“Does the car have front wheel drive?” I asked of the fellow manning the Hertz rental counter.

“Most of the Intermediates do,” he responded, “though you won’t know for sure until you get to the parking lot and see what’s available.”

I make a couple of trips each year to Montreal to visit with clients. Montreal is in that under-six-hour driving radius that compels me to drive instead of fly.

When you add up all the time spent at the airport, the hassle of going through security, the wait at the terminal (including the inevitable Continental Airlines delayed departure), the actual time in flight, AND the time you spend on the other side of the journey finding your luggage and your rental car, I would rather just get in my car and go. I can enjoy a nice ride up the Thruway into the Adirondacks, listening to my favorite music. That, plus I just hate flying. There, I said it.

For Canada, I usually rent a car to avoid putting the nine hundred miles on my own odometer. The tricky part for this trip, though, was that snow is in the forecast. We are not talking the typical NJ “winter storm watch” where a light dusting sends the frenzied masses to the supermarkets to empty the shelves of every last can of soup. This is Montreal, where it is literally a law to have snow tires on your car for the entire winter. Needless to say, sliding off a lonely mountain road somewhere in the great white north is not my idea of a good business trip. Too many movies start or end this way. Misery…Alive…The Shining...  At best, I suppose, you wind up in a warm cottage with a nutcase admirer and broken ankles. At worst, some snowbound plane crash survivors find you and eat your liver with a fine Chianti.

“Do you have any SUVs?” I asked hopefully. The Hertz guy dug through his drawer of keys.

“We have one left,” he offered.  “It’s a Ford Escape.” Immediately the little sarcastic voice in my head prepared a retort: They call it an Escape because that’s exactly what you want to do after driving this piece of garbage for an hour. I thought about my soon-to-be aching back, my cramped legs… but also considered my frozen arms, my frozen arms with some barbeque sauce…

“I’ll take it,” I quickly confirmed.

Ten minutes into my drive, my six-foot-four frame comfortably sprawled out, listening to some great alternative rock station on the built-in satellite radio, I had a strange epiphany: This is actually not a bad little truck at all. For its relatively diminutive exterior dimensions, it is actually pretty roomy inside. The seats are nice and supportive, and covered in a tight, almost European cloth. The interior of this example, with close to twenty thousand rental car miles on it, is completely free of any squeaks, rattles, or groans. The icing on the cake is the fuel mileage, a very respectable 23 MPG with a V6. Not too shabby at all, Ford.

Come to think of it, I also put a lot of rental miles behind the wheel of the Chrysler 300 Sedan. With its Bentley-like nose, sleek profile, and an almost street-rod-esque “chopped” roof height, this car can easily pass for a more expensive car. The interior packaging is equally as impressive, with an expansive cabin appointed in leather and nicely contrasting hues of plastic. The ones I have rented were equipped with large, handsome alloy wheels, and a really great CD, Sirius satellite radio, and navigation entertainment system. (My guess is that they sell most of them similarly-equipped.) A pleasant surprise is that they drive almost as good as they look. More than a little Daimler-Benz DNA found its way into this Petri dish, as evidenced by its motor, transmission, and straight-from-a-Benz switchgear (who else but Mercedes could come up with a cruise control stalk like that?). The build quality is outstanding – no squeaks or rattles in any of the three examples that I drove, and I logged more than 2500 miles behind those wheels collectively. It definitely is not a sports sedan, but judged upon its merits as a quiet comfortable and attractive business car, it is really top notch. Factor in that you can buy one of these things for under $30K, and it is an amazing deal, right?

Well, not according to the comedic geniuses at Saturday Night Live. With Sarah back in Alaska and Tina returned to her duties at 30 Rock, they had to find some new fodder somewhere, I suppose. I have to admit the opening skit lampooning the three US auto chiefs, sitting in front of congress, was actually pretty funny. In an attempt to make up for their private jet faux pas, they traveled back for their second congressional hearing in their own cars – and all predictably had breakdowns along the way. (“I was going to drive a new 2009 Cadillac XLR-V, a car all of us at GM are very proud of, but every time I went to start the car, I got an intense electric shock, and the upholstery would catch on fire.”) I could see making the breakdown jokes back in the V8-6-4 days, or the Oldsmobuick V6 Diesel days, or for any one of many not-so-great moments in US auto history. Now would not seem to be one of those times, at least in my perception. Are they behind on alternative fuel technologies? Perhaps. Are they helplessly upside down in bad pension deals and union-engineered salaries? Probably. Are they doomed to failure? I hope not. Well, just in case they need a few ideas, here are some thoughts I came up with while making my way up the Thruway.

1.    Send Out the Clones. I used to play this game as a kid, driving around with my dad, where we would name the cars that were sold under multiple nameplates. The eighties gave us plenty of material. There were Chevy Caprice Estates, Pontiac Safaris, Buick LeSabres, and Oldsmobile Custom Cruisers. The “J” cars brought a full-sweep GM lineup of the Chevy Cavalier, Oldsmobile Firenza, Buick Skyhawk, Pontiac J2000, and last but not least, the much maligned Cadillac Cimarron. Ford was no better with the clone wars. The venerable Ford Mustang had its close cousin, the Mercury Capri. There was a Ford Thunderbird, a Mercury Cougar, and a Lincoln Continental. The Chrysler people were the most shameless, though, with their nameplate swaps. The K Car had Dodge Aries, Plymouth Reliant, and Chrysler LeBaron variants. There were Horizons and Omnis, Challengers and Sapporos, Voyagers, Town & Countrys, and Caravans, and Concordes, Intrepids, Visions and LHS’s, to name a few. When they brought out the Neon, they decided to not pull any punches on the public, and they simply sold the car as both a Dodge Neon…and a Plymouth Neon.

The platform sharing continues today. Shopping for a sport utility crossover, you can choose between a GMC Acadia, a Saturn Outlook, a Buick Enclave, or a Chevy Traverse. Want a Ford instead? No problem. How about a Ford Freestyle or Ford Escape or a Mercury Mariner (or a cousin Mazda Tribute)? Or a Ford Explorer or Mercury Mountaineer?

The problem here is that the Big Three have somehow confused the concept of “platform sharing” with “model cloning.” The Germans and the Japanese seem to have gotten the hang of the former, and use it effectively while managing their lineups. For example, the VW Golf, Beetle, and Passat, and the Audi TT, Audi A3 , A4, A5 and A6, are all built on the same basic platform (albeit in a couple of different sizes). What VAG has done, brilliantly, is drastically reduce the cost and development cycles of many models in two lineups, while maintaining the individual appeal of each those products. Though you will not mistake a A6 with a Beetle on the road, there is a sense of familiarity among the two brands when you drive them. This also provides a ladder to bring customers up through their lineup, allowing younger customers to get a taste with a Jetta, and later move up to, say, an A4. The Big Three, however, seem to always fall short in differentiating their various shared-platform products from one another. People are left scratching their heads when comparing a Chevy Traverse with a GMC Acadia, Buick Enclave, or Saturn Outlook, for example. The Chevy, Saturn and GMC are nearly identical in looks, features and pricing, so the customer differentiates on the only difference they can see - price. GM ends up competing with GM.

The US car companies need to chose their shared platforms wisely, and create economies that work for them instead of against them. In the example above, a good move might be to scrap the Chevy and the Saturn versions, and keep only a GMC and a Buick. The GMC would compete in the sporty crossover-ute market, leaving the Enclave, with its more curvaceous exterior lines and tailored interior, to battle imports like the Lexus RX330.

2.    Saturn needs to go the way of Pluto. Let me just say to start that I am a big fan of Saturn. Seriously, I am. This division was really a shot in the arm for GM in so many ways when the first of the long-awaited models arrived on the scene in 1991. Beyond building modestly-priced cars to compete against the mainstream Japanese cars, the brand introduced a sense of lifestyle and attitude never seen at GM. They promoted their brand new-state-of-the-art facility in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and how manufacturers from around the world were studying their manufacturing and painting processes. They built the cars to be easy for their owners to service themselves, even running free training seminars at the dealerships for customers.  All of the dealer employees wore sport shirts and khakis as their uniforms…no cheap suits allowed. The cars all had polymer, dent resistant body panels, making them immune to parking lot morons. They held several “Saturn Homecoming” events in Tennessee, where hoards of owners brought their cars back to their roots for a weekend of food, concerts and activities. My wife, Sandra, actually made this trip right after buying her (new) 1999, and came back more brainwashed than an Amway salesman. They introduced a no haggle pricing policy in a market of hagglers, and actually made it work for them. Heck, they even congratulated each and every person that bought one of these cars, complete with singing, balloons, and gifts, as each new owner literally drove their car out of a special showroom delivery area. Sure, you could have bought a Corolla, but where else could you feel so special for spending $12,000 on a car? 

It did not take long for the other GM divisions to take notice of the genuine momentum of the Saturn division. It not only raised the bar of expectation on them, it changed their games altogether. Many of the great GM cars out in showrooms today, like the Chevrolet Malibu, the Pontiac Solstice, and the Cadillac CTS and STS, may not have evolved to the level where they are today without the influence Saturn had in their manufacturing and marketing processes. That said, Saturn has run their course as a division. The acclaimed Tennessee plant was closed many moons ago, leaving their cars to be produced alongside other GM models. That leads to the second problem, which is their current lineup. Whereas once upon a time when every Saturn was uniquely Saturn, they are now all shared designs with other GM divisions. They do not lead in their markets, either, instead serving as the proverbial “red-haired stepchildren” to other, more successful GM cars. The Sky convertible is nice, but the Pontiac Solstice gets all of the press. The Aura came out earlier, but the Chevy Malibu won the Car Of The Year. The Outlook is not as snazzy as its cousin, the GMC Acadia. The problem is that the very existence of these Saturn variants just detracts from the front line versions of these cars.  Perhaps the most valuable part of the Saturn franchise – the brand itself and all that went along with it – is now a watered down remnant of its former self. There are no more homecomings and the clapping has died to a dull silence. This leads to the obvious conclusion....Saturn needs to be shut down, and the sales of these models redirected into the other divisions of GM.

3.    Too much of everything may be great at the Hong Kong Buffet, but so much at the dealer showroom. If the American car companies can be accused of over-delivering on anything, it is perhaps in the total number of models they make, as well as the number options and packages available for each model. I already picked on the duplicates across the different stores, but even when you get rid of those, there are still just too many choices. Does Ford need to still make an Escape when they sell the Edge mini-ute as well? Why doesn’t Chevy discontinue the Impala, now that they have the highly acclaimed Malibu to sell instead? When the Japanese and German car companies were taking market share from the US, they did the job with contracted lineups, and made most of those models very well. I can not help but think that GM would have a stronger brand image if they concentrated on smaller, stronger lineups, and their better, newer models, rather than trying to be all things to all people.

I have similar reasoning about the option lists. Good God. I looked at Chevy Tahoes last year, and wandering through the dealer lots was a lesson in confusion. There were so many colors…so many packages…so many a la carte options, it was dizzying. What is wrong with choices? Well, it makes dealer inventory in a struggling market difficult to carry. It also increases manufacturing costs. I remember back in the 1980s how Honda would make their cars with one interior color option, matched to the exterior color choice. Options were limited to a couple of packages. It did not seem to hurt sales, as the mid-80’s Accords and Preludes were hugely popular. Keep it simple, and pass the saving on.

Hey, but what do I know? I’m just a guy driving around Canada with way too much time on my hands. When is that next Autocross again?