Higher resale value of Ford cars, which has increased by about $3,000 over the prior year, will take center stage in the automaker’s summer marketing campaign.

This comes after the American carmaker received the largest increase in quality score in a recent survey conducted by the Automotive Lease Guide, which measures the perception of quality in car brands as a way of determining resale value.

“We have made huge strides in vehicle quality in recent years but customer perceptions don’t change overnight – so it is gratifying to see our real-world improvements begin to fully register with consumers,” Jim Farley, Ford’s group vice president of global marketing, said in a news release.

Ford showed a 7.6 percent improvement on the Spring 2010 results compared with Fall 2009 in ALG’s annual Perceived Quality Score survey, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

The news provider added that while Ford posted the biggest gain, it ranked third in overall quality score at 70.5 percent from front runners Honda Motor, which scored 83.2 percent and Nissan Motor, which received 70.6 percent.