. "Oh, absolutely, we pushed him to take the position. We wanted him to be chairman."

But Trotman wasn't thrilled. As his days waned, he tried to name his own successor, and failed. Finally, in October 1998, when it was announced that the leadership position at Ford would be shared by two men -- Nasser and Ford -- Trotman, according to reports of the meeting, snarled his congratulations across the board room. "So, Prince William," he said, "now you have your monarchy."

he rouge plant is Prince William's new industrial cathedral. It will have a 12-acre roof of native grasses where birds will nest. There will be skylights and windows. Music will play in factory workrooms. The architect of the project, which is expected to take 20 years to complete, is the ecovisionary William McDonough, who promises that the new factory complex will be "the icon of the 21st-century industrial revolution." And beside it, the Rouge River will be clean for the first time in 80 years -- using natural plant life. The Rouge is just the beginning, Ford likes to say. Hybrid cars are coming, fuel cells, electric bicycles. Volvo even has a new car that cleans the air while it drives. McDonough and a partner, Michael Braungart, a chemist, are working on compostable upholstery fabrics and carpets, new polyesters, new paints. Together, Ford and McDonough have met with more than 500 suppliers to discuss how cars might be made in the future -- so all parts could be disassembled and easily reused. "His great-grandfather gave us the assembly line," McDonough says, a little breathlessly, "and Bill Ford is going to give us the disassembly line."

McDonough and Ford talk about other ideas too -- about how a car could be a "product of service," not necessarily something to own. Rather than sell vehicles, Ford might rent them out by the hour, or the mile, and provide servicing, insurance, even the fuel. "We're not in the car business, or the truck business," he says. "We're committed to the personal-mobility business."

But meanwhile back in the imperfect present, there is a very large tire problem to solve. Reviews on how Ford Motor has dealt with the recall are mixed. The company seems to have handled the logistics well, but its public relations have suffered. Some recent opinion polls show that consumers blame Ford Motor Company for accidents and deaths almost as much as they blame Firestone. Sales of Explorers were down 16 percent in October -- a drop due in part to a shortage of vehicles (production was halted for three weeks in September), but also no doubt due to continuing concern in the public's mind about the Explorer's safety. While government tests of S.U.V.'s show them to have a lower fatality rate overall than passenger cars -- and the Explorer to have a significantly better safety record than other compact S.U.V.'s -- the vehicles have clear weaknesses. The most galling part to consumer groups is that some of them would have been easy to fix. "It's totally outrageous to put a roof that crushes easily on a vehicle with a tendency to roll over," says Joan Claybrook, the president of the consumer group Public Citizen. "And it's barbaric."

If the company can weather this crisis, time is on Bill Ford's side. Trends in car-buying are slow trends, and manufacturers can generally see them coming way out on the horizon. The Firestone recall is expected to be over by the end of the year, and Bill Ford probably has months to recoup a sense of public trust. One thing that should help him is his improbable group of new friends.

"I hate to green-wash the tire tragedies, but Ford Motor Company, until recently, was the textbook case of a closed, shut, secretive place -- always securing its own narrow interests," says Bob Massie of the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies. "But Bill Ford arrived, and a whole new attitude began radiating from that company."

Even Claybrook, one of the leading critics in the Firestone-Ford investigation, sees the tire recall and the rollover rate of the Ford Explorer as a legacy of the company's previous management -- and culture. "Bill Ford has a very different mind-set, much more in tune with mine," she says. "He cares about public policy as much as he cares about pennies. And since he owns a great deal of the company, he'll have more sway and power -- more ability to move and change it."

In the long run -- or in "the long view," as a Buddhist would say -- sometimes a bad thing is the best thing of all. The Firestone recall might help Ford accomplish his radical goals a little quicker. "Whether it's synchronicity or karma or whatever you call it," he says, "there's an interesting confluence of events now, where the very things I believe strongly in, and have felt my entire life, are now issues that the corporate world is running into headlong -- so there's an urgency."