Ford earned $1.81 billion, or $1.47 a share, two cents higher than analysts' expectations.

With Ford earning record profits, workers are expected to collect over $3,000 each for 1987.

Ford is earning record profits and has $23.6 billion in cash reserves.

Profits were up 64 percent from a year earlier, when Ford earned $686 million, or 56 cents a share.

The Ford 500 earned a 6.2 rating (with 9.9 million viewers), up 38 percent from last year.

For the quarter, Ford earned a record $ 1.56 billion, more than double last year's results of $ 719 million.

But some analysts had expected Ford to earn close to $1.1 billion.

In 1986, Ford earned $3.3 billion, or $6.16 a share.

Ford earned $653 million on sales of $36.26 billion in the latest quarter.

Ford earned $230 million there, up from $105 million a year earlier.