Ford, Firestone Chiefs to Testify

The next round in the brawl between Ford Motor Co. and Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. takes place in Congress on Tuesday.

Chief executives of both companies, Ford’s Jacques Nasser and Firestone’s John Lampe, will testify to a House subcommittee, as will Robert Shelton, acting administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and other Transportation Department officials.

Nasser and Lampe are not expected to appear together, undercutting the Capitol Hill theater. But most agree the stakes are high enough, and placing the warring corporate chiefs under oath will in itself be dramatic.

The tire saga has spawned hundreds of lawsuits, including a $1-billion claim against Firestone to be announced today. That case stems from the deaths of a Florida couple in a May 2000 crash that also injured three family members riding in a Ford Explorer sport-utility vehicle.

In Congress, the one-day hearing will focus primarily on Ford’s plan to replace as many as 13 million Firestone Wilderness AT tires on all its vehicles at a cost of $3 billion.