I’m not a big fan of segregation.  Obviously, US car culture splits into distinct niches: hot rodders, low-riders, urban gangstas, tuners, etc.  Equally obvious, these niches attract adherents from specific ethnic groups.  But just as communities throughout my home state meet down at the markets as they root around for fresh ingredients for their ethnic cuisine, there is an element of respect and inter-mingling between these petrol-powered fraternities.  Anyway, I don’t get the male – female automotive divide.  I seriously doubt that there’s a female automotive perspective– even when it comes to child safety and minivanning.  So when I saw a press release about a new female-oriented automotive website, I decided to do what it said on the tin: ask Patty.  Turns out “Patty” is a male invention and the company producing the website makes its money sensitizing dealers to “women’s needs.”  I quizzed Jody Devere, President of www.askpatty.com, about the statistical justification for the segregation.        

“Small is Beautiful” was released immediately after the ’73 energy crisis.  German economist E. F. Schumaker’s collection of essays tapped into the prevailing gestalt: a growing fear that the institutions that defined capitalism’s success had become economically and environmentally unsustainable.  Contrary to popular belief (i.e. the people who used the book’s title as a mantra without reading it), Schumaker wasn’t predicting or recommending the end of big business.  He simply believed that large organizations work best as small, independent groups acting in harmony.  Someone ought to tell Dieter Zetsche.

"We are convinced that DaimlerChrysler provides [Chrysler with] more resources [and] know-how [than its competitors] in many areas," DCX' CEO pronounced at yesterday’s US launch of the German-engineered Smart two-seater. In case you missed the point of Dieter’s diatribe, the carmaker is launching an advertising campaign tomorrow that touts the fact that Chrysler products benefit from German – American cross-pollination.  In short, a Chrysler is a better car than a Ford or GM vehicle because it’s got Mercedes DNA.

There are some obvious problems with this strategy.  Mercedes’ reputation for bullet-proof build quality is long gone, squandered in the relentless pursuit of growth and cost-paring profit.  (Proclaiming that a Chrysler is built like a Merc will cause many a previous gen S-Class owner to smirk uncontrollably.)  Toyota, Lexus, Honda and Hyundai have a far more credible and accessible claim to mechanical reliability than the three-pointed star.  Besides, the American public considers Mercedes a luxury brand (even if it doesn’t boast Lexian quality).  DCX’ new campaign risks an association that whispers to its target demographic “Hey Mac, wanna buy a cheap Mercedes?”

Best case: advertising a garden-variety Chrysler as a Mercedes-under-the-skin raises the “domestic” brand above Ford and GM’s growing pile-‘em-high-and-sell-‘em-cheap reputation.  But the ad campaign also threatens to trigger a worst case scenario.  Connecting a luxury brand with a mass market manufacturer (not that Mercedes isn’t a mass market manufacturer, but we’re talking about perceptions here) may alienate Mercedes’ US customers.  Cadillac almost died for the sin of dragging the brand down market, and they didn’t even advertise the fact that their cars shared greasy bits with their less mechanically gifted GM counterparts. Psst.  Hey Buddy, want to buy an expensive Chrysler?

Of course, the line between uplift and collateral damage could well depend on the ad agency’s execution.  Apparently, Dieter will be a figure of fun, which is both surreal (fun Germans?) and appropriate.  After all, this is the same foreign-owned automaker whose outspoken PR Supremo has repeatedly and pointedly blasted Toyota for daring to suggest it was an American company.  And the campaign began when a Birmingham barber asked Herr Zetsche what Mercedes had to do with Chrysler (“Ve ate them.”). But even if DCX’ German – American shtick works, the campaign reveals a fundamental flaw in Zetsche’s business strategy, and the strategy of all his competitors: synergy.

In case you forgot, synergy is the concept that replaced Small is Beautiful, once the oil supply (and public anxiety) eased.  Synergy says it’s OK to be big, as long as the “whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”  Supposedly, synergy creates “economies of scale” that makes huge business conglomerations more efficient.  Modern car companies?  Efficient?  Anyone who’s dealt with one on any level ever may beg to differ.  In fact, Schumacher had a thing to say about that back when jeans had bells: "The most striking thing about modern industry is that it requires so much and accomplishes so little.  Modern industry seems to be inefficient to a degree that surpasses one's ordinary powers of imagination.  Its inefficiency therefore remains unnoticed."

In all the talk about domestic automakers’ market share, union contracts, legacy costs, production capacity, rebates, incentives and product quality, no one seems to be interested in the fact that American[ish] car companies could well be the most inefficient enterprises on planet Earth.  I’ve received dozens of emails from people inside The Big Three describing their employers’ Kafka-esque bureacracy.  The reason these companies can’t stay on top of market niches, or update their existing vehicles to fend-off the competition, or maintain brand differentiation, isn’t money or will.  It’s sheer size. And the fact that their corporate cultures are entirely antithetical to genuine decentralization.

Schumaker’s central precept was easily understood: quality above quantity.  Growth isn’t everything.  Perhaps it’s too much to expect a huge company owned by shareholders to sacrifice the prospect of every-increasing earnings on the altar of personal fulfillment and environmental responsibility.  But Schumaker was right about the dangers of excessive size and centralization.  Meanwhile, DaimlerChrysler, GM and Ford are busy talking-up international platform sharing.  And Porsche, the quintessential “small is beautiful” sports car company, is trying to take control of Volkswagen.  Sometimes, the more painful the lesson, the more important it is.  

Once upon a time there was an automobile company that was so big that it looked like it was about to drive all the other car companies out of business.  This behemoth made every kind of car, from sports cars to limos, and every kind of truck, from the smallest to the largest. They made almost all of the busses that took people to work, and most of the locomotives that pulled trains across the county. Their diesel engines powered most of the construction equipment, ran the pumps that pulled oil out of the ground and moved ships on the seas.  There was only one cloud on the horizon: they were too successful. 

That company was General Motors.  The times were the turbulent ‘60’s.  John F. Kennedy was the President of the United States, and he was determined to knock GM down a peg.  JFK had the tools, in the form of anti-trust laws and an activist justice department.  Their goal: destroy GM’s supposed monopoly by removing Chevrolet from its corporate parent.  An epic fight began, that continued for an entire decade.  Eventually, the federal government became preoccupied with war, inflation and civil unrest, and withdrew their actions against GM.  But what if…

The Kennedy administration had split Chevrolet from GM.  At the time, Chevy accounted for roughly 35% of all US automobile sales.  If the Justice Department had been able to detach the bow tie boys from The General, the resulting, newly-independent automaker would have been the largest car company in the world, about as big as Ford and Chrysler combined.  America would have been left with four highly competitive automobile manufacturers: Chevrolet, GM, Ford and Chrysler.   

No question, Chevy could have gone it alone.  The brand had their own engineering staff and a number of unique platforms (e.g. the Corvair, Chevy II and Corvette).  Although Chevrolet’s hugely successful BelAir and Impala line shared Fisher Body underpinnings with other GM products, the issue could have been easily resolved.  GM had a long history of selling components to other carmakers; Chevy could have simply bought its bodies from Fisher.  Other centralized functions, such as marketing and purchasing, would have presented more of a logistical challenge, but nothing insurmountable.

Imagine a Chevrolet brand focused on building low-cost cars and pickup trucks, with a world-class sports car for a halo vehicle.  Freed from the obligation to tailor their cars to corporate platform sharing, Chevrolet’s lineup could have been distinctive, focused and original.  Family cars like the BelAir and Impala would have evolved without GM’s baggage, emerging from the 60’s ready to fend-off Toyota and Honda in the low-end sedan market.  Chevy could have responded to the deluge of quality imports with quality domestics. 

With a corporate focus on product rather than interdepartmental politics and intrigue, Chevy would have never wasted billions on Saturn.  It wouldn’t have had to sell cars of dubious international parentage, or rebadged someone else’s idea of a brand appropriate product.  Meanwhile, bereft of Chevrolet, GM might also have become a much healthier, more nimble and innovative company. For one thing, Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick would have been forced to survive on their own, instead of coasting on Chevrolet’s profits and parts.

Since each GM division already had their own engineering staff, Pontiac would have been able to develop its performance excitement at a higher price point than Chevrolet.  (The Firebird, when it appeared, would not have been a Camaro clone, but a distinct and distinctive car.)  Oldsmobile could have built on its track record of innovative engineering established by the Toronado, America’s first practical front-wheel drive car.  Buick might have used the same clever platform sharing that let them build a rear-wheel drive Riviera from the front-wheel drive Toronado to build solid luxury cars at relatively affordable prices.

GMC would be free to develop heavy trucks, rather than people’s pickups and utilitarian SUV’s.  And Cadillac, the “Standard of the World,” could have used the profits from Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick to remain a world-class luxury car, unsullied by the Chevrolet parts mentality.  A properly-regarded, properly funded Cadillac would never have embarrassed itself with affordable front-wheel drive trash.  The brand could have stayed on the high-road and built vehicles capable of competing with Mercedes, BMW and Audi– and generated profits from, dare I say it, international sales.

Of course, who’s to say a Chevy-less GM wouldn’t have screwed-up their business just as badly as today’s GM.  Or that a GM-less Chevy could have responded to the Japanese invasion with something better than the Vega.  Even so, we now have a General Motors that’s significantly smaller than JFK’s trust-busters would have dared propose, just inches away from bankruptcy.  Once that goes down, the smart money is on GM selling off or dumping everything except… Chevrolet, GMC and Cadillac.  What goes around, comes around.  

For decades, Consumer Reports has been the American automobile buyer’s primary source for vehicle reliability information.  Tens of millions of highly-educated, independent-minded people have made their car purchase based on a brace of red dots.  While I don’t care for the dots– they’re a blunt instrument that can hide as much information as they convey– I’ve always assumed that Consumer Reports’ (CR) underlying data was solid.  And then I took their survey…

Of the survey’s 19 questions, only one collects the data that's ultimately responsible for Consumer Reports' final, all-important reliability dots: question number 13. 

“If you had any problems with your car in the last year (April 1, 2005 through March 31, 2006) that you considered SERIOUS because of cost, failure, safety or downtime, click the appropriate box(es) for each car.  INCLUDE problems covered by warranty.  DO NOT INCLUDE 1) problems resulting from accident damage; or 2) replacement of normal maintenance items (brake pads, batteries, mufflers) unless they were replaced much sooner or more often than expected.”

CR’s form then lists the car’s major systems, with a simple checkbox next to each.  That means that multiple problems with a single system, such as ongoing hassles with a car’s electrics, count once.  Equally troubling, respondents are supposed to remember a car problem that may have occurred over a year ago.  They also need to remember whether incidents near the cutoff happened in March or April.  Respondents that err on the safe side and report problems that might have happened within the timeframe, and do this year after year, are likely to report some problems twice. 

There's an even more profound methodological iceberg dead ahead.  CR’s dots signal “SERIOUS” problems [note the caps], yet never defines the term. I’ve always wondered how CR staffers decided whether a problem is “serious” enough to include in their survey.  They don’t.  CR’s question 13 requires that individual respondents make the call, based on “cost, failure, safety or downtime,” or other entirely subjective criteria.

This is a buck that should not be passed. Anyone with a significant other knows that two people hardly ever agree on what constitutes a “serious” problem.  As CR does not provides clear guidelines as to which problems qualify as SERIOUS and which do not, the resulting data is not reliable.  Would it be so hard for CR to provide a definition of that includes a dollar amount or the number of days out of service? Apparently so.

Without unambiguous guidelines, extraneous influences intrude.  First, there’s the respondent’s general opinion of the car.  Things gone right can ameliorate things gone wrong.  Why else would some people keeping buying those pricey “black dot” jobs?  Second, the reliability of cars past shapes consumers’ expectations.  If the participant’s previous car lost a transmission, then a bad alternator may not seem so SERIOUS.  Unless the current car is the same brand, and the participant is starting to feel twice fooled.  Then a burned-out turn signal may seem SERIOUS.  And third, if the dealer was smart enough to play nice, maybe kicking in a free loaner, then a SERIOUS problem will seem less severe.  

Finally, we come to the part of the question which cautions that replacement of “normal maintenance items” shouldn’t be reported “unless they were replaced much sooner or more often than expected.”  This instruction lumps maintenance and repair items together, with no way for CR’s analysts to separate the data later (should they be so ambitious).  And, once again, the respondent must define terms, deciding what items count as “normal” and assess the gap between their expectations and reality (usually called irony).  

If CR is going to include wear items, it should specify how long they should last.  But how long should brake pads last?  Expectations are going to vary.  A lot.   Brake pad life is heavily affected by driving style, driving conditions, a tire shop’s financial goals and other factors that have nothing to do with reliability.  And batteries?  How many times were the lights left on?  How much crud has been allowed to build up around the terminals?  Asking average car owners to gauge their vehicle’s parts wear against an entirely subjective ideal does not a scientific study make.  If they really want to know about brake pads and batteries, they should at least ask about them separately, to keep the nasty things from contaminating the entire data set. And provide some guidelines.

I’m no triskaidekaphobic.  But Consumer Reports’ question 13 does nothing to instill confidence in their reliability ratings, and much to cast doubt on their value. Respondents and readers need a more scientific and, ultimately, more useful guide to automotive reliability.  Until CR’s survey undergoes a major overhaul, readers will be misled and manufacturers won’t have the valuable feedback they need to make genuine improvements.

[Michael Karesh operates www.truedelta.com , a vehicle reliability and price comparison site.] 

In my last post, we examined your basic alpha nature, your need to dominate other people.  Did you read the comments after the post?  Wow.  Not very happy are they?  No surprise there.  As you know, most people think car salesmen are the scum of the earth: cheating, lying, arrogant, ignorant, over-aggressive sumbitches with their own circle in Hell (where they try to sell each other five-year warrantees for all eternity).  Are consumers wrong to hate you so?  Nope.  But don’t worry about that.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with your innate desire for interpersonal dominance.  It’s what you do with it that matters.

Remember media mogul Ted Turner’s desk sign: lead, follow or get out of the way?  It’s more than a warning; it’s every possible human interaction defined on 12” of brass.  When two or more people meet, those are the options.  The TTAC’ers who described their horrific experiences with car salesmen are, in the main, alphas (smart, car-savvy ones to boot).  They walked because they weren’t willing to follow your lead.  That’s alpha to alpha conflict for you; it almost always ends in tears.  More importantly, the end result was exactly the same as if these car-buying alphas were brochure-grabbing submissives: they “got out of the way.”  The followers?  They bought a car.

This is your job as a car salesman: turn as many customers as possible into followers.  And to do that, you’ve got to be a leader.  Not a bully.  A leader.  

Before I explain the difference between the two, I want to counter a concept that’s been infecting car sales for some time: rapport.  According to the trainers spreading this bone-headed pseudo-science (called Neuro-Linguistic Programming or NLP), rapport is the “quality of harmony, recognition and mutual acceptance that exists between people when they are at ease with one another and where communication is occurring easily.”  They’ve got lots of tricks to help you: matching, mirroring, modeling, pacing, etc. Bottom line?  They think you should be the customer’s friend.

Have you ever heard the expression “never sell to a friend?”  Well, exactly.  There’s no better way to ruin a friendship than to sell your friend a car.  As soon as something goes wrong, the friendship is toast.  As you know, a car is usually a customer’s second largest (i.e. most expensive) purchase.  As you may recall, your non-alpha car buyers are profoundly risk-aversive.  They don’t want a friend that can schmooze about baseball or house prices or restaurants.  They want someone they can trust to help them buy– or not buy– a car.   Confused?  Think of it this way: would you rather hitch a ride in an airplane flown by your best friend– no matter how well trained– or a professional pilot?  

Not to belabor the point, but did you ever have a teacher you really respected, admired and trusted?  Someone who taught you something important and filled you with confidence in yourself?  Did you play videogames with them at home?  I don’t think so.  (Again, resist the urge to think of any exceptions.)  A successful car salesman can be friendly, but he or she should never try to be the customer’s friend.  Ingratiating yourself to the customer means subverting your natural alpha tendencies to establish a peer-to-peer relationship.  That’s just plain wrong.  What car buyers want, what they need, what they deserve is a professional.  A leader.

Entire forests have died to create all the books on the subject of leadership.  Let me condense them for you.  A great leader is honest, passionate, knowledgeable, attentive, clever, patient, disciplined, committed, charismatic, open-minded, positive and, lest we forget, funny.  All you need to think about is honesty.  A great car salesman should never, ever lie to anyone.  Remember: your potential customers are looking for an excuse to confirm their profound distrust of your basic character.  One lie, no matter how small, and your ability to lead is history.  You can always fall back on bullying, but that sucks.  It erodes your ability to look yourself in the mirror in the morning and, eventually, makes your customers hate you on sight.

So, never lie about price, availability, depreciation, specifications, features, the dealer’s profit, your commission, your uncle’s role in the Kennedy assassination, what you had for lunch, your favorite football team, anything.  The NLP zealots are right about one thing: 90% of communication is non-verbal.  One tiny little lie, and your hyper hyper-sensitive customer will know.  They will never trust you again.  Nor should they.  By the way, do you know why you lie?  Because you’re desperate.  You don’t have a proven and comfortable sales methodology that takes you from first customer contact to vehicle handover and beyond. 

We’ll start on that in the next installment.  Meanwhile, the “right” thing for the customer to do is to trust you.  Well, it will be, when we’re done.
 

First, relax. You hate your job because you don’t know what you’re doing.  Face it.  You, a car salesman, have no quantifiable methodology for selling a car.  At best, you think customer "conversion" depends on your personality, product knowledge, perseverance and luck.  At worst, you think it’s a simply a matter of bullying the customer into buying a car.  You want to hear something funny?  Bullying IS the most effective sales technique.  I’m not recommending it, but if you really want to master car sales, you’ve got to understand the non-PC realities of human nature.

Before Ted Turner bought Montana and retired to shoot wildlife in a drug-addled haze, CNN’s founder had a sign on his desk that read “Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way.”  Obviously, Captain Outrageous considered himself the leader; leaving everyone else to either follow his instructions or, as Ted liked to put it, f-off.  And boy, did The Mouth of the South learn to work that strategy, building a multi-billion dollar empire on the back of championship wrestling and baseball.  That’s because Ted Turner had an inherent understanding of his position in this world.  He knew he was a born salesman.  

It all comes down to testicle size.  (For women, it’s the amount of testosterone in their system.)  Men with larger testicles produce more testosterone than men with smaller testicles.  The hormone makes them physically stronger, much more aggressive and far more inclined to take risks than smaller-balled men.  As you might imagine, high testosterone or “alpha” males represent a minority of the total population.  Well, if they’re not at the beginning of their life cycle, they are at the end– after competing alphas have killed each other off, died from taking stupid risks or found their way into a prison cell. 

This, my friend, is you.  You are a high testosterone male.  Think about it.  Who in their right mind would be a car salesman?  There’s no job security.  There’s no income security; your livelihood depends on your performance on any given day, with any given customer.  If you want to know how you ended-up where you are, look down.  Not convinced?  Look around.  How many of your male colleagues are tall/large?  How many of them are losing their hair?  How many played contact sports in high school?  How many are cheating on their partner or just plain horn-dogging it?  How many are always sweating?  How many are team players?

These are your people.  But they are not your customers.  Car salesmen can’t get their heads around the fact that their customers do not share their psychology.  You want a bigger house.  A better car.  A better suit.  A better watch.  A better wife.  You were born to want MORE, and you’re willing to risk everything to get it and WIN.  Your customers have smaller balls.  Their primary motivation is to hang on to what they’ve got.  They were born to sniff the air, follow the crowd, minimize risk and NOT LOSE. 

This is why your customers fail to share your excitement about buying a new car.  The majority see car buying as an endless opportunity to lose/squander their precious resources.  In fact, the whole process scares them shitless.  You scare them shitless.  This is why car salesmen who are bullies do so well.  We’ve all heard stories of burly car salesman who literally kidnap and/or physically force customers to buy a car.  They do it because it works.  The evil alpha salesman establishes dominance over the beta customer, who eventually decides they’d lose more by not buying a car (like, say, their life). 

Again, this kind of bullying is not the right way to sell a car.  But in the absence of a positive, coherent, logical and successful method to honestly and effectively utilize a salesman’s natural dominance to sell a car; it’s the most efficient.  And please don’t go thinking about all the times this wasn’t or isn’t true.  If you’re going to learn how to sell a car properly, you need to subvert your natural tendency to focus on exceptions to the rule.  Alphas are born hunters, and hunters always look for the different thing: the old, weak or malformed member of an otherwise homogenous herd.  Sales is a numbers game.  Your goal is to sell cars to the majority, not the minority.  So forget all the examples that illustrate that I’m wrong.  Focus on all the experiences that tell you that I’m right. 

Last paragraph?  Wow.  That went fast.  There’s a bunch more practical stuff to come that’s gonna blow your mind and bring you bucks (YES MORE!).  Meanwhile, a quick question.  What if there’s a way to embrace your Alpha-ness that helps car customers make the right decision?  And what is the “right decision?”  

I’ve just returned from a four day round trip to Florida after having endured a seriously annoying vibration from the front end of my award-winning minivan.  This after arranging a pre-trip rotation/balance/alignment at my award-winning dealership.  As I hover over the manufacturer’s service-visit survey (which was waiting for me upon my return), my pen hand freezes over the checkboxes.  One little tick might just result in the castration of the technician responsible for my tingling hands and inflamed attitude.  I can foretell the reaction from survey central.  Oh….My…Heavens!  A survey rating of LTP [Less than perfect] has been submitted!  Activate the GO TEAM!

These days, any visit to a manufacturer-branded service department invariably leads to a customer survey.  As you pick up your vehicle, all hands on the service deck make a cloying and pathetic plea for “excellent” ratings.  From the service “host” to the cashier with the mysteriously low-cut and tight attire, they all “remind” you that “five is the highest score” on the walkout survey incorporated into the service receipt.  Uh, sure.  Thanks.  Their lobbying is creepy, intrusive and inherently unethical, and it doesn’t end there…

Within hours, a letter from the dealership arrives with a heads-up: a manufacturer’s survey or (worse) phone call is headed your way.  The dealer staff’s continued employment depends entirely on your providing “only the highest rating” ticks on every question.  Further, if you feel unable to make these bubbly, effusively positive post-visit comments, you are despicably evil human filth– I mean, could you please give the service manager the basic courtesy of discussing your concerns with him prior to any negative assessments you might consider sharing with the brand’s customer relations monitors?

So am I to call my dealership and discuss how to get adhesive wheel weights to stick on uncleaned wheels?  Or more fun yet, tender the suggestion that maybe their highly trained technicians just did the rotation, figured the tires looked good enough and skipped the whole balancing procedure?  Or somehow blew the highly lasered and automated alignment process?

And I’ll still have to leave my vehicle– again– for a few hours.  If I want to avoid death by People magazine, I’ll have to rent a car (the only loans my dealer makes involve interest payments and lots of ‘em).  Moreover, I’ll face a repeat round of surveys, which could trigger another cycle of false feedback: “Was the service department friendly and courteous while correcting the mistake they shouldn’t have made the first time?” 

Please.  Car companies should not allow their dealerships’ personnel to brow-beat their customers with the potential consequences of an honest consumer report.  The dealership should simply ask the owner if the dealer’s service was up to snuff and be done with it.  If it turns out that they screwed up, the service department needs to suck it up and take the beating they deserve.  Yes, they should be allowed the opportunity to fix their screw-ups.  But using emotional blackmail to manipulate their esteemed customers into ziplipification– even if they attempt to “correct” problems later– enables substandard procedures to persist.  It’s a win – lose situation.

Maybe we should have some responses ready for these situations.  When the service department toady helpfully informs us that “five is the highest rating” we should ask,”Given that five is an odd number, what’s an average score?” When they tell us “If you can’t give us the highest possible ratings on every question, please contact our service department Manager immediately” we should counter “Wouldn’t that render the survey statistically insignificant, in that it would be an aberration of the sigma-six design coefficient theories outlined in Johansson’s seminal work “Survey and Assessment-Instrument Compilation for the Twenty-First Century Customer?”  

Of course, there is no such book.  But being able to cite it with authority will glaze every sub-erudite eye for miles.  And when the ever-so-helpful service folk overdo the gluteal-kissing with cheerful placards and/or five cent mints, remember that they really do want you to be satisfied.  So tell them you’d like to be allowed to complete all future surveys without hectoring, pleading, bargain basement bribery and cynical mind games.  Or, more comprehensibly, “piss off.”

And when you take your car in for a warranty recall, simple service or minor repair, and they put your steering wheel back on off-center, or get oil all over your engine cover, or fail to get the door fascia on properly, or over-torque the lug nuts, tell the manager about it and get things put right ASAP.  And then report the hassles on the ensuing surveys.  At the same time, manufacturers must do whatever they can to put an end to this charade.  They should mystery shop their dealers’ service departments or survey customers on pre-survey shenanigans.  The truth hurts guys.  Get used to it.

Remember Joe Isuzu?  In the late 80’s, the brand’s spokesman was an actor (David Leisure) playing a pathological liar who’d say anything to sell an Isuzu.  He claimed the Trooper could carry “a symphony orchestra” or “hold every book in the Library of Congress.”  The Impulse was “faster than a [catches a speeding bullet in his teeth]… well, you know.”  While Joe’s commercials-– and for that matter, the Isuzu brand– are busy fading from the American automotive landscape, his spirit lives on.  The main difference between Joe and no-Joe car ads: today's disclaimers are smaller.  You have my word on it.   

On second thought, look for yourself.  Most automobile commercials include a small disclaimer like “closed course,” “professional driver,” “do not attempt” or some other CYA statement mandated by the company’s legal department.  It’s there to protect them against ambulance chasers waiting for a buyer to injure themselves or (preferably) die when they try to make their vehicle do what it did in the commercial– even if that’s just driving around a corner.  You have to wonder about a world where companies showcase an SUV driving off-road, or a sports car zooming through a road course, then feel obliged to tell the buyer “do not attempt” to do the same.  Just what are we supposed to do with these vehicles?   

The TV commercials for the new Mercedes GL-class are probably the best/worst example.  The ads show the Alabama-built off-roader shrugging off the impact of a crash test sled, towing more than a Peterbilt can handle, hauling an entire vacation home full of stuff and tackling a slalom course so fast it sets the cones on fire (actually my first impression was the brakes were overheating so badly they ignited the cones).  All this wouldn’t be too bad if it was presented Joe Isuzu-style, with humorous disclaimers.  Instead, the word “fictionalization” appears in letters small enough to qualify as a DMV eye test, flashing by so fast it could serve as an Evelyn Wood final exam.   

Autodisclaimermania reminds of a five-year old who lies about breaking a lamp but thinks it’s OK (and he won’t be caught) because his fingers were crossed.  When it comes to portraying extreme performance capabilities that might not actually be, you know, possible, or, equally worrying, destroying the vehicle involved in the display, truck ads are particularly notable offenders.  Could someone explain what “underbody digitally modified” meant in the Ford truck ad showing an F-150 crushed between two bulldozers?  Did the frame crumple like a beer can against a frat boy’s forehead?  Why won’t they show us what really happened?  Or tell us they actually crushed four trucks to make that commercial?   

Then there’s a special category of ads operating so far outside the realm of reality they should be classified as novelization.  These ads try to sell us on a vehicle’s ability to cater to/create a particular “lifestyle,” or seek to fill us with warm fuzzies (WF) for a company building vehicles that can’t stand evaluation on their own or relative merits.  Here’s a simple question: how many Americans actually own a kayak?  How many go rock climbing?  Not as many as own SUV’s.  But that doesn’t stop their manufacturers from selling their lumbering land yachts as gateways to the great outdoors.  Nissan may urge potential owners to “tell better stories,” but it would be hard come up with more imaginative fiction that their lifestyle vignettes.  

The poster child for the WF concept is Ford’s “Bold Moves” campaign.  The Coca-Cola style ads show a quick cut montage of bold Americans doing courageous and noble things– from a teenager getting his first driver's license to a woman with breast cancer entering the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation's Race for the Cure.  So… where are the cars?  They don’t appear until the ad’s closing seconds.  What does that tell us about Ford vehicles?  Either a great deal (Ford’s ethics, spirit and community service) or nothing (), depending on whether or not you got paid to throw around words like “target demographic.”  

Of course, Ford’s not the only one inviting customers to share their highly selective alternate reality.  Toyota touts their “hybrid synergy” but neglects to mention its profitable flotilla of gas-guzzling Tundras and Sequoias.  GM brags how many of its cars get better than 30 MPG in highway driving, but fails to disclose that their whips are a lot less efficient around town, and that their overall fleet hews closely to the Corporate Average Fuel Economy legislation.  (Unlike BMW.)  

You have to wonder who the car makers and their advertising lackeys think they’re fooling.  They aren’t fooling me and I doubt they’re fooling you.  The truth is they, like Joe Isuzu, they are only fooling themselves.  And if I’m lying, may lightning strike my computer.

The original idea: interview Jack Nerad about the type of cars parents buy for their teens.  When I finally got kbb.com's Executive Editor on the blower, he immediately informed me that A) He had no idea what we were scheduled to talk about and B) The press release about teen whips was released months ago.  So the guy works without a net and I'm behind the loop.  Shifting gears, I asked for their latest media mitzvah. "Cool Cars under $18k."  And then we get going and I discover that Jack's definition of "cool" takes us into some pretty strange areas.  Still, it's the journey that counts.  [Apologies for the audio levels.  We're working on it.]

Another year, another J.D. Power survey. Since the non-profit Consumer Reports organization prohibits carmakers from using its ratings in their ads, “ranked highest in initial quality by J.D. Power and Associates” should start flooding the airwaves and Internet any minute now, with print sure to follow. But does all of this noise signify anything? Should those seeking trouble-free wheels be sure to buy one of J.D.’s winners? Hardly.

First, note the “initial” that qualifies “quality.” Power surveys car owners on “problems” encountered within their first 90 days of ownership. Most people understand that a car that’s reliable for 90 days isn’t necessarily reliable beyond that. But there’s a bigger issue. J.D. Power’s IQS has been redesigned (for the second time) to encompass a larger number of potential defects. And the more the IQS includes, the less it measures what most people want to know: vehicle reliability.

The previous redesign doubled the average number of reported problems per car by extending the IQS beyond defects (that can be fixed) to designed-in annoyances (that must be endured). For example, cupholder dissatisfaction famously slammed MINI’s score. The 2006 IQS report takes a step in the right direction by including subscores for "design quality" and "production quality." Combining two very different elements into a single score makes it unclear what the number represents. Yet this score receives 99 percent of the press coverage and 100 percent of the ad citations.

If you compare the rankings based on production quality alone, the brands’ relative positions change dramatically. BMW bounds 24 places to third; Buick jumps 14 to eighth; MINI ascends 13 to 16th; Mercedes-Benz climbs nine also to 16th; Subaru also gains nine to 19th. At the same time, Dodge drops eight to 27th; GMC plummets 13 rungs to 22nd; Nissan plunges ten, also to 22nd. Eight others change position by at least five slots. These include Chrysler, which shares many models with Dodge yet moves up five places, to fifth. Out of 37 brands, 16 rankings are heavily affected by the inclusion of design quality.

Beyond the cloudiness of the revised methodology, the way the results are reported and spun continues to put too much emphasis on relative rankings. In fact, absolute differences are often minuscule. Looking at defect rates alone, 22 out of 37 brands fall within one-tenth of a Problem per Car (PPC) of the 0.64 average. Thirty of 37 brands fall within two-tenths. Of the seven beyond this range, only one, Lexus, is on the top, and it only betters the average by 0.22 problems per car.

Stay with me here. The best brand, Lexus, has 0.42 problems per car, while the worst, Isuzu, has 1.10: a best-to-worst difference of 0.68 problems per car. Even this range results from a few especially low-scoring brands. The difference between number three (Toyota) and number 32 (Hummer) is a scant 0.27 problems per car. It’s ironic, since brands at the bottom of the chart receive the least attention in J.D. Power’s press releases. For years they didn’t even publicly release below-average scores.

Put another way, a Toyota compared to a Hummer has a one in four chance of having a single additional problem. Even comparing a car from Isuzu with one from Lexus, only two in three cars will have a single additional problem. What’s more, this additional problem is likely to be the only problem. Folks, we're talking about a single trip to the dealer for a single problem–which you still face nearly even odds of taking if you buy the best brand.

The reason why J.D. Power lumps design quality into the IQS is clear: without it, the differences between brands are rarely worth debating. And the smaller the differences, the less people care about IQS. And the less the pubic cares about IQS, the less automakers will pay to advertise IQS scores, and hire Power consultants to help improve them. This would truly be a problem– for J.D. Power.

J.D. needs to re-think their methodology and reporting. They should keep problems that require repair separate from other issues. Forget the brands, they don’t vary enough. Instead, emphasize model scores. Next, focus less on rankings and who is the best and more on the size of the differences and who is within spitting distance of the best. Finally, J.D. Power needs to shift their emphasis away from “initial quality” towards long-term durability. Manufacturers won’t like that a longer-term study keeps new models off J.D.-branded consumer radar, but anything less is, well, less.

Heck, J.D. Power might even rake in more cash this way. Anyone reasonably near the top—and not just those at the top—could advertise “ranked good enough in quality that you should focus on other criteria by J.D. Power and Associates.” No, it’s not punchy. Just the truth.

[Michael Karesh operates www.truedelta.com, a vehicle reliability and price comparison site.]

The American consumer stands in the middle of a battlefield. The combatants: American and foreign automobile manufacturers, their unions, dealers and various representatives; politicians representing both northern and southern industrial states, and you. The stakes: profits, derived from the hearts, minds and wallets of red state car buyers. They’ve drawn their lines in the sand. They’ve loaded their weapons. They’ve fired their first salvos in what promises to be an ugly and protracted battle. And they’re all mentally constipated.

Ford drew first blood with its short-lived Red, White and Bold campaign. Characteristically, Toyota responded more authoritatively. Their “We're American” ad campaign declared that Toyota directly employs more than 32k Americans, and creates over 386k more jobs through its dealers and suppliers. Speaking at a visit to one of their Kentucky plants, Toyota’s newly-minted Chairman Fujio Cho spelled it out: "We have been working in the United States, contributing to the communities where we produce… Our workers here, almost all of them are U.S. citizens, so in that way, we are a US company." Then Toyota announced its intention to invade that unique bastion of working class America: NASCAR.

Next up: the Level Field Institute (LFI). Retired union workers from GM, Ford and Chrysler formed this “grass roots organization” because “when it comes to cars, ‘Made In America’ still matters.” The LFI admits that “measuring ‘made in America’ is getting more complicated.” But its ads aren’t bothered by fine distinctions: they simply list American jobs by manufacturer. Ford admits contributing cash to the LFI’s $1m TV, print and Internet campaign. The other domestics have lent the LFI emotional support. "I'm a little offended with Toyota's campaign," said Chrysler Communications Supremo Jason Vines, re-affirming the German-owned company's patriotic fervor. "They are a Japanese car company. Baseball, hot dogs and Toyota? Sorry, it doesn't ring a bell."

Then there’s the United Auto Workers (UAW). The union made their stand on the “buy American” issue perfectly clear years ago, when they convinced their employers to ban or segregate non-American cars from their parking lots. As far as they’re concerned, no true American would be caught dead behind the wheel of something that wasn’t built in an American plant by Americans who all belong to an American labor union and collect union wages (and, oh by the way, pay hefty union dues). The economic survival of the American middle class depends on American solidarity.

The truth is that “built” means “formed by combining materials or parts.” A car assembled in the United States is "built in America." If the artists formerly known as The Big Three (and their stakeholders) want consumers to “buy American,” they should decorate every vehicle assembled on American soil with foot-high letters proclaiming “Built in the USA.” Of course, the Ford Fusion needs a “hecho en Mexico” sticker, the LaCrosse merits a "Construit en Canada” tag and an Aveo should sport the appropriate Korean kudos. While they’re at it, US automakers should identify models sitting on platforms developed by foreign-based subsidiaries, and plainly label vehicles with engines built in China, transmissions built in the Philippines, electronics from Korea, or hybrid systems designed and made in… Japan.

In fact, when it comes to domestic parts content, even the LFI can’t avoid the flag-waving hypocrisy. If you scrutinize their list of US vehicles’ domestic content, you’ll see that there isn’t a single vehicle for sale that’s 100% American. Aside from the Mazda Tribute and Ford Escape (snap), the “most American” cars you can buy are only 90% domestic. And quite a string of losers it is too: the Mazda B-Series, Saturn L, Chevy Malibu and Ford Econoline. There are a few 95 per centers, but the LFI fails to mention that these models are either dead (Alero, Taurus) or marked for death (Marquis). The LFI lauds GM for providing the most US jobs (more than all foreign-owned automakers combined), but they neglect to mention GM’s huge and growing investment in Chinese parts manufacture.

Let’s cut to the chase. If you look beyond the ads and news articles about what is or isn't "American made," the real defining factor is whether or not the car is built by a company controlled by the union. The manufacturers being targeted by this campaign are those with non-union plants who enjoy a healthy relationship with their laborers and a healthy profit statement. The cars this campaign’s backers would have everyone buy are built in plants where the employees' allegiance is to a union, not to the company that pays their wages. It's time someone cut to the heart of this “buy American” campaign and exposed it for what it is: a rehash of the old "look for the union label" campaign. Americans didn’t wear it then, and they’re not about to wear it now.

Remember the Cougar? Not the oddly-shaped front-wheel drive Cougar of 2000 nor the big-bodied Thunderbird clone, nor even, God forbid, the huge sedans and wagons wearing “the sign of the cat,” but the 1967 original? Motor Trend’s Car of the Year was created from the Mustang. While it shared the Pony Car’s platform, it was NOT a badge-engineering model. Sales of the luxurious new coupe helped to lead the Blue Oval to some of the most profitable years in the company’s history. Hello? Ford? Anyone home?

It’s been a couple of years since the latest generation Mustang hit the streets. The retro modern two-door is a runaway success, easily out-selling the nondescript sedans that have become Ford’s standard bearers. At the same time, the Mercury brand languishes, offering customers nothing more than thinly-disguised Ford sedans and trucks. It’s time, past time, for the new Mercury Cougar. Stretch the new Mustang platform, drape it with drop-dead gorgeous sheetmetal, stuff it full of luxury (and a hundred pounds more sound insulation) and there you have it: a slam dunk sales winner and a halo car for a moribund brand.

In fact, there’s only one way a new Cougar wouldn’t work: if Ford re-sculpts the ‘Stang’s front and rear, tacks on some brightwork and badges the Mustang as a Cougar. That Milanese-style product would dilute the Mustang’s appeal AND fail to create a compelling reason for luxury car buyers to darken Mercury’s already dim door. An ersatz Cougar would drag the brand’s street cred even lower– if such a thing was possible. No; while a new Cougar would bring glory to a deeply wounded brand, it must be done right, or not at all.

A Cougar absolutely demands arresting styling. Since Ford’s hometown designers seem singularly incapable of creating anything other than boring and innocuous cars, why not call in Aston Design Director Marek Reichman, the man who penned the sublime Aston Martin Rapide? As PETA and other animal rights activists have made it virtually impossible for a big cat to work in the ad business, Mercury could make the Brit-born designer the brand’s official spokesman. “Aston Martin elegance made in America” would be a winning slogan.

Anyone who’s been fortunate enough to spend some quality seat time in a Land Rover, or a top-spec F150, knows that Ford can make great interiors. To produce a suitably luxurious Cougar, Ford could add luxury touches to the Mustang’s cockpit that aren’t available in the ‘Stang: automatic temperature control, twilight sentinel headlights, memory seats, sat nav and all the other luxury car necessities. Ford knows exactly how to do all these things, and I’m sure that they have the hardware on the Lincoln shelf to boot. If the new Cougar wants a “killer ap,” they could even fit it with a Borg-Warner dual-clutch paddle-shift transmission (a.k.a. Audi’s DSG).

A new Cougar could be Mercury’s re-entry into racing. If the Ford Fusion and a Toyota Camry can be NASCAR racers, surely the Cougar could be as well. Perhaps LeMans would be a better venue. After all, that’s where Aston Martin made their reputation. If Corvettes and Vipers can make a credible attempt, surely a Cougar, with the right preparation, could at least make a showing. The combination of a stunning design and the hype of a [properly promoted] racing effort would ramp up the excitement at Mercury dealerships to unseen levels.

Equally important, a “real” Cougar wouldn’t be a horrifically expensive endeavor for the cash-strapped domestic automaker. There’s nothing wrong with the Mustang platform that a little refinement couldn’t cure. Adding the aforementioned four inches to the wheel base would give the coupe passable rear seat room. The Mustang GT already has a two-piece driveshaft, so lengthening drive shafts shouldn’t pose a problem. Ford’s 4.6-liter, 300-horse, 24-valve V8 would be more than adequate. (The new Shelby GT500 powerplant would be a bonus.) All the engine really needs is a little more muffler, a little less intake and a lot more purr. And there’s plenty of room at the new AutoAlliance International assembly plant in Flat Rock, Michigan to build a “real” Cougar.

If Mercury had a Cougar, it might begin to look like the brand has a future, instead of simply surviving on life-support from Ford. It’s not a question of whether or not there’s a market for a “proper” American luxury coupe; there are more than enough foreign players in this niche to prove its potential viability. It’s not a question of money; a new Cougar needn’t start from scratch. It’s a question of will. When a brand loses its luster within the Ford Empire, it lacks champions to snatch back the resources it needs to grow. In car manufacture as in life, everything either grows or dies. Over to you Mr. Bill.

Imagine the world's best car salesman. He knows your name, buying history, automotive likes and dislikes. He knows your car: its age, condition and service history. He knows your budget and preferred finance method. He knows what car-related purchases you like: stereo upgrades, driving instruction, branded merchandise, etc. He knows when to approach you, and when to back off. He's friendly yet authoritative, completely informed about ALL automotive products and scrupulously honest. And best of all, he's a computer.

Oh sure, in an ideal world, it'd be a real person. But we live in a world where consumers can summon a new car's dealer invoice with a click of a mouse. Where anyone can buy and sell a used car over vast distances at the push of a button, for less than the cost of a classified ad in their local paper. And that means that today's car salesmen make a couple of hundred dollars per sale. For that kind of money, you get an order taker. At best. At worst, you get someone who doesn't know anything about anything who tries to hide the fact that there's only one person he hates more than himself: you.

Again, automation is the answer. To wit: I once asked a Renault exec how his employer had morphed from sad manufacturer of pathetic rust buckets to steadfast supplier of quality cars. "Robots," he replied. Once the French automaker removed as many humans as possible from the production process and replaced them with computerized assembly workers, the company could consistently create reliable vehicles. So if automation has transformed cars into paragons of mechanical virtue, why is the sales process still run by Neanderthals playing with flint axes?

To some extent, the car sales cro-magnonification has begun. Dealerships are splashing-out on "customer resource management" (CRM) software. These automated programs process sales and service data to track and stimulate the sales process. For example, when a potential customer walks into a dealership to test drive a new car, the salesman grabs his email address. When the customer walks, the salesman hands the email info to the CRM team. The dealer's computer then bombards the escapee's in-box with inappropriate come-ons– until the program eventually decides it's time for the spam to stop. OK, that's not the ideal. But it is the actual: the precise sequence of events following my last visit to a Toyota and Ford dealership.

More sophisticated CRM systems analyze service department data– mostly mileage over time– to figure out when customers might be ready for their next whip. The box flags the info for a salesman's phone call, email or direct mail pitch. Some systems also alert the salesman when their customer is in for service, to stimulate a co-incidental new car chin wag. All of them send birthday cards. Clearly, obviously, these systems suck. Current CRM software doesn't gather the right data, doesn't gather enough data, processes the data badly, responds inappropriately and, ultimately, asks lazy, unmotivated, inefficient humans to capitalize on its algorithmic efforts.

If it wasn't so ludicrous, it wouldn't be so funny. All a CRM programmer really needs to do is find the world's best car salesman (or woman), figure out exactly how they sell a car, and then get a computer to do it. Obviously, you don't want a computerized voice calling you up and asking you the same sorts of questions as your local car dealer's real-life "main man." Or do you? I get on just fine with my automated Virgin phone top-up babe. Study after study shows that automotive consumers feel that their car dealer doesn't contact them enough. No, really. They feel neglected. You never call. You never write…

Gold-plated CRM systems practice what their programmers call "data mining." The software digs through extensive customer data to find the nuggets the computer's human masters consider useful or relevant. It's an entirely inappropriate process. What's needed is "data schmoozing." CRM systems should engage customers in an endless series of interactions that allow the computer to create a precise and contemporaneous portrait of the potential customer's exact needs. They should respond to the customer's (not the salesman's) input with interesting, informative, entertaining and relevant information. That kind of CRM process would bond the customer to the computer– I mean dealer.

On the other hand, maybe automobile manufacturers should be the ones pursuing "third wave" CRM automation. After all, any dealer who engages their customers in such a lively, ongoing and information-rich conversation would have an enormous advantage over the company providing the product. In fact, the race to create an automated sales system will determine the future of the car industry. The question is: who will own the customer? As always, it will be the company with the best product– AND the best salesman.

Driving with my windows down, a strange sound suddenly filled the cabin. "What's that noise daddy?" my six-year-old called from the backseat. "Look over buddy and you'll see." He turned quickly and blurted "Ferrari!" Although my son had taken some of his earliest steps in front of a televised image of Michael Schumacher's F1 car, before that moment, he'd never seen a Ferrari F430 in the flesh. Yet one glimpse of that scarlet red perfectly-crafted Pininfarina body, one earful of that wailing eight, and he knew he was in the presence of the prancing horse. That, my friends, is what you call branding.

Everything I ever needed to know about cars, I've known since I was five. I'm not going to argue that children possess inherent wisdom; I've listened to far too much senseless whining to buy into that. But it is true that kids look at cars from a less "burdened" perspective. They're not influenced by questions of finance, insurance, depreciation, maintenance and reliability. Although they're status conscious, their concept of "cool" has more to do with intrinsic appeal than ego gratification. By five years old, they have an instinctive understanding of which cars have "got it," and which cars don't. For example…

My two children can spot a Porsche 911 from a mile away. Despite the Carrera's constantly evolving form, no matter what the vintage (of car or kid), they know a 911 when they see one. Sure, they'd had a lot of imprinting. We've sat in Porsches at auto shows. We've stood together in awe, listening to a 911 driver crank-up that husky-sounding flat-six. Someday, if I raise them right, they'll be able to make the kind of 911 model and year distinctions that pistonheads use as a kind of secret handshake. But for now, my four and six-year-old see a Carrera and race to shout "911." Inevitably, the one who doesn't see the car first cries.

Look at children's car drawings. There's a startling similarity of form: large wheels, little overhang, sleek beltline and chopped greenhouse. These are the elements that comprise our earliest understanding of what makes a car desirable. Somewhere in our early-adulthood, we figure it's OK to sacrifice the basics– so long as we get the business case right. In other words, we give up the purity of our emotional connection because, well, we have to. We love our car but covet something else. Something a lot more expensive and a lot less responsible.

Why do mainstream motors look like they were based on a survey of a large group of randomly selected people from a broad cultural and economic demographic– other than the fact that they are? Modern manufacturers seem to take all their prospective customers' rational answers, blend them into a vehicle soup, and then "hone" the design until it has been assigned all the brand-defining character lines and sun catchers that the sheet metal can withstand. If you want to see the ultimate expression of this "a camel is a racehorse designed by a committee" aesthetic, check out the Pontiac Aztek.

Meanwhile, every time I drive by our local Hummer dealer, my kids fight for the best view. "Look, there's a new orange one" says my son. "I want that one,' my daughter cries, referring to a dubbed-out, flippity-flop purple-turquoise example. How do they know that the Hummer is the ultimate expression of machismo this side of Jurgen Von Strangle? They just do. In fact, by the time a nascent pistonhead reaches five, he or she can distinguish the authentic cars from the intenders. They spend hours lining-up Matchbox, caring for the good ones, giving them names and identities, racing them around a little orange track, sorting the miniature wheat from the palm-sized chaff. There's your ideal focus group.

Large organizations analyze, scrutinize and complicate their cars to death. They pay lip service to the importance of "car guys" and hire "car czars" to counter the "bean counters." When push comes to shove, originality and authenticity gets pushed and shoved straight out the door. An automaker can offer a car with the best gas mileage, the longest warranty, the fastest zero to sixty time, the most distinguished badge and the curviest body. But they can't simply dip into the global parts bin and create something that touches that primal place that started in childhood, and still exists within all of us.

Last week, my son and I encountered a swooping 1967 Chevrolet Corvette in glitter-flake blue. "Whoa!" my son whispered, as his hand started stroking the curvy hips of the old-school exotic. "Don't touch it," I replied. "It's not ours." But in a way, it was.

General Motors is convinced it can't afford to kill Buick. If it could, it would; but it can't, so it won't. So now what? Clearly, the Lucerne and LaCrosse (improvements though they are) aren't winning a great many brand converts. A radical re-think is in order. It's time to drop any pretense that Buick can possibly appeal to anyone younger than 70, and drink fully from the golden goblet of Metamucil. If GM insists upon keeping the marque on life support, what better way to do so than by wholeheartedly crafting a car designed for buyers close to employing the same?

It might not be the sexiest concept, but there's nothing intrinsically wrong with The General developing a brand that sells itself as "The Pensioner's Best Friend." America's growing pool of senior citizens is blessed with vast repositories of disposable income. And because the majority of the American automobile industry is off chasing the empty pockets of youth, it's an entirely unoccupied brand space, ripe for the plucking. Toyota made overtures toward the segment with vehicles like its Avalon. Ditto Cadillac's DTS. But the unintended adopt-a-grandparent success of the Scion xB and Honda Element prove that there's an important, unfulfilled niche. Someone needs to pull the lever full-tilt on the wrinklies' slot machine.

With a little development, Buick is the logical choice. "Beyond precision" lies simplicity: a brand offering vehicles with cost-effective innovations and equipment levels. Cataract-friendly gauges at the heart of basic instrumentation. Oversized switchgear. Heated, cooling, massaging seats that swivel to ease entry and exit (remember those?). Extra wide door apertures with reinforced hinges to ease entry and exit. OnStar. Electric everything, with power sliding trunk floors for easy loading and unloading, and power pedals within a Rockport's reach. Adjustable warning chime/turn signal volumes. Electronic medication reminder timers. Run-flats. Oversized sunglasses bins for granny's favorite set of Terminator shields. Two words: Rascal storage.

Every possible safety feature should be standard, from lane-departure warning systems to self-parking. Electronic nurses? Loads: SRS + ABS + EBD + DSC + ASR + BA = AARP. The ordering and purchasing experience must be simplified as much as possible. This author has railed against illogical options bundling, but the geriatric niche is one segment where simplified trim levels actually make sense. If higher-end features like satellite navigation are deemed a marketplace necessity, so be it— but designers must ensure that they're simple, intuitive designs, preprogrammed with relevant waypoints— drug stores, casinos, cat hospitals and Cracker Barrel restaurants, say.

These New Old School Buicks needn't be boats—there's a reason why vehicles like Chrysler's PT Cruiser and Scion's xB have met with open checkbooks among the septuagenarian set: their boxy shapes offer arthritic-sympathetic ingress and egress, upright posture, good visibility and room for potting soil, golf clubs, respirators, walkers, etc. The appeal of these econoboxes proves that modern seniors aren't necessarily attached to the baroque styling that typified the cars of their collective past. Over time, this will become increasingly true, as huge numbers of baby boomers turn in their Ford Five-Hundreds and Chevrolet HHRs such in search of vehicles to take them through their golden years.

And let's not forget the possibility of profit-rich cross-product marketing opportunities. Buick should offer branded walkers and wheelchairs and such, specially designed to fit in their vehicles. These Buick products ought to extend beyond simple accessories– GM could doubtlessly partner with a supplier for bespoke power-lifting orthopedic seats of varying foam density, size and support (for a hefty premium, of course). Leases could be configured with total free maintenance packages for the term of the agreement up to, and including wear items like brakes and tires.

Marketing would be a slam-dunk. Beyond having senior citizen notables as spokespeople and seeking approval stamps from various health organizations, if done correctly, GM could once again project the image of a benevolent corporation. "We respect our elders, and we're doing something to help them: offering seniors the safest, most convenient vehicles for their specific needs." Further, by catering directly and expressly to pensioners, GM's other divisions wouldn't have to compromise their design bogeys to accommodate a percentage of older buyers. They'd be free to pursue their own brand-specific identities (Cadillac and Chevrolet, namely).

We at TTAC are all in favor of tightening the frequency and criteria of testing procedures for senior licensure. Yet your (occasionally) humble narrator recognizes that America's increasing contingent of pensioners won't stand for having their personal mobility stripped wholesale. Perhaps the next best thing would be to put them in a vehicle that shouts to the rest of the motoring masses: "Warning! Elderly Person On Board!" A Buick crest on the rump of thousands of wayward, left-lane clogging sedans would give the rest of us a much-welcome heads-up, and provide life-sustaining income for a once-loved brand.