Chapter 17


A belief among automobile product planners is that the most successful ideas for new cars are conceived suddenly, like unannounced star shell bursts, during informal, feet-on-desk bull sessions in the dead of night.

There are precedents proving this true. Ford's Mustang - most startling Detroit trend setter after World War II, and forerunner to an entire generation of Ford, GM, Chrysler, and American Motors products afterward - had its origins that way, and so, less spectacularly, have others. This is the reason why product teams sometimes linger in offices when others are abed, letting their smoke and conversation drift, and hoping - like proficient Cinderellas - that magic in some form will touch their minds.

On a night in early June - two weeks after Hank Kreisel's cottage party - Adam Trenton and Brett DeLosanto nurtured the same kind of wish.

Because the Orion, also, was begun at night, they and others hoped that a muse for Farstar - next major project ahead - might be wooed the same way.

Over several months past, innumerable think sessions had been held - some involving large groups, others small, and still more composed of duos like Adam and Brett - but from none of them yet had anything emerged to confirm a direction which must be decided on soon. The basement block work (as Brett DeLosanto called it) had been done. Projection papers were assembled which asked and answered, more or less: Where are we today? Who's selling to whom? What are we doing right? Wrong? What do people think they want in a car? What do they really want? Where will they, and we, be five years from now? Politically? Socially? Intellectually? Sexually? What'll populations be? Tastes? Fashions? What new issues, controversies, will evolve? How will age groups shape up? And who'll be rich? Poor? In between? Where?

Why? All these, and a myriad other questions, facts, statistics, had sped in and out of computers. Now what was needed was something no computer could simulate: a gut feeling, a hunch, a shaft of insight, a touch of genius.

One problem was: to determine the shape of Farstar, they ought to know how Orion would fare. But the Orion's introduction was still four months away; even then, its impact could not be judged fully until half a year after that. So what the planners must do was what the auto industry had always done because of long lead times required for new models - guess.

Tonight's session, for Adam and Brett, began in the company teardown room.

The teardown room was more than a room; it was a department occupying a closely guarded building - a storehouse of secrets which few outsiders penetrated. Those who did, however, found it a source of unwaveringly honest information, for the teardown room's function was to dissect company products and competitors', then compare them objectively with each other. All big three auto companies had teardown rooms of their own, or comparable systems.

In the teardown environment, if a competitor's car or component was sturdier, lighter, more economical, assembled better, or superior in any other way, the analysts said so. No local loyalties ever swayed a judgment.

Company engineers and designers who had boobed were sometimes embarrassed by teardown room revelations, though they would be even more embarrassed if word leaked out to press or public. It rarely did. Nor did other companies release adverse reports about defects in competitors' cars; they knew it was a tactic which could boomerang tomorrow. In any case, objectives of the teardown room were positive - to police the company's products and designs, and to learn from others.

Adam and Brett had come to study three small cars in their torndown state - the company's own minicompact, a Volkswagen, and another minicar, Japanese.

A technician, working late at Adam's request, admitted them through locked outer doors to a lighted lobby, then through more doors to a large high-ceilinged room, lined with recessed racks extending from floor to ceiling.

"Sorry to spoil your evening, Neil," Adam said. "We couldn't make it sooner."

"No sweat, Mr. Trenton. I'm on overtime." The elderly technician, a skilled mechanic who had once worked on assembly lines and now helped take cars apart, led the way to a section of racks, some of which had been pulled out. "Everything's ready that you asked for."

Brett DeLosanto looked around him. Though he had been here many times before, the teardown operation never failed to fascinate him.

The department bought cars the way the public did - through dealers.

Purchases were in names of individuals, so no dealer ever knew a car that he was selling was for detailed study instead of normal use. The precaution ensured that all cars received were routine production models.

As soon as a car arrived, it was driven to the basement and taken apart.

This did not mean merely separating the car's components, but involved total disassembly. As it was done, each item was numbered, listed, described, its weight recorded. Oily, greasy parts were cleaned.

It took four men between ten days and two weeks to reduce a normal car to ordered fragments, mounted on display boards.

A story - no one really knew how true - was sometimes told about a teardown crew which, as a practical joke, worked in spare time to disassemble a car belonging to one of their number who was holidaying in Europe. When the vacationer returned, the car was in his garage, undamaged, but in several thousand separate parts. He was a competent mechanic who had learned a good deal as a teardown man, and he determinedly put it together again. It took a year.

Techniques of total disassembly were so specialized that unique tools had been devised - some like a plumber's nightmare.

The display boards containing the torn-down vehicles were housed in sliding racks. Thus, like dissected corpses, the industry's current cars were available for private viewing and comparison.

A company engineer might be brought here and told: "Look at the competition's headlamp cans! They're an integrated part of the radiator support instead of separate, complex pieces. Their method is cheaper and better. Let's get with it!"

It was called value engineering, and it saved money because each single cent of cost lopped from a car design represented thousands of dollars in eventual profit. Once, during the 1960s, Ford saved a mammoth twenty-five cents per car by changing its brake system master cylinder, after studying the master cylinder of General Motors.

Others, like Adam and Brett at this moment, did their viewing to keep abreast of design changes and to seek inspiration.

The Volkswagen on the display boards which the technician had pulled out had been a new one. He reported, with a touch of glumness, "Been taking VWs apart for years. Every damn time it's the same - quality good as ever."

Brett nodded agreement. "Wish we could say the same of ours."

"So do!, Mr. DeLosanto. But we can't. Leastways, not here."

At the display boards showing the company's own minicompact, the custodian said, "Mind you, ours has come out pretty well this time. If it wasn't for that German bug, we'd look good."

"That's because American small car assembly's getting more automated," Adam commented. "The Vega started a big change with the new Lordstown plant. And the more automation we have, with fewer people, the higher everybody's quality will go."

"Wherever it's going," the technician said, "it ain't gone to Japan - at least not to the plant that produced this clunker. For God's sake, Mr. Trenton! Look at that!"

They examined some of the parts of the Japanese import, the third car they had come to review.

"String and baling wire," Brett pronounced.

"I'll tell you one thing, sir. I wouldn't want anybody I cared about to be riding around in one of those. It's a motorbike on four wheels, and a poor one at that."

They remained at the teardown racks, studying the three cars in detail.

Later, the elderly technician let them out.

At the doorway he asked, "What's coming up next, gentleman? For us, I mean."

"Glad you reminded me," Brett said. "We came over here to ask you."


***

It would be some kind of small car; that much they all knew. The key question was: What kind?

Later, back at staff headquarters, Adam observed, "For a long time, right up to 1970, a lot of people in this business thought the small car was a fad."

"I was one," Elroy Braithwaite, the Product Development vice-president admitted. The Silver Fox had joined them shortly after Adam's and Brett's return from the teardown room. Now, a group of five - Adam, Brett, Braithwaite, two others from product planning staff - was sprawled around Adam's office suite, ostensibly doing little more than shoot the breeze, but in reality hoping, through channeled conversation, to awaken ideas in each other. Discarded coffee cups and overflowing ashtrays littered tables and window ledges. It was after midnight.

"I thought the small car fever wouldn't last," Braithwaite went on. He put a hand through his silver-gray mane, disordered tonight, which was unusual. "I was in some pretty high-powered company, too, but we've all been wrong. As far as I can see, this industry will be small-car oriented, with muscle cars on the outs, for a long time to come."

"Perhaps forever," one of the other product planners said. He was a bright young Negro with large spectacles, named Castaldy, who had been recruited from Yale a year earlier.

"Nothing's forever," Brett DeLosanto objected. "Hemlines or hair styles or hip language or cars. Right now, though, I agree with Elroy a small car's the status symbol, and it looks like staying."

"There are some," Adam said, "who believe a small car is a nonsymbol. They say people simply don't care about status any more."

Brett retorted, "You don't believe that, any more than I do."

"I don't either," the Silver Fox said. "A good many things have changed these past few years, but not basic human nature. Sure, there's a 'reverse status' syndrome, which is popular, but it adds up to what it always did - an individual trying to be different or superior. Even a dropout who doesn't wash is a status seeker of a kind."

"So maybe," Adam prompted, "we need a car which will appeal strongly to the reverse-status seeker."

The Silver Fox shook his head. "Not entirely. We still have to consider the squares - that big, solid backlog of buyers."

Castaldy pointed out, "But most squares don't like to think of themselves that way. That's why bank presidents wear sideburns."

"Don't we all?" Braithwaite fingered his own.

Above the mild laughter, Adam injected, "Maybe that's not so funny. Maybe it points the way to the kind of car we don't want. That is-anything looking like a conventional car produced until now."

"A mighty big order," the Silver Fox said.

Brett ruminated. "But not impossible."

Castaldy, the young Yale man, reminded them, "Today's environment is part of reverse-status - if we're calling it that. I mean public opinion, dissent, minorities, economic pressures, all the rest."

"True," Adam said, then added, "I know we've been over this a lot of times, but let's list environmental factors again."

Castaldy looked at some notes. "Air pollution: people want to do something."

"Correction," Brett said. "They want other people to do something. No one wants to give up personal transportation, riding in his own car. All our surveys say so."

"Whether that's true or not," Adam said, "the car makers are doing something about pollution and there isn't a lot individuals can do."

"Just the same," young Castaldy persisted, "a good many are convinced that a small car pollutes less than a big one, so they think they can contribute that way. Our surveys show that, too." He glanced back at his notes. "May I go on?"

"I'll try not to heckle," Brett said. "But I won't guarantee it."

"In economics," Castaldy continued, "gas mileage isn't as dominant as it used to be, but parking cost is."

Adam nodded. "No arguing that. Street parking space gets harder to find, public and private parking costs more and more."

"But parking lots in a good many cities are charging less for small cars, and the idea's spreading."

The Silver Fox said irritably, "We know all about that. And we've already agreed we're going the small car route."

Behind his glasses, Castaldy appeared hurt.

"Elroy," Brett DeLosanto said, "the kid's helping us think. So if that's what you want, quit pulling rank."

"My God!" the Silver Fox complained. "You birds are sensitive. I was just being myself."

"Pretend to be a nice guy," Brett urged. "Instead of a vice-president."

"You bastard!" But Braithwaite was grinning. He told Castaldy, "Sorry! Let's go on."

"What I really meant, Mr. Braithwaite"

"Elroy . . ."

"Yes, sir. What I meant was - it's part of the whole picture."

They talked about environment and mankind's problems: over-population, a shortage of square footage everywhere, pollution in all forms, antagonisms, rebellion, new concepts and values among young people - the young who would soon rule the world. Yet, despite changes, cars would still be around for the foreseeable future; experience showed it. But what kind of cars? Some would be the same as now, or similar, but there must be other kinds, too, more closely reflecting society's needs.

"Speaking of needs," Adam queried, "can we sum them up?"

"If you wanted a word," Castaldy answered, "I'd say 'utitity."'

Brett DeLosanto tried it on his tongue. "The Age of Utility."

"I'll buy that in part," the Silver Fox said. "But not entirely." He motioned for silence while gathering thoughts. The others waited. At length he intoned slowly, "Okay, so utility's 'in.' It's the newest status symbol, or reverse-status - and we're agreed that whatever name you call it it means the same thing. I'll concede it's probably for the future, too. But that still doesn't allow for the rest of human nature: the impulse to mobility which is with us from the day we're born, and later a craving for power, speed, excitement which we never grow out of wholly. We're all Walter Mittys somewhere inside and, utility or not, pizazz is 'in,' too. It's never been out. It never will be."

"I go with that," Brett said. "To prove your point look at the guys who build dune buggies. They're small car people who've found a Walter Mitty outlet."

Castaldy added thoughtfully, "And there are thousands and thousands of dune buggies. More all the time. Nowadays you even see them in cities."

The Silver Fox shrugged. "They take a utility Volkswagen without pizazz, strip it to the chassis, then build pizazz on."

A thought stirred in Adam's mind. It related to what had been said . . . to the torn-down Volkswagen he had seen earlier tonight . . . and to something else, hazy: a phrase which eluded him . . . He searched his mind while the others talked.

When the phrase failed to come he remembered a magazine illustration he had seen a day or two ago. The magazine was still in his office. He retrieved it from a pile across the room and opened it. The others watched curiously.

The illustration was in color. It showed a dune buggy on a rugged beach, in action, banked steeply on its side. All wheels were fighting for traction, sand spewing behind. Cleverly, the photographer had slowed his shutter speed so that the dune buggy was blurred with movement. The text with the picture said the ranks of dune buggy owners were "growing like mad"; nearly a hundred manufacturers were engaged in building bodies; California alone had eight thousand dune buggies.

Brett, glancing over Adam's shoulder, asked amusedly, "You're not thinking of building dune buggies?"

Adam shook his head. No matter how large the dune buggy population became, they were still a fad, a specialist's creation, not the Big Three's business. Adam knew that. But the phrase which eluded him was somehow linked . . . Still not remembering, he tossed the magazine on a table, open.

Chance, as happens so often in life, stepped in.

Above the table where Adam tossed the magazine was a framed photo of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module during the first moon landing. It had been given to Adam, who liked it, and had had it framed and hung. In the photo, the module dominated; an astronaut stood beneath.

Brett picked up the magazine with the dune buggy picture and showed it to the others. He remarked, "Those things go like hell! - I've driven one." He studied the illustration again. "But it's an ugly son-of-a-bitch."

Adam thought: So was the lunar module.

Ugly indeed: all edges, corners, projections, oddities, imbalance; little symmetry, few clean curves. But because the lunar module did its job superbly, it defeated ugliness and, in the end, took on a beauty of its own.

The missing phrase came to him.

It was Rowena's. The morning after their night together she had said,

"You know what I'd say today? I'd say, 'ugly is beautiful.'"

Ugly is Beautiful!

The lunar module was ugly. So was a dune buggy. But both were functional, utilitarian; they were built for a purpose and performed it.

So why not a car? Why not a deliberate, daring attempt to produce a car, ugly by existing standards, yet so suited to needs, environment, and present time - the Age of Utility - that it would become beautiful?

"I may have an idea about Farstar," Adam said. "Don't rush me. Let me put it out slowly."

The others were silent. Marshaling thoughts, choosing words carefully, Adam began.

They were too experienced - all of them in the group - to go overboard, instantly, for a single idea. Yet he was aware of a sudden tension, missing before, and a quickening interest as he continued to speak. The Silver Fox was thoughtful, his eyes half-closed. Young Castaldy scratched an ear lobe - a habit when he concentrated - while the other product planner, who had said little so far, kept his eyes on Adam steadily. Brett DeLosanto's fingers seemed restless. As if instinctually, Brett drew a sketch pad toward him.

It was Brett, too, who jumped up when Adam finished, and began pacing the room. He tossed off thoughts, incomplete sentences, like fragments of a jigsaw . . . Artists for centuries have seen beauty in ugliness . . . Consider distorted, tortured sculpture from Michelangelo to Henry Moore . . . And in modern times, scrap metal welded in jumbles - shapeless to some, who scoff, but many don't . . . Take painting: the avant-garde forms; egg crates, soup cans in - collages . . . Or life itself! - a pretty young girl or a pregnant hag: which is more beautiful? . . . It depended always on the way you saw it. Form, symmetry, style, beauty were never arbitrary.

Brett thumped a fist into a palm. "With Picasso in our nostrils, we've been designing cars like they rolled off a Gainsborough canvas."

"There's a line in Genesis somewhere," the Silver Fox said. "I think it goes, 'Your eyes shall be opened."' He added cautiously, "But let's not get carried away. We may have something. Even if we do, though, there's a long road ahead."

Brett was already sketching, his pencil racing through shapes, then discarding them. As he ripped off sheets from his pad, they dropped to the floor. It was a designer's way of thinking, just as others exchanged ideas through words. Adam reminded himself to retrieve the sheets later and save them; if something came of this night, they would be historic.

But he knew that what Elroy Braithwaite had said was true. The Silver Fox, through more years than any of the others here, had seen new cars develop from first ideas to finished products, but had suffered, too, through projects which looked promising at birth, only to be snuffed out later for unforeseen reasons, or sometimes for no reason at all.

Within the company a new car concept had countless barriers to pass, innumerable critiques to survive, interminable meetings, with opposition to overcome. And even if an idea survived all these, the executive vice-president, president, and chairman of the board had veto powers . . .

But some ideas got through and became reality.

The Orion had. So . . . just barely possibly

might this early, inchoate concept, the seed sown here and now, for Farstar.

Someone brought more coffee, and they talked on, far into the night.

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