Curtain Calls

As I look back on the Detroit Auto Show of 2006, I will remember it as the contrition car show. This is the show where automakers--chastened by high gas prices and driver defection from drab designs--were out to atone for past sins. There was the new crop of gas-sipping micro cars from Japanese automakers who were once unwilling to bring such diminutive models to America. From Detroit's Big Three there were smoothly styled crossover SUVs that are easier on the eye and the wallet than their incredible hulks of the past. Toyota, frequently dinged for its "blandmobiles," rolled out more highly styled flagships in the new Camry and Lexus LS. And General Motors and Chrysler made a bold grab back to the days Detroit muscle ruled the road, with glorious remakes of the Chevy Camaro and Dodge Challenger.

Everywhere I roamed in Cobo Hall these last three days, I heard mea culpas. "For a while we did really bad cars," said GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, acknowledging Detroit's bad old days of slip-shod quality and homely gas guzzlers. "But there's enormous good will for the glory days of American cars, when they really were American and didn't try to be Japanese or German. And we all recently discovered that was a gold mine we had left fallow for a couple decades."

No more. Beyond the muscle-car revivals, there were bold American crossovers like the Ford Edge and Dodge Caliber that seemed designed to prove that the town that invented the SUV could also re-invent it. In the high-style department, GM's elegant Buick Enclave had a shale leather and light wood interior that evoked the hip lobby of a four-star New York hotel. And Detroit also attempted to show that it now gets it about gas prices. GM rolled out two hybrid SUVs: the small Saturn Vue and jumbo Chevy Tahoe. Ford outfitted its locomotive looking Super Chief pickup with hydrogen power. And Chrysler unveiled its blingy new Aspen SUV (in a whiteout blizzard of "snow" confetti) equipped with a Hemi engine that shuts off half its cylinders on the highway to boost mileage.

Will these smart and stylish new models put an end to panic in Detroit? Not a chance. In fact, shortly before I sat down with Lutz for his only one-on-one interview at the show, GM took another shot across the bow from Jerry York, the former Motown exec now working for Vegas high roller Kirk Kerkorian, GM's largest individual investor. York, speaking to stock analysts at a hotel inside GM's headquarters down the street from Cobo, urged GM's bosses to get into "crisis mode," by, among other things, slashing their own paychecks and cutting the stock dividend in half.

Lutz acknowledged that a few nice star turns at the Detroit show barely put a dent in GM's problems. But, by showing off its hot new models, GM at least gives consumers--and its weary workers--something to believe in from a car company that looked like it couldn't steer straight. "The worries about GM's financial status stay with us until they're solved," Lutz said. "But everybody feels better about any burden if you see light at the end of the tunnel. I think we're starting to establish some credibility with the media about our products and that in turn, believe it or not, will drive sales."

Japanese Muscle