Interesting commentary:

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The current Detroit enthusiasm for global engineering and design is
amazing considering how often it fails to score with American buyers.

My impression is that Americans just don't think much of European
design. You might say Mercedes and BMW are successful. They are: But
their 530,000 combined sales for cars and trucks, out of a market of
almost 17 million, is a limited success.

Care to look at the failures? Start with Volkswagen and its Golf,
popular in Europe but a flop here.

Go to Ford. The Contour and Mystique were American versions of the
European Mondeo. They failed. There is the Ford Focus, a
European-designed small car that started moderately well in the U.S.
but is seriously slumping.

Go to GM. Remember the Cadillac Catera, an Opel with Cadillac badges,
imported here? A flop. How about the Saturn LS, a European platform
with a plastic skin, a flop and now gone like Cateras and
Contour/Mystique. The Saturn Ion was another of those Euro platforms
used here. The most successful of the Global/European platform cars
sold here is the Chevy Malibu, the fleet special, which even GM
executives say is a design bore.

But this doesn't stop executives from thinking the answer to their
problems, particularly at GM, is at the global approach. Whenever you
bring up the failures, they just brush them aside or say they weren't
done well enough. The idea that Americans really don't care for the
European approach is beyond their radar.

Here are just a few of my complaints with this mindset. There's no
global exchange here. What GM and Ford want to build are European cars
with Euro platforms and European engineering. They just want American
badges on them. The design freedom for the American versions is quite
limited because they can only work off the Euro platforms.

If this continues, it won't be long before Americans at GM and Ford
won't be able to design and engineer a car. They'll just do pickups.
Look at General Motors: GM forgot how to do a rear-drive car and had to
borrow from GM Australia. No American car platforms get transferred for
European production. It's a one-way street. Yet the American market,
and GM and Ford's share in it, are much larger than the European
vehicle market or the GM/Ford shares.

You even see some of this thinking with trucks. When GM wanted a small
pickup, the Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon, they started with a truck
they build in Thailand. That's the global approach. It's supposed to
save money. Of course, they couldn't get a V-6 in that pickup, but who
needs a V-6? Toyota decided to do a thoroughly American new small
pickup truck, the Tacoma. They figured what appeals in Texas might be
more important that what sells in Thailand.  Right now that Tacoma is
outselling the combined GM models 2 to 1.

Now I have said the models never go the other way. So far that has been
true. GM adapted its minivan designs so that the American-built models
could be shipped to Europe. But the Europeans at GM never really wanted
them and the exports stopped. GM made a big fuss about the European
potential of its Cadillac Seville a few years back, but the GM
Europeans never really wanted to sell them. It has occurred to me that
the GM people in Europe want to design and build their own vehicles,
not sell U.S.-made cars.

Now they will have another chance to take an American car. The GM
Pontiac Solstice plant will build a version, called the Opel GT, for GM
in Europe. It will be interesting to see if the GM Germans actually try
to sell it, or if they bury them as they have those American-made
vehicles in the past.

Aura of success?

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Opel designs will sell here. The coming Saturn
Aura, which is an Opel design, looks good. It could be successful.

But I still say this is a huge market. There's no reason that we
shouldn't be able to design and build cars for our market profitably,
building what our people like, instead of taking a second-best
compromise - meaning, the best car we could make out of a car really
designed for the European tastes.

Ironically, the one company that seems to think there is something
positive in American design is Chrysler, which has German ownership.
The Chrysler 300, the Dodge Magnum and Charger don't borrow styling
from Europe. The smaller models, the PT Cruiser and the new Dodge
Caliber, are distinctive, too.

What about Toyota and its global success? Remember that the
best-selling Camry sold in America is not the same car they sell in
Europe.

What sounds better? Having Detroit design and engineer cars for the
American buyer or adapting European designs for America? And how much
money can be saved if the vehicles have to be built here anyway? The
factory and the tooling are the major costs. No savings there.

Frankly, German GM, meaning Opel, has been flopping anyway and is just
now trying to turn around. What makes anyone at GM think they can build
a better car than we can?

I recall the then-chairman of Ford, standing with me as we looked at
the new Contour. He said. "If this doesn't work we'll never try it
again." It didn't work but they haven't stopped trying to shove Euro
designs down our throats.
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Patrick