Last January, when Robert Lutz described future-car designs at the Detroit auto show as "angry kitchen appliances," his put-down no doubt included vehicles from General Motors, which was widely derided for its bizarre Pontiac Aztek. Next month, Lutz, former president of Chrysler, will hold court at the show as vice chairman of GM's North American operations, and the company's concept cars will have come from his kitchen.
When he arrived at GM last summer, Lutz declared in an internal memorandum that its designs were being "corporate criteria-ed to death."
In contrast, relying more on instinct than on market studies, he had made innovative design a hallmark of Chrysler, with fresh cars like the Dodge Viper and Chrysler PT Cruiser.
PHOTO: NY TIMES
Concurrently, GM cranked out products that veered uneasily from bland, look-alike Oldsmobiles and Buicks to odd experiments like the Aztek. Under Ron Zarella, the president of North American operations who recently left GM, marketing held sway at the expense of a design studio that in the 1950s had symbolized the tail-finned exuberance of the American auto industry.
"Design's role needs to be greater," Lutz's memo declared, giving hope to GM's designers.
But even before he came on board, GM design had quietly begun a renaissance. "There are definite signs of life," said Jerry Hirshberg, who retired last year as Nissan's top US designer. Still a consultant for Nissan, he began his career at GM and has long been a critic of its design culture.
The company has made some bold hiring moves. Anne Asensio, 39, arrived last year from Renault, where she helped to design the popular Megane Scenic and the Twingo, a subcompact with minivan proportions that has become a French icon. Frank Saucedo, 39, was hired from the Audi-VW studio to revitalize GM's satellite design studio in Simi Valley, California, and Bryan Nesbitt, 32, the chief designer of the PT Cruiser, came from Chrysler last spring.
GM will soon introduce a clutch of models with promising designs. The Chevrolet SSR sport pickup and the Hummer H2, both hits when originally shown as concepts, go on sale next year. Cadillac's "art and science" design -- a faceted look inspired by jewelry and stealth aircraft -- reaches showrooms on Jan. 2 with the CTS sedan. The Pontiac Vibe sport wagon also arrives early next year. Some also see hope in the Buick Bengal, a small, elegant convertible.
Preaching `emotion'
In the 1990s, in response to criticism of its look-alike cars, GM created Brand Character Studios, which vetted designs to make sure they were consistent with each car division's themes and visual cues. Pontiac's watchword was performance, for instance, and Chevrolet's was value.
In recent interviews, designers from GM repeatedly used the word "emotion," but much of the talk has a familiar ring. If there is a shift, it is toward "deep branding" -- an emphasis on developing fundamentally new types of vehicles for each brand, like Chevrolet or Buick, rather than putting superficially different bodies on shared platforms. To create these new types of vehicles, like the SSR and Chevrolet Avalanche sport utility truck, designers work directly with engineers from the moment of conception.
After a period of creative drought, GM has produced more daring concept cars over the last three years. On the same snowy January day in 1999 when Pontiac unveiled the Aztek to a generally appalled crowd, the stunning Chevrolet Nomad sat across the hall. That concept car, a two-door sport wagon with a V8 engine, paid homage to the 1954 Nomad concept car based on the Corvette. Designed by Christos Roustemis, the latter-day Nomad was popular with showgoers; it also prefigured the current interest in sport wagons. Wayne Cherry, GM's vice president for design, said he pushed to get the Nomad built, but in vain.
Lanky and soft-spoken, Cherry is one of the quietest men to hold the top GM design job, a post that gained prominence under charismatic designers like Harley Earl and Bill Mitchell.
Cherry will turn 65, the company's mandatory retirement age, next September, and though it is unclear who will succeed him, the handicapping has begun. An informal survey of designers by Rita Sue Siegel, a design recruiter in New York, found no clear consensus, but names frequently mentioned include Chris Bangle of BMW, Asensio and Ed Welburn, 51, who headed development of the Chevy SSR.
But the best bet may be Nesbitt, who has the advantage of having worked on the PT Cruiser with Lutz, who will have much to say about who gets the job.
Good vibes
The SSR, Welburn said, was built on research into the appeal of Chevy trucks of the past; it "is all about making an emotional connection."
Emotion is also important for Nesbitt, who is working in the Chevrolet studio. He says buyers' emotional demands are high even for inexpensive cars. "The idea of the basic car has changed," he added, thanks in part to vehicles like his PT Cruiser.
"At all levels, people want and expect emotion and excitement. The new rule is: Too much is not enough."
Pontiac planners aiming at young buyers found that their customers had a long wish list: lots of cargo space, sports-car handling and SUV toughness. From those imperatives rose the ungainly Aztek.
But now the same brief has produced the promising Pontiac Vibe, a car-based wagon due out next year. Unlike the Aztek, known around the water coolers as the "PT Loser," the Vibe combines its disparate specifications into a strong, visually unified shape.
The Vibe is an example of "deep branding" because, Pontiac says, it redefines performance. "Performance doesn't just mean a sports car," said Phil Zaks, 35, who heads Pontiac's brand character studio. "It's an athletic brand style."
Cadillac's art and science look gets a new interpretation with the Cien, a design study for a V12 supercar. New Cadillacs try to capture the "spirit and moxie and attitude from the cars of the past without taking the actual shapes," said Tom Kearns, the division's brand character chief designer.
"If you do something distinctive," he said, "it is going to be polarizing."
Cadillac seems willing to offend some people, a first step toward innovation.
Too often, institutional inertia has strangled innovative ideas before they mature. "There is a cold, wet blanket of assumptions about what a car is, and this hyper-masculine attitude," Hirshberg said.
Asensio's presence may provide a counterbalance to the sometimes macho style of many GM designs. But she views brands at a very abstract level.
"I am a kind of mirror," she said, reflecting the identities of GM brands from a fresh point of view. "Chevrolet is like Levi's," she said -- famous brands that suffered after their images became muddled.
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