Generally encouraging news from Detroit last week has raised hopes that American automakers and the larger U.S. economy are on the mend and showing signs of life.

The biggest headlines were from Ford, announcing a $1 billion profit for the third quarter. As the only U.S. automaker to not take bailout money from the federal government, Ford has had an extra measure of goodwill from most consumers, though each of the Big Three has its supporters.

Ford began to work through a corporate turnaround even before the U.S. economy tanked, taking the car and truck markets with it. Ford brought in former Boeing executive Alan Mulally to be the new CEO three years ago, and Mulally started making dramatic changes soon after arriving that helped Ford weather the economic storms that nearly sank GM and Chrysler.

Ford began building up cash well before the sales slump materialized. It also sold marginal brands such as Jaguar and Land Rover and has been shopping Volvo, to concentrate on Ford's core car and truck models. Partly as a result of Mulally's new focus, several Ford models are being rated by Consumer Reports as being equal to, or even better than, respected Japanese models from Toyota, Honda and Lexus.

The company acknowledged that the Cash for Clunkers program helped boost sales, which managed to grow the company's market share by a little more than one percentage point.

Ford appears to be well on its way to a turnaround, while GM and Chrysler not as far along on their journeys down that difficult road.

But Ford still faces challenges. Apparently because it is doing better than its Detroit counterparts, Ford is facing a less-flexible United Auto Workers union. And lack of cooperation from the UAW could derail Ford's comeback, or at least weaken it.

Still, Ford's latest progress report is encouraging. According to the Detroit News, the strong financial news Ford reported for the third quarter is the first operating profit for North American operations of a U.S. automaker since 2005.

There was additional positive news from Detroit in Wednesday's announcement by Sergio Marchionne, the CEO of Fiat, who has been credited with turning around that once-troubled automaker and now is engineering a rehabilitation of Chrysler. Marchionne, who plans to closely integrate Chrysler and Fiat while also bringing some Fiat technologies and models to the U.S. market, says his goal is to double global sales in the next five years and to pay back the federal bailout money by 2014.

Fiat's remarkable turnaround in Europe gives Marchionne credibility, and the Italian company plans to have Fiat platforms in nearly half of Chrysler cars by 2014. The company also plans to introduce its well-respected engine technologies and manufacturing quality-control systems throughout the Chrysler organization.

And at GM last week, the company said improving market conditions in Europe were causing it to reverse its earlier plan to sell the Opel division. GM also reported that October sales were up 4 percent over last October's figures.

Amid the reports from Detroit's Big Three, Toyota announced its first quarterly profit in a year.

The generally good news out of Detroit still is tentative, with full recovery in the domestic auto market still months, or even years, away. But upbeat reports from the hard-hit manufacturing sector are nevertheless welcome.

Earlier stories about some big banks on Wall Street posting record profits — and returning to paying prerecession bonuses — produced widespread criticism.

Washington's bailout of GM and Chrysler was generally accepted, if not universally praised. But the bailout of Wall Street banks whose risky bets turned sour, but were deemed too big to fail, was met with disgust almost everywhere.

After all, most Americans still hold in much higher regard those who actually make a product than those who concoct complicated financial deals, sell repacked mortgages on Wall Street or buy, then flip, companies for a quick buck.