A year ago, Alan Mulally drove a Lexus and was into his 37th year with the Boeing Co. At the same time, Ford Motor Co. hired a racing legend, Carroll Shelby, to unveil a Hertz rental car at the New York International Auto Show.

Early yesterday, Mr. Mulally walked into the Javits Convention Center as Ford’s new chief executive officer and attempted to portray the company’s — and the American automotive industry’s — current slump as positively as he could. “If you want to be in the auto business, there’s no better time to be at Ford,” he said.

For this year’s show, Ford is putting its best foot forward: Instead of a Hertz vehicle, it is unveiling sexy sports cars and environmentally friendly hybrid fuel vehicles. (The venerable Mr. Shelby was on hand again, but this time for the debut of the Mustang GT 500R muscle car.) Mr. Mulally acknowledged that pickup trucks and large sport-utility vehicles, long the company’s bread and butter, no longer dominate Ford’s product lineup.

Mr. Mulally has slashed onethird of Ford’s salaried workforce, but as his crosstown rival, Chrysler, was placed on the auction block yesterday and the United Auto Workers union continues to flex its muscle, the question coming out of Javits this week is if Ford is doing too little, too late.

He refused to comment on Daimler’s decision to sell its Chrysler Group and the possibility that Chrysler will be carved up by value-hungry private equity concerns. Instead, he outlined an aggressive plan to turn Ford around and assured crowds at the auto show that despite his long relationship with the aerospace industry, he’s a “car guy.”

Mr. Mulally’s success at Boeing was predicated on his ability to renegotiate union contracts. “I couldn’t be more pleased with the thoughtful conversations we’re having with the UAW,” he said. “It’s up to all of us to make Ford more competitive.”

He was also instrumental in instituting many of Toyota’s just-in-time manufacturing methods at Boeing. “I’m in awe of Toyota,” Mr. Mulally said. “If you’re in manufacturing, you should be.”

The first leg of Mr. Mulally’s four-part plan to save Ford is a thorough restructuring. With fuel prices continuing to rise, Ford is betting its future on small- to midsize cars, which is where the overwhelming market demand currently rests, he said.

Ford is also accelerating the turnover of its product lineup. By next year, 70% of Ford vehicles will be new models, according to Mr. Mulally. To that end, he is working on solidifying relations with the company’s top dealerships, as well as its international divisions. “We need to be leveraging our assets all over the world. That means consolidating and streamlining the supply chain,” he said.

It also means making friends with high-volume Ford dealers as the company moves inventory. Mr. Mulally last week visited President Bush at the White House, but he also traveled to Southern California to pay homage to the owner of the largest Ford dealer in America, Bert Boeckmann of Galpin Ford. “I urge everyone to visit Galpin — the number of Ford products they sell is phenomenal,” he said.

Mr. Mulally has kept a high profile during his first months at Ford, even agreeing to travel to Wall Street to make presentations in front of crowds of skeptical investment bankers. “When I asked why I should be the one doing the presentation, I was told that I was the only new thing Ford has,” Mr. Mulally said.