MIKE RUTHERFORD

I HOPE and pray that the Ford Motor Company knows what it's doing. But, increasingly, I fear for it, its future and its paying customers.

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My concerns began in the 2010s when a bloke called Jim Hackett got a job at the firm's world HQ. After a lifetime in the detergent and furniture industries, he was in his sixties and shopping for a pipe and slippers prior to imminent retirement. But the Ford offer came along, and he fancied the idea of entering the automotive business he knew next to nothing about, so he took the gig as his last hurrah.

Trouble was, in 2017 he was somehow given the job (and multi-million-dollar annual salary package) of CEO of the entire Ford empire. His lack of industry knowledge was obvious. He was one of those here-today, gone-tomorrow types who spent only a small part of his working life in the car business. Yet he had a profound impact on it.