On Thursday, October 30, the Ford Motor company optimistically introduced the newest version of its best-selling F-150 pickup and announced that a thousand workers, previously laid off, would be called back to build more of the vehicles.

William Clay Ford, Jr., executive chairman of the company, told a crowd of 1,200 hourly workers at the Ford River Rouge assembly complex, "You're going to pull us out of this by building the best truck that's ever been built."

Unlike rivals General Motors and Chrysler, currently in merger talks and seeking aid from Washington, Ford staunchly maintains it can survive solo and actually rejected overtures from GM for a merger in August.

In the coming year, 40 percent of Ford's production will be replaced with fresh models in a bid to counter the alarming downturn in its sales that have already posted a 17.2 percent decline for 2008.

For the first six months of the year, Ford recorded a loss of $8.6 billion and will undoubtedly report another significant quarterly dip when figures are disclosed next week.

Although the company is moving forward with replacement of its SUV offerings with smaller, more fuel efficient models, it is still depending on renewed interest in the F-150, a venerable product that has, for the first time in decades, seen a 27 percent sales drop this year.