Also, commentary re: GM

From Eric Felten's De Gustibus column yesterday

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With General Motors fresh out of bankruptcy, veteran GM exec Robert A. Lutz took to the Internet this week to do some crotchety cheerleading in a chat at the company's Web site. One questioner had the temerity to write: "In my group it is just uncool to drive a GM car -- even if they are as good as the imports." He asked Mr. Lutz how he planned to turn that attitude around.

"I guess it depends whether you have your own personality or whether you are a lemming-like follower of current trends," Mr. Lutz grouched. "I think an audacious and bold person with a mind of his or her own would go to a dealership and see that our new vehicles easily trounce the foreign competition. . . . It's uncool to drive an import." Some salesmanship.

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The sad little South Korean Daewoo subcompact that Chevy markets as the Aveo is slated to be replaced in 2011 with the Chevy Spark, another Korean product. The Spark has the hyperactive angularity common to small Asian autos. What, other than that nervous grin of a grill, makes the car a Chevrolet? Where's the "Heartbeat of America"?

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What an irony for GM, a company that made its bones by selling cars with better looks than its competitors. In 1926, GM honcho Alfred P. Sloan wrote to the head of the Buick division to emphasize "how much appearance has to do with sales; with all cars fairly good mechanically it is a dominating proposition and in a product such as ours where the individual appeal is so great, it means a tremendous influence on our future prosperity." GM keeps saying that it has rediscovered the joys of being good mechanically, but the appearance part of the old Sloan equation still eludes them.

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