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completely unsubstantiated, that its vehicles are every bit as good as those built by the import companies. In fact, this was the very claim made one morning in November 2002 by General Motors vice chairman Bob Lutz when he declared GM’s vehicles the equal of those built by Honda and Toyota. Yet that afternoon, GM recalled 1.5 million minivans.
    Poor quality, as well as an inability to trust what Detroit tells us, continues to undermine Americans’ faith in Detroit. In one of his television ads, created to convince consumers to believe in his family’s struggling auto company, Bill Ford bubbled with enthusiasm for the small Ford Focus. He failed to mention that the Focus, designed in Europe, has been the subject of government defect investigations 11 times since it went on sale in the United States in 1999. A few months earlier, another Ford car, the new T-bird, which should have been a standard-bearer for the company in design and excitement, had to have production shut down for several days after engine fans caught fire on the assembly line.
    Detroit brings to mind a kind of automotive Oz, in which its simple announcement of a victory over imports is supposed to substitute for the real thing—despite the fact that its market share continues to fall and its profits have evaporated. Yet few are fooled. One need only look at the resale values of Detroit automobiles, far lower than the resale amounts for the best used foreign cars. This sense of unshaken superiority has been Detroit’s most fatal flaw. For its hubris has led to blindness in the halls of the Big Three, disappointment and even a vague sense of betrayal among many American consumers.
    Too many American car buyers are simply fed up with the vehicles that Detroit has tried to peddle to them. Millions of customers, loyal to GM for generations, finally got tired of tinny doors, keys that didn’t fit both the door and the trunk, and instrument panels that simply looked cheap. Despite the improvements that Detroit has made, despite all its vows and promises, the list of flaws in its cars continues to exceed that of its rivals.
    On the other hand, Toyota, Honda and the others realize full well that they cannot claim victory—that they can
never
do so. For as Detroit has shown, it is all too easy to lose one’s advantage. The Japanese carmakers are frightened by the emergence of the resurgent Korean auto companies, such as Hyundai and Kia. The Koreans are battling for the hearts of the children of the Japanese and German consumers that they captured. These young buyers don’t want to buy the same vehicles that Mom and Dad owned unless they can be convinced that these cars are what best fit their needs. And so Toyota created a whole new operation, called Scion, aimed at what it refers to as Generation Y buyers, confronting what it sees as a potential image problem long before it actually is in danger of losing sales.
    No one
dares to write off Detroit, however. Anger—as well as lost profits—is driving GM, Ford and Chrysler into action. Already this decade, Ford and DaimlerChrysler have replaced their chief executives and their top management. A Ford is back at the helm of Ford for the first time in 22 years. GM, which dominated the industry for so many years, has been forced to bring in fresh talent from outside. GM, Ford and Chrysler are spending vast amounts of money to develop new vehicles that they vow, yet again, will be their best ever and will provide the resounding answer to the imports on American ground.
    But changing faces and making promises cannot change an attitude of indifference that has long grown among consumers. For too many years, Detroit companies’ primary tactic for fighting back has been to shift consumers’ attention to the future, while leveraging their past as a sentimental weapon that they have used to obscure the deficiencies of the present. But though consumers might appreciate the vehicles of the past, and express curiosity