A proposal that the nation’s vehicles be graded on fuel economy evokes Nathaniel Hawthorne’s bitter 19-century romance novel, The Scarlet Letter.

But in this case, the federal government supplies the public scorn, while light trucks — on the rise again in popularity — are poised to bear the mark of shame.

The proposal, one of two developed by the EPA and DOT, suggests window stickers be emblazoned with letter-grades. An MPG rating of 59-116 would earn an A, while 14-15 would merit a C-.

Problem: Every vehicle, regardless of its intended application, would be subject to the same scale. That’s like administering SATs K-through-12 and expecting a fair assessment of the student body.

Based on the ‘10 model-year fleet, a Honda Civic Hybrid compact sedan would get an A-, the showroom equivalent of a gold star. Meanwhile, a Ford F-150 fullsize pickup with 4-wheel drive would end up with a C, spitting distance from the dunce cap.

No malice intended, according to the federal agencies, which signed off on a sticker designed by “an expert panel” of communications pros. “Our interest was in making sure that we were clear,” says EPA Assistant Administrator Gina McCarthy.

Indeed. The mockup, which features a bold, black letter encircled in yellow, is as neutral as a bull’s eye.



While the mark reflects only fuel economy, the stigma is undeniable for anyone who has ever suffered the icy stares of schoolyard eggheads.

But there is no “failing grade,” McCarthy offers.

Really? As a high-school sophomore, I told my mother there’s no shame in a straight-C report card. She didn’t buy it.

And that’s what worries auto makers and their stakeholders. Will consumers, regardless of their need, be more or less inclined to buy vehicles that remind them of underachieving former classmates?

The second proposal accounts for vehicle segments by citing, for all to see, a vehicle’s estimated city/highway mpg rating. This leaves consumers free to establish their own performance benchmarks.

But as the U.S. market’s truck-vs.-car split inches upward toward 50:50, as it did in July, consider the F-150’s fate under a letter-grade system. The best-selling vehicle in North America since chalk met slate, and it doesn’t even warrant a B-?

I wonder how Honda would feel if tow ratings were accorded the same billing as fuel economy and Civic Hybrid stickers got slapped with an enormous D?

As in Hawthorne’s morality play, Puritanism is alive and well in Washington. Which means the writing is on the wall for pickups, minivans and utility vehicles.

Americans don’t like being told what to do.

But for a raw glimpse of American rebelliousness, try PROHIBITING them from doing something. Especially when that something is a common courtesy afforded other Americans and the prohibition stems from making an “unpopular” personal choice.

UAW President Bob King has emphatically declared vehicles that are not assembled by his constituents should be banned from union property. And his rationale is solid, if not downright noble.

In a public letter explaining why a Kansas City Business Journal reporter was forced to park elsewhere when he drove his Toyota Camry to a UAW office in Missouri, King defends the policy.



“Foreign auto makers that allow workers to freely join unions in their home countries while denying that same right to American workers are denying the First-Amendment right of American workers to freely organize,” King writes in the Business Journal.

In other words, the parking restriction is a protest. Ironically, such protest is guaranteed by the same Constitution that enabled the offending purchase. But I digress.

King is referring to the climate of fear allegedly nurtured in the nation’s transplants.

The file cabinets at the National Labor Relations Board are full of complaints about threats leveled at aspiring UAW members by non-union auto makers. And every American, not just labor activists, should be outraged by this.

But will denying parking spots win the hearts and minds of freedom-lovers?

You know the answer. And, I suspect, so does Bob King.

At the recent Management Briefing Seminars, the annual industry confab in Traverse City, MI, the new UAW president extended an olive branch to the transplants. Management at the nation’s overseas-based auto makers will be presented with a truce-like document, to be co-signed by the UAW, that promises an end to intimidation by both sides.

So why, then, are parking lots still a battlefield? Banishing some Americans while embracing others promises only resentment.

While sales are inching upward, no industry stakeholder can afford to alienate potential customers. And these days, as perceived quality finally is catching up with reality, everyone is a potential customer.

See a Saab parked at Solidarity House? Put a pamphlet on the windshield.

My ultimate vision of America is one where UAW members are ambassadors, not bullies. They are more passionate about the vehicles they build than the most desperate dealer.

Mobilize them, Bob. Don’t incite them to tell me what I can and cannot do.

There’s less mud-slinging in design studios these says. More often it’s done virtually.

And that’s where the opportunities lie for aspiring designers, says Peter Hobury, vice president-design at Sweden-based Volvo Cars.

Design studios are producing fewer clay models because the tube affords more accurate evaluation of shape and fit, thanks to software advancements and ever-increasing computing power.

“Makes life a lot easier,” Hobury tells me recently. “More efficient. You do it quicker. And you see things, truly, in three dimensions. The engineers from the engine department send us the latest engine package. So if you design a hood and you see this bright red air cleaner sticking up through it, you know you’ve got a problem.



“A computer tells you immediately you need to raise the hood or talk to the guy doing the engines. With a clay model, you don’t see that.”

Therefore, “it’s not a bad idea to perfect the skill of computer modeling,” Horbury adds, confiding he has hired designers who started out as Alias practioners.

And some computer modelers have migrated from the ranks of clay modelers.

“They make the best modelers, to be honest,” Horbury says. “They understand three dimensions better.”

Our conversation arises as the job market for designers shows signs of a turnaround.

Auto makers, particularly those in China, are looking for people. But only those with design talent AND computer modeling skills — a trend recent and future graduates should heed because supply still outstrips demand.

The world’s design schools are pumping out some 500 graduates every year, Horbury estimates.

“Far too many. There’s not anywhere near the number of positions. So what happens is, if you don’t get a job within a year, there’s another 500 graduates walking out the door.”



Job Market Reopening for Designers

Government’s capacity to muck up our otherwise orderly world is beyond mind-boggling.

Consider the State Children’s Health Insurance Plan, which imposes a tax on cigars.

The rationale follows that smoking increases health risks, so make the risk-takers pay for the expected drain on resources.

Fair enough.

But fallout from the tax actually gives smokers an incentive to inhale more deeply.

“The punitive tax increases on little cigars resulting from SCHIP legislation caused some companies to increase the weight of their little cigars in order to make them large cigars,” says a Cigar Assn. of America bulletin.

Translation: the tax on small cigars is more onerous than the levy on large cigars. Want more bang for your buck? Light up a Gran Corona.

Move now to the auto industry, whipping boy for foreign-oil dependence and all the ills that go with it.

In a sober bid to retard oil consumption, politicians have long eschewed fuel-tax hikes in favor of fuel-economy standards.

Talk about blowing smoke.

The European experience has seen graduated gas tax increases (and exemptions for diesel) generate a shift to smaller, thrifty vehicles that contribute to reduced consumption.

But in the U.S., where politicians seem to bask in the glow of fossil-fuel fires, cheap gas created an insatiable demand for thirsty land yachts. And even now, as pump prices tick upward, that desire lingers like the aroma of a Don Diego Churchill.

Retired car guy (and cigar aficionado) Bob Lutz warned Washington of this outcome ages ago.

What are these guys smoking, anyway?

This time last year, it appeared the auto industry was going up in smoke.

But according to the inaugural Ward’s Automotive Group Cigar Index, a completely unofficial and unscientific economic indicator, reports of the industry’s demise are just so much puffery.



From the 2010 CAR Management Briefing Seminars, industry insider and erstwhile tobacconista Larry Weis senses a renewed vigor. The mood is “much more upbeat,” says the president and CEO of Autocom Associates, a Michigan-based communications firm.

“The people here, if their business hasn’t dramatically turned around, they’re seeing a lot of silver linings,” Weis tells me from Traverse City, MI, home to the MBS since Castro’s beard was black.

As a result, attendees have been lighting up in droves. (Outdoors, anyway. Michigan recently adopted a ban on indoor smoking.)

Based on July’s sales results, there are grounds for optimism. Clearly, the Cohiba crowd is spending again.

According to Ward’s segmentation, Large Luxury SUV sales climbed 32.1%, compared with like-2009. Deliveries of Middle Luxury CUVs and Large Luxury CUVs jumped 37% and 50%, respectively.

However, peel back the industry wrapper and the aroma is less sweet.

Ford’s sales were flat. So were Chrysler’s. Toyota and Honda were in the red.

Nissan and Hyundai bucked the trend with jumps of 10.4% and 15.1%, respectively. And allowing for the absence of volume from discontinued Pontiac, Saturn and Hummer, GM sales soared 25%.

But total light-vehicle deliveries tracked ahead of like-2009 by just 1.2% and the SAAR had to move up to reach just 11.5 million, according to Ward’s data.

So let’s be blunt.

Things are looking up, but are we where we need to be?

Close, but no cigar.

Pietro Gorlier and I are waiting for lunch at a Detroit-area roadhouse.

We are deep in conversation. Gorlier has just finished saying he will use every trick in the book — and more — to improve the customer experience at Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram dealers.

That’s when our bubbly waitress suddenly appears tableside and interrupts the president and CEO of MOPAR service, parts and customer care.

“My name is Julia,” she says. “I don’t think I told you that, OK?”

Graciously, Gorlier smiles and thanks her. After she leaves, he chuckles knowingly. Because she was just going by “the book,” the notorious, iron-clad repository of protocols that has snuffed out the American service industry’s creative spark.

In a desperate bid to guarantee consistent, high-quality service, employers have developed rigid procedures to which employees must adhere. Without fail.

Sadly, this has spawned a generation of workers who have forgotten how to think on their feet.

“They are perfect in the procedure,” Gorlier says. “But try to order something like, ‘I want this dish, but without the garlic.’”

Impossible. Because it’s not “in ‘the book,’” he adds.

Variation may be the enemy on the shop floor. But the shop floor is not the showroom floor. Or even the warehouse floor.

So Gorlier is preaching empowerment.

“You need to be reliable and consistent in creating the right experience with a very rigid process,” he says. “But then you need also to train the people to work around the problems and the issues.”

To this end, Gorlier wants some 80% of Chrysler’s dealer network to offer service on Saturdays. He also wants to proliferate while-you-wait “Express Lane” oil changes. All within three years.

Clearly, this is a new chapter in the corporate saga that is Chrysler.

Akio Toyoda showed me what he’s made of today.

The affable chief of the world’s largest (and most beleaguered) auto maker provides an impromptu tour of the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology, here in Nagoya, Japan.

He is well-qualified because the repository is populated by the handiwork of his great-grandfather, Sakichi Toyoda, inventor of the automatic loom.

Akio and I crossed accidently paths en route to meet each other. He was scheduled to explain the transformative effect of Toyota’s new quality initiative and I was set to be skeptical.

But he paused in front of a display dubbed “Type-G,” an 86-year-old, still-functioning loom he described as the “symbol of quality assurance” for the auto maker that bears his family name.

Lovingly, he cradled a wooden “shuttle,” the lynchpin of the loom’s innovative design. A dagger-shaped device, it automatically replenishes thread to ensure steady production.

Sakichi sold his design for a king’s ransom (in 1924 yen) which later served as capital to start up Toyota Motor Corp.

Not coincidentally, the Type-G loom also enabled Sakichi to increase efficiency because one worker could monitor up to 50 machines instead of remaining stationed at a single, hand-operated unit.

Ironically, such expansion contributed to quality oversights that led to a seemingly never-ending string of recalls that have kept Akio tied up in knots during his first year as the auto maker’s top executive.

But he remains unfazed, saying he never considered resigning.

“Because every Toyota car has my name on it, I have to lead the way,” he said later. “I want people to understand the real Toyota.”

Clearly a man cut from sturdy cloth.

PT Cruiser interior.

The cynic in me is flush with adrenaline after learning Land Rover will seek styling advice from ex-popster/uber-celeb Victoria ‘Posh’ Beckham.

The joke potential is off the chart. Just consider her last hit single with the Spice Girls: Who Do You Think You Are?

But I choose instead to give the benefit of doubt to Mrs. Becks. The paparazzi images, alone, suggest she has flair.

And critics might do well to remember Land Rover design guru Gerry McGovern is no Wannabe. (Spice Girls, 1996)

* * *

Further demonstrating the axiom, “It’s not what you know, but who you know,” are Lotus Cars and Volvo Cars. Albeit on a different level.

Despite their well-defined reputations, each faces an identity crisis because of ownership. Lotus has sputtered under Proton, while Volvo is confronted by the great unknown of China-based Geely.

The answer? If you are Lotus, link yourself with Bob Lutz and/or Tom Purves. If you’re Volvo, court Stefan Jacoby.

* * *

Time to say goodbye to the Chrysler PT Cruiser.

On July 9, the Pentastar brand’s overachieving CUV goes out of production in Toluca, Mexico, ending a remarkable run of 10 years and more than 1.2 million sales worldwide.

I recall a sense of betrayal the first time I saw the vehicle. Its flared fenders and forward-leaning, chopped-look greenhouse suggested Chrysler was trying to buy the kind of old-school street-cred that comes only with backyard sweat and the passage of time.

But, grudgingly, I became a fan. Because of its breakthrough interior.

What’s not to love about a C-segment package with adjustable shelving and seats that can fold flat or be removed to exploit a flat floor that helped Chrysler confound CAFE?

The interior was “the tradeoff” for that edgy exterior, retired Chrysler design chief Tom Gale told me recently.

However, during a recent farewell tour in a garishly trimmed model reminiscent of an aging showgirl, I learned what PT stands for in today’s competitive market: Past Tense.

It’s safe to say UAW President Bob King and Canadian economist Sherry Cooper run in different circles.

Both are, in my experience, bright and engaging. But the newly elected King’s everyman personna seems to clash with Cooper’s polished elegance.

So when each begins to sound like the other, you notice.

Following his first press conference as UAW chief, King smiles — knowingly, not joyfully — when I ask him about labor unrest in China that has caused hiccups for Honda and other manufacturers. “There is a lot of anger and frustration in the world,” he says, his smile quickly fading.

This echoes Cooper’s recent presentation to Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Assn. She noted China’s labor strife, saying it has contributed to wealth disparity that “makes the U.S. look like Sweden.”

Warned Cooper: “People will work for nothing for only so long.”

Against this backdrop, King not only rattles his saber, he offers a peek at an all-out battleplan to organize North America’s transplants. The UAW’s newly elected secretary-treasurer, Dennis Williams, has been assigned to spearhead the initiative, which also calls on the advocacy of rank-and-file members.

“There has been frustration in the transplants for a long time,” King says.

Auto makers such as Toyota, Honda and Nissan deny such accusations and point to the success of their non-union operations.

While King is rallying his troops at the UAW’s constitutional convention in Detroit, Toyota’s assembly site in Cambridge, ON, Canada, — target of failed organizing bids by the UAW and CAW — is identified as North America’s top plant in the 2010 J.D. Power Initial Quality Study.

Yet transplants remain a topic of whispers involving injured workers whose lives are upended by scandalous shop-floor practices.

Is there enough dissension to compel these workers sign union cards? King and his cohorts claim there is, as long as they are able to organize without fear of reprisal.

Such conditions would be ensured by the proposed Employee Free Choice Act, according to labor activists. The legislation would give U.S. workers the right to determine if there is sufficient support amongst themselves to vote on union representation.

Authority to sanction such a referendum now rests with employers, the UAW says.

Kudos to King and Cooper for their observations about these tumultuous times. Change is coming.

But organizing won’t guarantee success in the marketplace any more than maintaining the status quo. Tension always will exist between auto workers and “the bosses,” whom King castigated for taking bonuses after his members accepted clawbacks.

It’s a law of nature. Just as the other line always moves faster, the other guy always makes more money than he deserves.

Hear that?

That’s the sound of a nationwide shrug. A big “whatev.”

It greets reports that suggest Mercury’s demise is imminent. Ford is essentially mum on the prospect — a tragedy, if only from an historic perspective.

Edsel Ford chose the name for the premium brand later linked fondly with cars such as the Meteor and Marauder. (As a kid, my favorite Hot Wheels toy was a tricked-out Cougar Mattel dubbed “Nitty Gritty Kitty.”)

And according to Ward’s digital archives, which cover slightly less than half of Mercury’s 71-year market span, the brand has contributed some 10.7 million unit-sales to FoMoCo’s books.

Yet talk of a world without Mercury evokes no mourning. Ditto before GM pulled the plug on Pontiac. And silenced Saturn.

You can hardly say there was hue and cry over Hummer.

So why was there caterwauling about killing Saab? Sales volumes were miniscule. Profits were a pipe dream.

Yet, consumers rallied in sufficient numbers to inspire Spyker’s Victor Muller to open his wallet and save the day.

“Historically speaking, Saabs were incredibly versatile cars,” says aficionado Steven Wade, who orchestrated from Tasmania an online protest that reverberated worldwide.

“You could go to the hardware store in the morning, to the track in the afternoon and to the opera at night — and the car would look right in all three situations. This, combined with their excellent driving characteristics, comfort and safety, is why they built up such a cult following…. That’s why people thought this company was worth fighting for.”

Except for the Saabaru (Subaraab?) 9-2x and the 9-7x Chevy Trailblazer clone, Saabs possess a unique character. The 9-3 and 9-5 model lines owe much to their GM DNA, but still they remain set apart, beneficiaries of that elusive quality (especially in this era of intensified platform-sharing) known as differentiation.

Apparently, they never heard of such a thing at Mercury.