WHEN David Halberstam set out in the early 1980s to chronicle Nissan and Ford- the number two auto makers, respectively, of Japan and America--the trajectories of the two companies must have seemed to offer a neat contrast. Nissan had risen from the ashes of World War II to become a world-class builder of quality cars. Ford, once the very symbol of American industrial dominance, stood on the brink of financial disaster.