DEARBORN, Mich. -- Bleeding cash and with its very survival uncertain, Ford Motor Co., an icon of American automaking, will try to import some of its success from across the Atlantic.

Ford reported its worst-ever quarterly loss yesterday and announced plans to bring over six small, fuel-efficient cars it makes in Europe and start selling them in North America, where Ford is losing billions on its truck-heavy lineup.

The company burned through nearly $11 billion of its cash stockpile in the past year and reported a second-quarter loss of $8.7 billion.

Including write-downs, Ford lost $3.88 per share in the April-June quarter, compared with net profit of $750 million, or 31 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago.

The second-quarter loss surpassed Ford's previous record quarterly loss, $6.7 billion in the first quarter of 1992.

Ford is trying to save itself by quickly morphing from a truck company into a car company. But the help from Europe won't arrive until 2010: It takes time to retool U.S. plants, and importing the cars directly is too costly.

Industry watchers wonder whether Ford has enough cash to survive until then.

"You have the gap before the plan can be fully executed," said Jeff Schuster, executive director of global forecasting for J.D. Power and Associates. "You kind of have to weather the conditions, and you have to weather the fact that you're still the old company in transition."

Ford has successfully sold cars in Europe for years, and it made billions of dollars selling trucks to Americans. But U.S. drivers have recoiled this year from high gas prices and bolted for smaller cars.

Most of the European models will be built in North America. The Fiesta subcompact will be built in Mexico, the European Focus will be built in Kentucky and Michigan, and the Transit Connect small van will be imported from Turkey.

Ford won't identify the other three. But analysts are betting on the Kuga, a small crossover vehicle, and the C-Max small van, both of built on the same underpinnings as the European Focus.

Ford also could bring its Mondeo midsize car from Europe to replace the Fusion and Mercury Milan.

Past efforts by U.S. automakers to bring in European cars have flopped, but Ford CEO Alan Mulally said the U.S. market is vastly different today. With gas at $4 a gallon, consumers are cleaning showrooms out of small cars.

Ford gave no forecast for a return to black ink, but Chief Financial Officer Don Leclair said Ford had enough cash and credit to make it through the downturn. He said he didn't expect a recovery to start until 2010.

The company has about $38 billion in cash and credit lines, Leclair said, including more than $26 billion in cash. It burned through more than $2 billion in the second quarter alone.

Whether Ford succeeds depends not only on building cars people want to buy, but also figuring out how to increase profit margins on them to replace the lost truck revenue, said Efraim Levy, a senior industry analyst with Standard & Poor's.

That's likely to mean more job cuts. The company has already announced plans to cut its salaried work force expenses by 15 percent, with 200 workers leaving the company as of June 30. This week it announced another round of buyout and early retirement offers at selected factories.

But cuts alone won't be enough. That's why Ford is banking on selling a lot of the European vehicles in addition to domestic models, including a new Taurus due out next year and hybrid versions of the Fusion and Milan this fall.