Ford Motor Co. prides itself on being "Built Ford Tough," but is it really better off than its bankruptcy-filing, government-assisted Big Three automaker rivals?

Yes and no.

What sets Ford apart from General Motors and Chrysler is it has been restructuring the company since 2005 through factory closings and 50,000 eliminated jobs, many through buyouts and early retirement offers.

By mortgaging its U.S. assets, Ford was also able to raise $23.6 billion to reorganize, develop new cars and technologies and free itself from some prohibitive costs of doing business. As Ford CEO Alan Mulally told Congress in December 2008, the automaker sold Aston Martin, Jaguar and Land Rover and reduced its investment in Mazda, focusing on its core brands instead.

Mulally pointed to a shifting product line, decreased labor costs, a restructured dealer and supplier network and a new global approach to operations as reasons the company is in better shape.

"It used to be that our approach to our customers was: If you build it, they will come," he said. "We produced more vehicles than our customers wanted and then slashed prices, hurting the residual values of those vehicles and hurting our customers. Now we are aggressively matching production to meet the true customer demand."

Those efforts have allowed the company to have more cash on hand while also having less unsold inventory than its American competitors. It has also allowed it to forego government aid.

"I think if they see Ford as a company trying to pull itself up by its own bootstraps, and making it on its own and pulling the right levers, I think that could be a positive for us," Bill Ford Jr., Ford's executive chairman told The Associated Press last year.

Mixed Blessing?

Ford is doing better than its U.S. competitors, posting just a $1.4 billion loss for the first quarter of 2009, after cumulative losses of $30 billion for the prior three years.

That compares to first-quarter losses of $6 billion for General Motors. In income statement filed in its bankruptcy proceedings, Chrysler said it lost $16.8 billion last year and projected a loss of $4.7 billion this year.

Toyota, which overtook General Motors last year for the title of world's No. 1 car maker in sales volume, lost $6.9 billion between January and March.

Ford and GM have similar debt levels, $26 billion for Ford and $27 billion for GM, notes Paul Ingrassia, a former Dow Jones executive and an author who is writing "Crash Course," a book about the auto industry's crisis.

But there is a big difference that could end up hurting Ford in the long run.

"Ford's debt is secured by its assets," Ingrassia said. "And secured lenders must be repaid -- unless they happen to be Chrysler lenders and get clipped by a company bankruptcy plan that's backed by President Obama."

Now that General Motors has followed Chrysler into bankruptcy, that goes for GM as well.

"So, Ford is like a homeowner who planned prudently and can pay his mortgage, while his spendthrift neighbors get their mortgage reduced by some new federal program," Ingrassia said.

Bailout Stigma

Andrew Grossman, senior legal policy analyst for The Heritage Foundation, in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on May 21, said eschewing government support could actually end up helping Ford out.

While auto executives tried to avoid bankruptcy through the government loans, they said they worried consumers would not purchase cars manufactured by bankrupt companies. Polls have shown that not to be the case, Grossman said.

"As auto sales plummeted, General Motors and Chrysler lost the most, as Ford, the holdout, snatched their market share," Grossman said. "There is a stigma to taking taxpayer dollars that, according to polls, is far worse than any attached to filing for bankruptcy."

Ford has certainly tried to capitalize on that situation.

The automaker recently unveiled pilot programs to give Chrysler customers more money to help pay off their loans so they can instead buy from Ford.

"We're going to be aggressive," Ken Czubay, head of U.S. sales and marketing for Ford, said in a press release last month. "But we're not going to be predatory."

The promotion has seen Ford dealers across the country getting more and more Chrysler and GM trade-ins, Czubay said.

"There are a lot of people out there that don't like the concept that government is running these companies," he said. "They're also disillusioned by the resale value of their products."

Edmunds.com backs that up, saying the number of visitors to its site who shopped for Ford vehicles in the first three months of this year rose 12 percent compared with the same period a year ago.

At the same time, the number of shoppers considering vehicles from General Motors and Chrysler declined 19 percent and 15 percent respectively during the same period.

Changed Marketplace

No matter what happens, it's clear from the bankruptcy filings of Chrysler and General Motors and the overall struggles of American automakers that things will never be the same.

"The once-dominant position of the North American automakers in the global auto market is officially at an end," said Jack R. Nerad, executive editorial director and executive market analyst for Kelley Blue Book. "Over the past three decades, Asian manufacturers have asserted themselves as the auto markets of most nations have become more and more cosmopolitan, with a mix of local and import brands. The only exceptions to that rule are the very few countries where protectionist laws and/or customs have supported indigenous products."

With the strategy put into place at Ford four years ago, the company now feels it's better equipped to compete in that wide-open marketplace.

"We are more balanced. We are more efficient. We are more global. And we are focused," Bill Ford Jr. said. "In short, we are on the right path to becoming a profitable, growing company."