Toyota Motor Corp. and Ford Motor Co. are sending more signals that they may want to establish deeper ties.
But the cautious courtship between the two auto giants suggests a more modest, and less painful, approach than the megamergers of the late 1990s or the three-way alliance proposed last year among General Motors Corp., Nissan Motor Co. and Renault SA.
Speculation that Toyota and Ford might be edging toward some form of alliance has heated up since a meeting in mid-December between Ford Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally and Toyota Chairman Fujio Cho. Both companies scrambled to play down the significance of that encounter, describing the meeting as a mere "courtesy." They stressed the talks produced no specific deals.
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