Toyota is the most successful automobile company of modern times. By some calculations, they've passed Ford as the world's second largest automaker (a position Ford held since 1952). It's only a matter of time before Toyota surpasses GM for the number one spot. And no wonder: the Japanese company builds an impressive number of highly popular cars and trucks. While its rivals study Toyota's stars– the Camry, the Lexus SUVs and the Prius hybrid— the real recipe for their dominance is found elsewhere.

The most interesting aspect of Toyota's business is how they handle their failures. Take, for example, their forays into the US minivan market. Chrysler invented the genre with the introduction of their Dodge and Plymouth minivans. A few years later, Toyota responded with a small, boxy, mid-engined van, reminiscent of the cargo vans that Chrysler, Ford and GM had sold for years. Needless to say, Toyota's entry didn't even appear on the minivan buyer's radar screen. Toyota then spent a huge amount of money and restyled this van into the smooth and bulbous Toyota Previa. Again, buyers were lined up none-deep.

Toyota's third attempt was closer to a direct copy of the Chrysler vans, but smaller. Although it offered front wheel drive, the vehicle still captured a very small segment of the minivan market. By this time, the big three domestic manufacturers would have thrown in the towel. But Toyota doesn't work that way. They built yet another completely new minivan, the Sienna. Toyota finally got it right, and rapidly carved out a major portion of the minivan segment for their own.

Compare Toyota's persistence to Ford's reaction to the failure of the Freestar/Monterey minivans. After fielding a pair of vehicles that were never designed to be 'best in class', Ford appears mystified that they didn't sell as well as the previous Windstar van. Ford promptly fired the managers responsible and announced that they were getting out of the market.

How about another segment that the Americans appear to rule (at least for now): the full sized pickup truck? Toyota fielded their first full-size truck ten years ago, the T-100. As the pundits predicted, the machine languished in the marketplace. Toyota's response: try again, this time with the Tundra. Although the new truck was hardly a rousing success, it's a decent competitor that sells a lot better than Nissan's new Titan.

But Toyota isn't happy with being an also-ran. Rather than dole out huge incentives to move the old truck, Toyota has committed over a billion dollars to a new plant and a new truck. The plant, situated in the heart of pickup truck land (Texas), will produce a truck sized and powered to take on the Fords and Dodges and Chevrolets roaming the ranches. Will it succeed? I wouldn't bet against it.

Remember Toyota's response to the Fiero? The MR2 was a better-engineered automobile than Pontiac's roadster, but butt ugly. After the Fiero flamed-out (following a rash of engine fires), Toyota persevered. A complete restyle erased the uglies, and the MR2 soon won a deserved reputation as a vest pocket Ferrari. The sports car was the centerpiece of Toyota's performance image for many years. Although it failed to earn its keep in pure profit, it helped burnish Toyota's performance credentials for many years.

GM reacted to the Fiero's shortcomings by discontinuing the car. Not long afterward, the Mercury Capri came and went. But Toyota spent many years developing the MR2 and sporty Celica, and learned many valuable lessons about building budget-minded performance cars. You can bet that experience will be brought to bear on the two machines' inevitable replacements.

Seen the new Toyota convertible? Not many people have. The Solara, aimed directly at the Chrysler Sebring, remains practically invisible. At the moment, Chrysler owns the convertible image, if not the market. But with Toyota's can-do attitude and long-term committment, it's not unreasonable to expect ongoing improvements to the Solara's engineering, styling and marketing which will eventually make it a credible Sebring competitor.

Contrast this with the product development ethos at Ford or GM. If a car isn't an instant success, they cut off development money. Everyone associated with the program is considered persona non grata. In fact, the employees responsible are often sent to engineering Siberia or simply pushed out of the company. The knowledge gained, at great cost, is lost. Even the worst failure has a few features worth incorporating in future products. Developments from the Mark VIII, for example, could have been used to great advantage in the Lincoln LS to increase its competitiveness. Instead, everything about the Mark was tainted by failure. As a result, the successful parts of the Mark program were lost forever.

Continued commitment to product is the secret of Toyota's success. Everything else is just window-dressing.

You get a terrific view from the top of a roller coaster– but there's only one way to go. GM execs would have known the feeling at the beginning of August– if they were paying attention. They weren't. Despite all the experts' warnings, The General's top brass were too busy high-fiving each other over the 'success' of their Employee Discount for Everyone (EDFE) program, talking-up their plans to gently wean customers from discounts and incentives. Well hands in the air boys, the August sales figures are in…

Ward's AutoInfoBank reports that GM's sales are down 16.5%. [All figures cited are in comparison to August '04] Lest you think the results were a simple case of a sinking tide stranding all boats, Autodata reveals that the US automotive market as a whole rose 3.8%. While Daimler Chrysler and Ford eked-out small gains (1.2 and 1.4%), check out their Japanese competition: Toyota (+9.5%), Nissan (+10.6%) and Honda (+18.6%).

What happened? Truck and full-size SUV sales tanked. Although the media has been busy upbraiding consumers for daring to buy the General's discounted gas-hogs (ignoring their eco-moral responsibilities), the press gang failed to realize that the EDFE blowout was the last charge of the light truck brigade. Look at August's top 15 sellers and clock the change. Only two pickups and two SUV's made the list. More to the point, GM's entries on Ward's automotive hit parade were off a whopping 35.4% (Chevrolet Silverado) and 17.5% (Chevrolet Trailblazer).

August's big winners were relatively small cars like the Ford Focus, Honda Civic, Toyota Camry and Nissan Altima– still. Only more so. Sales increases for these vehicles were well into double digits. Although GM has three Chevrolet automobiles in play, two of these models lost sales and one remained static. The Pontiac Grand Prix was the only bright spot in the General picture, up a staggering 78.4%. One problem: the new G6 (developed at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars) was supposed to be the bright star in the Pontiac firmament…

Obviously, post-Katrina gas prices will accelerate the trend away from low mileage leviathans towards more fuel-efficient vehicles– at the exact moment when GM expects its refreshed trucks and SUV's to carry the can. Of course, any company with 70 models will have a number of products appropriate to a conservation-minded climate. On average, GM's fleet is a fairly frugal bunch. But neither statement obviates the fact that GM has ignored clear and consistent signals that truck-based vehicles were a dead genre guzzling. The General's divisions are still lousy with pickups and SUV's, with no automotive cavalry waiting in the wings. Oops.

Not that you'll hear that expression from inside GM. They're too busy backpedaling from earlier assertions that rising gas prices would not damage their SUV-based plans to finally pull the company out of its tailspin. For months, GM has been insisting that its middle-class customers are insulated from high fuel prices. (No suprise there: The General delayed some mid-sized car programs to speed the launch of their full-sized SUV and pickup programs.) Now that the gas prices are disappearing into the stratosphere, GM's spinfolk are admitting that the cost of gasoline may have a "psychological impact". Spinelessly enough, they're implying that GM's current and impending woes will stem from of potential customers' misguided timidity, rather than The General's abject failure to adapt to market trends.

In any case, the debate over gas hogitude probably suits the suits. It draws attention away from the elephant in the room: sales brought forward by the EDFE. Every industry analyst worth his pocket protector has been saying that GM's summer sales bonanza was the result of customers buying sooner rather than later. Well, it's later. In fact, it's a lot later than GM thinks. The General's rivals are rapidly and inexorably siphoning-off GM's market share. Yet Rabid Rick Wagoner's mob have yet to downsize their operation or 're-negotiate' GM's onerous labor costs to match its dealers' diminishing ability to sell GM vehicles at a price that can generate a profit for the corporation.

GM's reaction to the latest crisis was predictable enough: they extended the EDFE program through September. More significantly, the program now includes many '06 models– a tacit admission that GM has abandoned its ambitious plan to leave their Wal-Mart image behind. At a press conference yesterday, The General's chief industry analyst entered England's understatement hall of fame. After calmly predicting that oil would eventually stabilize at an SUV-friendly $50 a barrel, Paul Bellew admitted that "September will be a challenge."

While GM clings to euphemisms for comfort, corporate carnivore Kirk Kerkorian made an equally predictable play: he bought more of GM's cheapened stock, raising his stake from 7.2 to 9.5 percent. Mr. K's spokesman said the octogenarian billionaire has "confidence in the company, the American auto industry and the US economy as a whole." And, no doubt, the wisdom of firing the boneheads who brought the world's largest automaker to its knees, selling off GM's assets and completely restructuring the business. Hang on folks; it's going to be a wild ride.

Listen up guys: size matters. Not your penis; your testicles. Testicle size determines your level of sexual desire and stamina. By the same token, a minivan's interior is not the ultimate measure of its worth. While minivanistas love to boast about their whip's cubic capacity and cranny count, all MPV's can stow the better part of an NFL specialty team with air-conditioned ease. No, the true gauge of a minivan's basic appeal is its engine. All true pistonheads know that there's not a vehicle made– including minivans– that can't be improved by a large capacity, free-revving powerplant. Luckily, the Nissan Quest's got a big one.

Nissan's people mover holsters a detuned version of the Z-car's 3.5-liter six, with all the usual tricks of the trade (DOHC, variable valve timing and intake, multi-port fuel injection, drive-by-wire throttle, platinum spark plugs, etc.). In other words, this behemoth books. Well, OK, "browses swiftly". Empirically speaking, the Quest accelerates from zero to 60 in 8.2 seconds. The stat may not be stunning in these days of Hemi-engined Jeeps, but the Quest's 240 horses are a mighty frisky herd. The minivan bolts from the starting gate with a vigor that belies its looks, genre, size and age.

Just a few model cycles ago, savvy auto-shoppers could indulge in the fine art of speccing-up. Consumers coveting European motoring on the cheap flocked to Volkswagen's second-generation Jetta. Shoppers could specify a lightweight, no-frills special: crank-it-your-damned-self steering and windows, no a/c and a basic radio. (Even steel wheel trim rings were optional.) The converse was also true– intenders could option-up a high-end GLI with most every feature then extant.

Fast forward to the new Jetta. Even a cooking version of VW's fifth-generation Jetta comes with air-con, remote keyless entry, power windows and a 10-speaker MP3-compatible CD stereo. And that's just the creature comforts; safety-wise, figure six airbags, ABS and traction control. Which goes some way towards explaining the car's 3,200-pound curb weight. (For comparison's sake, the average 1986 Jetta weighed around 2,500-pounds.)

But that's not all. Today's omnipresent 'convenience packages' and 'value bundles' foist unneeded or unwanted items on consumers; adding weight, complexity and cost. Of course, automakers are happy to ditch the once proud "mass customization" trend. Limiting possible build combinations curtails manufacturing and delivery complexity. Forcing consumers into unwanted features to obtain fittings they deem essential is an inherently profitable business.

Taken to its meridian, enforced 'feature creep' results in duo-spec vehicles like Scion's tC. Scion's sportiest comes with just two factory options: a slushbox and side airbags/window curtains. A great deal of attention has been lavished on the fact that Scion sells a huge range of dealer-installed options, from lighted cupholders to strut bars. Yet few question the fact that every tC comes larded with power everything (windows, locks, mirrors, and signature dual-element sunroof), 17" alloys, six-speaker CD, keyless entry, etc.

Given tC's admittedly reasonable price point (circa $16.5k), enthusiasts seemingly have little to carp about. But hang on– Scion's "sports" coupe weighs more than 3,000lbs. Admittedly, the gobs of sound deadening jacketing the interior account for some of its ballast. But much of tC's scale-tipping largesse arrives courtesy the electrical gubbins. And it doesn't take Colin Chapman to realize that weight is to dynamics what Jessica Simpson is to music.

Looking for a low-spec Hummer H3 with a price approaching the basic msrp? Hankering for a sports car without a hole cut in the roof? Then forget your local dealer's lot. They've been quick to cash in on the high-content, high profit racket by purposefully stocking a preponderance of highly-spec'd models. Twenty years ago, state-of-the-art in dealer grafting consisted of hundred-dollar pinstripes and paint sealant. Today's automotive brokers are infinitely savvier, baking-in more revenue streams. What's true in Congress is true among car dealers: pork = profits.

This axiom also works on back end; many of today's most popular electronic butlers (juiced windows, automatic climate control, etc.) account for the most frequent out-of-warranty repairs. With drivelines capable of lengthy distances between scheduled maintenance (and even longer between tune-ups), service bays would lay barren if it weren't for electrical gremlins. Just ask your local Volkswagen franchisee.

Perhaps the most confounding issue facing enthusiasts today is a lack of available manual transmissions. Aficionados checking manufacturers' websites might note that Honda still offers a DIY Accord, or that the latest car rag just tested a Mazda6 with a stick-shift. Attempting to find and purchase an equivalent example is about as easy as nailing Jell-O to a tree. Buying a manual often necessitates placing an order or shipping from another state– at which point shoppers can kiss most applicable financing incentives goodbye.

The problem doesn't just affect enthusiasts. Safety-minded motorists are also afflicted by option glomming. Nissan Maxima buyers must plump for an automatic transmission, moonroof, leather and high-end stereo to secure Vehicle Dynamic Control. Want a Chevrolet Cobalt with anti-slip? No problem, just sign-on for power windows and locks. This sort of options-sheet wrangling isn't just counterintuitive– it's manipulative. Bundling a certain suspension package with an aero kit is understandable, but forcing consumers to shell-out for unrelated, unwanted 'features' just to gain an extra margin of safety is downright despicable.

And the problem is getting worse. Thanks to the sucess of semi-mandatory feature bundles, sticker prices are increasing, and increasingly confusing. Curb weights are continuing to rise. It's time for carmakers to re-think the bundling strategy, to return to mass customization. A more flexible spec sheet may generate less immediate profit, but it creates long-term loyalty and a better shot at capturing a wider audience. If short-term greed continues to dominate, niches will shrink even as the risk of failure increases. The old new way was better.

Accord and Camry owners: "You're Welcome." At the risk of sounding sniffy, Toyota and Honda owners owe a large debt of gratitude to Nissan. Without the Altima, rival pink-slippers might still be trundling around in severely underpowered appliances. Rewind to 2002, when Nissan lit a fire under the collective backsides of every carmaker in the family sedan segment. At the time, Altima's haute-couture shape and Tabasco-infused engine gave competing engineers gray hair– and their marching papers. How else do you explain today's 240hp Accord?

That was then. And this is… later. Fortunately, while Nissan's busied itself immolating the wick at both ends of their considerable lineup, they haven't lost sight of the car that put them back in the game. I submit Exhibit 'SE-R'. Okay, so the new uber-Altima only boasts a modest bump in horsepower (10) and an extra ratio (6) in the manual gearbox. But don't be misled: the revised Altima is no trim-and-tape proposition designed to hold the fort until reinforcements arrive. It's yet another leap forward for Nissan's standard bearer.

Today's showrooms teem with vehicles with false pretensions. Four door 'coupes.' Hardtop convertibles. 'Sport' wagons. SUV-schnozzed minivans. Hybrid-powered trucks. At best, most crossbreeds and half-casts are insincere. At worst, they're incestuous counterfeits. In Nissan's case, the Maxima no longer lives up to its 'four door sports car' billing. The Quest is a minivan masquerading as modern art. The Murano is an SUV that doesn't want to get its feet wet. So consider the Xterra Nissan's mea culpa. It does exactly what it says on the tin: it's a truck's truck.

Nissan's new Xterra is based on yet another variant of the company's stout F-Alpha platform, first seen underpinning the massive Titan. As with the previous iteration, the new model is a fantastically buff, well-resolved form– butch without being vulgar. Clipped overhangs and purposefully-vesicated sheetmetal give it the muscular good looks of a gym rat. If the compact SUV segment were an elementary school playground, Xterra would liberate its classmates of lunch money, yet they'd all feel cooler by association.

It's been a while since I've driven a death car. My mind casts back to tail-happy 911's, centrifugal Corvettes, terrifying TVR's and flaming Ferraris. These days, very few car companies build cars that seduce you into serious speed, then blow up, fall apart, flip over and/or throw you into a solid object. I reckon I've survived enough motorized mayhem to know a death machine when I Ford GT one. So I was a little surprised when I turned at a four-way intersection, squeezed the gas and nearly drove the new Mitsubishi Eclipse GT into a parked car.

Torque steer. It's that squirrelly squirming sensation that tells you that a front-wheel-drive car's driven wheels are desperately scrabbling for grip. The Mitsubishi Eclipse GT is a torque steer poster child. Feed the Eclipse's 263hp engine some major revs and mid-course corrections are instantly out of the question– and that's WITH traction control. All you can do is saw away at the steering wheel, back off the gas and wait for the tires to grab enough tarmac to return you to normal programming.

You wouldn't turn a golf cart into an SUV, so why turn an SUV into a golf cart? And yet here we are in a Toyota Highlander Hybrid, gliding away from a traffic light like we're heading for the eighth tee. Mash the gas and the hybrid's petrol-powered engine kicks-in with the tiniest of judders. Instantly, there's more than enough petrol-powered propulsion to quickly distance ourselves from the following foursome– just as long as we stay on the fairway. According to the Toyota Motor Corp, even the high-spec, four-wheel-drive Highlander Hybrid SUV is "not designed to be driven off road".

Nor is it designed to be driven like a sports car. Which is a shame. You only need a Nissan Pathfinder or Ford Explorer doggie-sniffing your rear bumper once to realize that a surprising number of SUV owners like to drive like Hell. On the face of it, the Highlander Hybrid seems the ideal whip for supersonic Soccer Moms and NASCAR dads: 268hp (gas and electric engine power combined), zero to 60 in just 7.3 seconds and a tree-hugging rep to hide behind at cocktail parties and speed traps. The reality is less stirring.

The Nissan Maxima is the Madonna of mid-priced motors. It can perform wild and sensational stunts, come home, pop on the kettle and write heart-warming children's books. Not bad for a car whose roots stretch back to 1981, when it was a 120hp wagon called a Datsun 810. Those days, salesmen probably threw in a couple of lawn chairs and two tickets to Grease at the drive-in to move the metal. Now all they have to do is toss a potential customer the keys.

Or just let them study the car for a while. The Maxima's body looks the way the Cadillac CTS wishes it did, before its designer decided to run for Mayor of Polygon Town. It's a clean, fresh design that's deceptively attractive. At first glance, it's easy to mistake the Maxima for another Japanese blandmobile. But then, as you experience the car's perfect proportions and restrained detailing in various lights and settings, the design begins to work its magic. Before you know it, words like 'handsome' and 'Nissan' seem less like oxymorons, and more like an invitation to a VIP room.

Vice President Spiro Agnew used to call the press 'nattering nabobs of negativism'. The barb was part of Agnew's campaign against the press during the Nixon administration. Today, GM and its apologists are also accusing journalists of negative bias. While their language isn't as colorful as the disgraced Veep's, the idea is the same: GM is the victim of a malicious media. Sure, the company has a few 'issues', but the media's perception of GM's products (and therefore the public's) lags behind reality. GM isn't bad. It's just misunderstood.

This anti-media bunkering was recently emboldened by customer surveys from Strategic Vision Inc. and JD Power. In Strategic Vision's 'Total Quality Award', GM scored more victories than any other manufacturer. Six GM products took the top slot in their genre: the Pontiac G6, Buick Rainier, GMC Sierra, Cadillac Escalade, Chevrolet Corvette and Hummer H2 (tied with the Range Rover). Given the G6' lukewarm reviews, the scorn heaped upon the gas-guzzling Hummer and the cold shoulder afforded the Ranier, Sierra and Escalade; the survey provided plenty of ammunition for GM supporters who consider the press 'hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history'. Well it ain't necessarily so.

Strategic Vision's Total Quality Award study is based on founder Dr. Darrell Edwards' 'Tree of ValueCentered Knowledge', a 'comprehensive theory of human behavior… that describes, explains, and predicts choices that any individual or group of individuals might make'. Strategic Vision uses this trademarked theoretical construct to measure a customer's feelings of 'balance, self-esteem, freedom and security' as they relate to a product. Strategic claims to have quizzed over 40,000 new car owners about, well, I'm still not really sure.

Even if you accept Strategic's enigmatic methodology, there are serious questions about the company's independence. Strategic lists GM, Daimler Chysler, BMW, Kia, Nissan, Ford and Volvo as clients. Is it a coincidence that these companies topped 18 of the 20 categories? I'm not qualified to comment on the Buick Ranier's ability to foster self-esteem, but the fact that this obscure vehicle scooped best mid-size SUV– on any level– is deeply suspicious.

JD Power's 2005 Initial Quality Study (IQS) appears to be more scientific than Strategic Vision's touchy feely assessment. JD quizzed 62k customers after the first 100 days of new vehicle ownership, measuring 135 attributes in nine categories (e.g. ride and handling). The survey establish a vehicle's 'problems per 100 vehicles' (pp100). JD awarded five GM products top slots in their segments: the Chevrolet Malibu, Buick Century, Buick LaSabre, GM Sierra and Chevrolet Suburban. Once again, the results are good news for GM (accepted without question by the 'pusillanimous pussyfoots' of the press). Once again, the results do not speak for themselves.

For one thing, JD's methodology is not subject to independent review. They also sell their services to the same companies they investigate. Equally important, the IQS gauges the discrepency between a customer's expectations and their experience. By that standard, JD's survey tells you more about a car's owner than the product's build quality. The results may well reveal nothing more profound than the fact that a working class Malibux Maxx owner is less demanding than a white collar Porsche owner.

The results may also be irrelevant. Since 1978, the auto's industry pp100 average has dropped from 176 to 118. As anyone who ever bought a car in the 70's will tell you, ALL vehicles are better than they were, most are damn fine and very few require lemon-aid. I wouldn't want to be at the bottom of JD Power's IQS chart, but neither would I assume that a top ranking equals brand loyalty.

Of course, neither of these psychological surveys is a reliable indicator of a vehicle's popularity in the only arena where it really counts: the commercial marketplace. There is only one objective measure for that: the sales charts. By this accounting, the vast majority of GM's cars, trucks and SUV's are failing to cut the proverbial mustard. Fixing that trend is the best– indeed, the ONLY way– to silence the 'impudent corps of effete snobs' known as GM's critics.

Mr. Witzenburg's recent TTAC editorial criticized Mr. Farago for his anti-GM bias and asked us to give the domestic automaker a fair shake. While I respect Mr. Witzenburg's loyalty and patriotism, he seems to have overlooked the fact that his former employer makes some truly awful automobiles. As the cornerstone of his defence, the automotive journalist asked readers to name one– just one– poorly-made car from the General Motors line-up. Alright then, what about the Chevrolet Cavalier?

My best friend, sister and mother all had the displeasure of owning a Cavalier ('94, '00, '04). During their stewardship, pieces fell off, the electronics failed (headlights, windows, and stereo) and there were several major mechanical failures (transmission starter, alternator and master brake cylinder). Witzenburg may dismiss these complaints as relating to an "old" design, but their saga is not peculiar to the Cavalier. Perhaps owners of other GM products would like to email their tales of woe to Mr. Witzenburg. Anyway, a car company is only as good/bad as their weakest model.

I also reject Witzenburg's argument that build quality is everything; he claims you can't criticize a GM product simply because you don't like it. Sorry? Why not? Despite Mr. Witzenberg's affections for JD Power, 'objective' quality surveys are not the ultimate measure of an automaker's products. It's whether or not people like their vehicles enough to buy them. Is Witzenburg saying that people are "wrong" because they don't like a GM car's looks, handling, performance or cost of ownership? GM may still sell a Hell of a lot of cars, but their declining market share says it's GM– not its customers– that's been getting it badly wrong, for a long, long time. To suggest otherwise is blaming the victim.

There's another way to gauge the public's general regard for GM's products: depreciation. If GM was making great cars, they'd all hold their value like a Honda Accord. They don't. For example, within one year, the aforementioned Cavaliers shed nearly 45% of their original value. In fact, the pro-GM writer should click-on-over to kbb.com and have a look at the used car values right across the GM range. There's no better place to get a feel for how little the public thinks about GM's engineering and design.

But let's get back to new product. Continuing our quest for lousy cars, how about Saturn? They may last a long time, but is that a good thing? Most of these cars use plastic far cheaper than Mattel dinky-cars. They have underpowered engines, terrible interiors, weak suspensions, junk brakes and dismally uninspired interiors. And they're ugly. The media reports that GM will rectify all of these problems with a new batch of high-quality product. Now where have I heard THAT before?

While many cars in GM's line-up aren't lousy in and of themselves, they're clearly not "up" to the competition. The top-spec Saab 9-5 is a nice car, but so is a fully-loaded Nissan Altima, for $10k less. Or, for the same price as the Saab, how about a BMW 525? The Bimmer's retained value would even pay for a few extra toys. Buick's latest and greatest, the Lacrosse, or a Nissan Maxima? Guess which is cheaper, better styled in and out, has more power, better gearing, and still gets better fuel economy. Bottom line, in every situation, there's at least two or three compelling reasons to buy from GM's competition.

Witzenburg and his supporters like to point to the one supposed bright spot in GM's constellation: Cadillac. Although the CTS is a great car that builds on the Escalade's success/excess, Cadillac is hardly out of the woods. The XLR and STS are both perilously close to being flops: over-priced and under-deluxed. Again, check the sales charts; Caddy have yet to prove that they have what it takes to take-on Lexus, BMW, Mercedes, etc. and win. And again, cliff-face depreciation tells the tale of a division with more pretensions than product.

It's time for GM and its supporters to wake up. The only people giving them high numbers on surveys are those that don't know anything about cars, or what a decent car actually feels like to drive. When they do try a GM competitor's product, they usually don't come back. You can shout that GM makes great cars until you're blue in the face, but the there's no getting around the fact that people aren't buying them– any of them– like they used to. There's a lot of good reasons for that, and it isn't media propaganda. Until and unless GM builds great cars, like it or not, it's going to get exactly what it deserves.

Yup, the Griswolds are back. Or as near as I can figure, anyway… because this Honda Pilot is surely the Clark clan carrier incarnate. Granted, someone's gone and prized off the Wagon Queen Family Truckster badging, coating its formerly pea-green flanks with something called 'Redrock Pearl'. But make no mistake: despite whatever lip service the Pilot pays to off-road cred, Honda has chamfered what few edges remain on the SUV franchise and produced a whale of a big foul-weather wagon.

When Toyota Chairman Hiroshi Okuda proposed raising the price of his company's products to help floundering US automakers, industry insiders didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The idea that inflating Toyota sticker prices would lead US consumers back into GM or Ford showrooms is so ludicrous that Okuda's comment struck many as a malicious joke. Either that or the head of the world's second largest carmaker hasn't driven a Ford, lately. To get a consumer to choose a Ford or GM product over a similarly priced Toyota, the Japanese would have to tack on a couple of grand. At least.

Although Okuda quickly recanted, the brouhaha focused yet more unwanted attention on Ford and GM's lackluster products. It's one thing for your bond status to head for the junk pile, it's another for potential customers to hear that the Japanese feel sorry for you. Of course, from a marketing point of view, Okuda's offer was a masterstroke; potential car buyers now have good reason to believe that Toyotas are underpriced. From an industry point of view, Okuda placed not one but two elephants in the room.

The first pachyderm is a media fantasy: import tariffs. Yes, there was once a time when Detroit covered its ass by taxing Japan's. Those days are gone. The Big Three are now importing an enormous amount of parts and products from abroad (e.g. Korean cars re-badged as Chevy's and Chrysler's plans to sell Chinese-made cars). An import tax would hurt the domestics as much as the Japanese. And now that Toyota, Honda and Nissan ARE domestics, an anti-import tax would be, well, silly.

The second elephant, another media invention, is that Okuda's comments indicate that he's worried about the potentially crippling impact of a GM or Ford collapse on the US economy. The reasoning is as simple as it is stupid: if GM or Ford go under, their extinction would damage the US economy so severely that fewer American consumers would be able to buy Toyotas. In other words, Okuda will do anything (including increasing his company's profit margins) to save the wounded domestics, to ensure his company's long-term success.

This logic assumes that corporate chieftains like Okuda have a deeper insight into "how things really are" than your local shopkeeper. Maybe, but I doubt it– especially when you consider the wisdom of Okuda's executive counterparts at Mitsubishi. In any case, it's laughable to paint Okuda as an altruist. Show me a shopkeeper who doesn't want his competition to F-off and die.

The Revelations theory also assumes that when General Motors sneezes, America catches a cold. Again, those days are gone. The US economy is far more broadly-based than it was when GM supposedly called the tune. If GM or Ford bought the farm, there'd be a lot of hand-wringing and the stock market would plummet, but the vast majority of the US population would go right on buying food, videos, houses and… cars. In fact, the chances are excellent that a stricken domestic carmaker would quickly re-organize itself and survive, significantly leaner and meaner (did I hear someone say crippling health care costs?) than before.

Of course, no one would want to see tens of thousands of workers join the welfare rolls (especially regional politicians). But let's face facts: propping up a terminally ill multi-national corporation just to protect jobs is the worst type of socialism. And the last time I looked, the US economy is a capitalist system. If GM or Ford dies because they take in less money than they spend, it will– eventually– strengthen the US economy. In fact, protecting GM or Ford would play straight into Okuda's hands; insulating the domestics from market forces would allow them to continue to producing unpopular cars, trucks and SUV's.

Hmmm. Maybe THAT was Okuda's cunning plan: to help GM and Ford stay afloat so that Toyota could continue to compete against a couple of paper tigers. Oh well. Never mind. The most important thing about Okuda's offer is that it's completely unimportant. It's a distraction from the main game: building vehicles that kick Toyota's butt. If Okuda's taunts energize complacent executives at Ford and GM into doing just that, then they're a blessing in disguise. If not, the US execs deserve Okuda's abuse, and worse.

Personally, I think Bob Lutz and Bill Ford missed a golden opportunity. They should have responded to Okuda's statement by announcing that their dealers would offer an extra 10% on all Toyotas trade-ins. But if they thought that way, and had the products to back it up, they wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

Once upon a time there was a luxury car manufacturer in America. The company virtually owned the luxury car business, both at home and abroad. Their cars were the gold standard for expensive cars, and rich and powerful people the world over bought and used them. They easily sold more luxury cars in America than most of their competitors combined. Their reputation for engineering innovation and excellence was unsurpassed. All of the best custom body builders clamored to make special show cars for them, in hopes that they could make it into the sales catalogue this company published every December.

Then came hard times. The stock market bubble popped. Thousands of people lost their jobs. And, the market for luxury cars started to dwindle. To make matters worse, the company's major competitor in America started to build bigger and more luxurious cars, and developed a reputation as a true engineering innovator in their own right.

Top managers, many of whom had been with the company for decades, agonized about what they should do. To do nothing was to ensure that the company would spend all of their savings and go out of business in a few years. The answer, they decided, was to build a car that would sell for substantially less than their traditional luxury models. Thus was born the Packard 120, in 1936.

The 120 was, by all accounts, a pretty nice car. It was powered by a smooth straight 8 engine, and it carried the traditional Packard grill and radiator ornament proudly. But it was no custom built luxury car, just a mass-produced, medium priced vehicle, a Packard one could buy for the price of an Oldsmobile or a Buick. The sales success of the 120 saved the day for Packard, and the company managed to stay in business for another couple of decades. The underpinnings of the 120 provided the basis for many Packard models, like the Clipper and the infamous bathtub Packards of the early 50s.

But the day that ordinary people could afford a Packard marked the end of the company as a viable luxury car manufacturer. Packard's demise as America's luxury car was guaranteed when the town's richest banker glanced out the window of his chauffeur-driven Packard as he left the estate, only to see his gardener arriving in a Packard. In just a few years, Cadillac overtook Packard in luxury car sales, and wrested the crown of American luxury away from Packard for good.

Fast-forward 60 years, to the 2005 North American International Auto Show, in Detroit. Lincoln, reeling from a 50% drop in sales over the last 5 years, announced the new Lincoln Zephyr. Priced to compete with the Nissan Maxima and the Toyota Avalon, the Zephyr is the lowest priced Lincoln (inflation adjusted) ever offered. While the Zephyr appears to be a very nice medium priced car (it is, after all, made from a Mazda 6) it faces some pretty tough competition. The Zephyr, like the Packard 120, will allow thousands of new owners to sail down the road behind a Lincoln grill and hood ornament. If it sells well, Lincoln will make some money, but at what cost to the Lincoln brand? Will the average hip-hop artist still want a Lincoln Navigator when he sees the bartender at his favorite club drive up in a Lincoln Zephyr?

Lincoln's Town Car is already suffering under the onslaught of a revitalized Cadillac and a host of other tough luxury car competitors. Once the car of choice for stretch limo converters, it is rapidly being displaced by the new Cadillac DTS. The Lincoln LS, aimed at the BMW 3 series, is failing, despite offering a V8 to the 3 series 6. The Navigator is in a fierce sales duel with SUVs from Porsche (Porsche!), BMW, Lexus, Land Rover, Cadillac and others, and the Aviator appears never to have lifted off the runway. Moving the Lincoln brand downscale threatens the viability of these products even more.

It is rare that a luxury carmaker recovers from flirting with downscale products. Packard never recovered, and Cadillac, after the unfortunate Cimarron and Catera, discovered that it takes many years and many billions of dollars in new products, to begin to turn around a cheapened image. Jaguar is in the process of discovering this, in the wake of the X-type debacle. Even Infiniti found that cheapening the brand caused it to lose all value in the US.

Ironically, the first Zephyr, in 1936, was Lincoln's answer to the Packard 120 and the LaSalle. It didn't carry the Lincoln name, just as LaSalle didn't carry the Cadillac name. The value of the Lincoln name wasn't squandered on a medium priced car, and lived on in the first Lincoln Continental, and a host of other fine cars.

Detroit execs have been too quick to sell the idea that consumers' clocks have struck midnight and turned the hardcore small SUV and pickup party into a pumpkin. Ask any domestic automaker, and today's smart truck money is almost exclusively on the crossover market. And while it's true that all-wheel-drive softroaders are hot, the notion that Americans won't pony up for a charismatic, purposeful body-on-frame compact is utter nonsense. The segment's erosion has far more to do with a dearth of compelling product than it does with the rise of alternative classes.

Need proof? Look no further than Jeep's evergreen Wrangler. Despite underpinnings hewn from Woolly Mammoth tusks and a convertible top that only a masochist could love, it continues to sell smartly year after year, decade after decade. In fact, its sales have actually been trending UPWARD as of late– no doubt thanks in part to the overdue addition of Jeep's Unlimited model (and the brand's ever-present cult of personality).

Of course, not every vehicle possesses Jeep's iconic style and enviable lineage. But that hasn't stopped Nissan from doing a decent trade in its Xterra. Based on a then-aging Frontier pickup, the first generation model quickly capitalized on the unrealized demand for an authentic 'purist's' SUV, almost in spite of itself. Overlooking more cheap plastic rattles than a Tic-Tac factory, those much-coveted 'extreme-sports' types lined up, smitten with the Xterra's beefcake visuals (jungle-gym roof rack, first-aid kit tailgate blister, etc.). Freshly bulked up, the second-generation Xterra remedies its predecessor's deplorable on-road manners and exiguous power allotment, all while fortifying its off-road credibility.

Sadly, the best a domestic compact truck intender can hope for these days is Ford's moth-eaten Ranger and General Motors' instantly-dated Colorado/Canyon twins. Loyalists looking to trade-in their old examples have been understandably reluctant to shell out for what amounts to dent-free versions of what they already own. It comes as little surprise, given Ranger's oatmeal-like constitution and appearance. GM's duo manages better, but suffers from a poorly conceived engine range and interiors exuding more plastic flashing than Anna Nicole.

Worryingly, there's little relief in sight. Bill's boffins continually push afield a Ranger replacement, and GM's ColCan is still too light on calendar pages to receive a meaningful upgrade. Worse still, neither appears to be anywhere close to introducing a hardcore demi-ute. Of course, flag-wavers still have Dodge's Dakota and Durango, but their available V8s are thirsty and less powerful than competitor's V6s, and neither remotely says 'compact.'

Which brings us to the Japanese. Once-dormant Nissan has moved closer to fine with its confident new Frontier. Formerly a knock-kneed, oddly styled also-ran, Nissan wisely plugged its Titan full-sizer into a Xerox machine set on 'Mini-Me,' resulting in a powerful and competitive midsize offering.

And while Toyota's long been guilty of misunderstanding the needs of the American truck buyer (the too-small T-100 begetting the too-small Tundra, etc.), that's no longer true. The Tacoma now impresses with its configurability and segment-defining power and refinement. What's more, the forthcoming FJ Cruiser signifies Toyota's intention to transcend its reputation for trafficking solely in the safe, sanitized, and reliable. If its throwback off-roader arrives cheaply enough, expect a colossal hit.

It didn't have to be this way. Ford's delectable derv-burning Bronco concept went down a storm at the 2004 NAIAS, and should've been fast-tracked for production immediately. However (and somewhat predictably), Dearborn lacks suitable drawers in its hamper for the SUV, and the Bronco remains mired in feasibility studies. At last word, Ford's Brazilian-built EcoSport platform is under consideration, but such rumblings lack promise. An old school off-roader masquerading atop a car-derived monocoque? Umm, no.

Lest we forget, in 2002, Dodge's M80 concept promised to put the 'body' back in 'body-on-frame.' Retro-steeped yet forward thinking, John Opfer's design was enthusiastically received by press and consumer alike, but the much-discussed 'shrinking small pickup market' shriveled Dodge's cojones in the end. Pity, as it would've made for a nifty little SUV, too.

It's tragic. The Big Three desperately need solid-selling small trucks to boost their CAFE figures and improve their lot among younger buyers. As it stands, the Ranger and Colorado lose ground minute by minute, their numbers propped to competitiveness largely via incentives and fleet sales. Dodge is the closest domestic to righting its ship, but remains well adrift.

Look: just a few years ago, most execs completely wrote off rear-wheel-drive family sedans, station wagons and hatchbacks. DCX's wildly successful 300 and Magnum, along with BMW's MINI illustrate that the right products write their own demand curves, statistics be damned. It's a shame Detroit remains oblivious to the latent sales potential in the small 'true' pickup/SUV segments, because their competitors aren't likely to make the same mistake.