NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Intelligent design may be of questionable value for schools and universities but it is exactly what General Motors needs!

Cars that people want to buy more than any others, brands that sing with style and class, an unquantifiable cachet that makes certain models coveted by key demographic groups (the ones that buy cars frequently!) -- this is what GM needs to pull out of its slump and become a powerful moneymaker and world leader again.

Management can complain all it wants to about "overpaid" union workers who don't pay as much for their health care as all the rest of us. The union is taking steps to recognize the reality of the modern competitive world and adjust its pay and benefits scale.

But the biggest challenge is figuring out how to design cars that people want to buy. Hard to believe that the mighty GM (Research) still doesn't seem to have figured it out. One would have thought that the lessons of the 1970's and early 80's when the small, economical Japanese cars captured the American consumer's fancy as they looked at rising gas prices and looked for alternatives to big gas guzzlers. Imports got a toehold that turned into a beach head and now a big market share, so much so that it's hard to think of them as "foreign" cars now, isn't it?

But the big U.S. automakers still don't seem nimble enough to shift gears quickly and companies like GM can't sell enough cars to be profitable.

Intelligent design may be what GM's board needs to contemplate as it looks at GM management and wonders if it isn't time for some radical new models.

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Kathleen Hays is economics correspondent for CNN. Read more of her columns here.