Read Ford's business plan in full

Alan Mulally and Rick Wagoner, the chief executives of Ford and General Motors, have both offered to work for $1 a year and sell their corporate jets in return for the car makers to be bailed out by the American taxpayer.

As the auto manufacturers sought to persuade Capitol Hill to offer them a $25 billion bridging loan, Mr Mulally and Mr Wagoner both said that they would abandon flying to Washington in separate private jets and instead, drive the 500 mile journey when they face lawmakers on Thursday.

Ford, General Motors and Chrysler were all due to submit detailed business plans today to Congress to convince Washington that the American taxpayer would not be throwing good money after bad. Lawmakers are loath to bailout effectively bust companies and want to make sure that any federal aid is paid back to the taxpayer, with interest.

While Mr Mulally boasted that Ford was in better shape than General Motors and Chrysler, he said that he still needed a $9 billion ten-year federal loan to act as a cash cushion in case market conditions deteriorated.

Even though he sought to extract the state money with forecasts that Ford would be profitable by 2011, in the small print in its 33 page document, Mr Mulally warned that such a break-even target may not be feasible if one of a series of events happened. Those events include another US car company going bust, sales of large sports utility vehicles (SUVs) continuing to decline, resistance from the car unions to redundancies and benefit changes, or America's credit crisis deteriorating. Experts believe all of such scenarios to be likely.

In its business plan, Ford said it was trying to cut operating costs, consider breaking itself up, and investing in fuel-efficient cars.

It said it was in talks with the United Auto Workers union to try and cut costs, reduce the number of dealers and suppliers it uses, cancel all bonuses paid to management across the world in 2009 and to all employees in the US next year. Mr Mulally took $21 million in pay last year.

In the statement, Mr Mulally said that it does not anticipate a liquidity crisis in 2009 "barring a bankruptcy by one of its domestic competitors or a more severe economic downturn that would further cripple automotive sales and create additional cash challenges".

He added: "For Ford, government loans would serve as a critical backstop or safeguard against worsening conditions."

While Wall Street awaited the publication of General Motors and Chrysler business plans, the UAW union said that it had summoned representatives from across the US to a meeting tomorrow in Detroit to discuss how they might agree to concessions that may help the automakers secure federal aid. The union is scared that if one of the Big Three car makers files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection it will threaten a substantial chunk of the three million jobs that the US motor industry provides across the country.

Among the subjects to be discussed at tomorrow's meeting will be the possibility of restructuring the union-administered health care fund so that the auto makers can delay payments to the multibillion-dollar fund. The union leaders will also discuss scrapping the jobs bank, in which laid-off workers keep receiving most of their pay.

General Motors, in its submission to Congress, is expected to outline efforts to negotiate swapping some of the company's debt for equity stakes in the automaker, either shares or warrants for them. With eight separate brands, GM will also discuss efforts to shed brands but will stress that it would prefer to sell them instead of shutting down Pontiac, Saturn or Saab. Chrysler is also expected to outline changes that would include a swap of debt in the company for equity stakes and reductions in some vehicle models.

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