“It’s a nice brand to have, but you certainly couldn’t look at it and say that it’s absolutely essential to the future of Ford,” said Jeremy Anwyl, chief executive of Edmunds.com, a Web site that offers car-buying advice to consumers. “If you could raise $6 billion or $8 billion by selling Volvo, that would probably be a very good thing.”

Private equity companies have been active players for troubled automotive companies, led by Cerberus Capital, which is buying the Chrysler Group. But Volvo, which is not in need of a turnaround, might prove a less lucrative investment for private investors, making it more attractive to a car company instead.

The French automaker Renault tried to merge with Volvo in the 1990s, only to see the deal shot down amid fears that Volvo’s Swedish heritage would be subsumed.

Those fears had abated by the time Ford bought the company, which happened not long after the 1998 deal that created DaimlerChrysler. Ford promised that it would “Let Volvo be Volvo.”

Assuming the complexities of a sale could be sorted out, Volvo could generate welcome cash for Ford, which has been saddled by big losses and sliding sales in its key North American operations.

Ford lost $12.6 billion in 2006 and has fallen to third place in the American market this year, behind Toyota. Overall, its sales are down 11.1 percent in 2007 compared with last year.

Ford does not break out separate figures for Volvo, but analysts estimate that the brand has been earning $800 million to $1 billion for Ford.

Volvo sales have been sliding in the United States; they are down 10.2 percent this year, and fell 5 percent for all of 2006 compared with 2005, according to Autodata.