Behind the scenes at the Detroit auto showThe cars are usually the stars at the big winter event, but the real action this year takes place off the floor, says Fortune's Alex Taylor. NEW YORK (Fortune) -- For the next couple of days, you won't be able to escape the avalanche of news from the Detroit auto show. Manufacturers will do everything in their power to focus attention on the models they'll be unveiling. They have compiled elaborate information kits and planned glitzy product reveals to extract the last ounce of glamour and drama from the displays. Readers and TV viewers lap it all up. In the dark days of January, what's better that dreaming about a new car? For the real action, however, you'll have to take your eyes off the main event. More than ever this year, mini-dramas taking place in cramped interview rooms will dwarf the importance of any of the chrome and sheet-metal. Industry leaders from Asia, Europe and America will be fielding questions from hundreds of journalists at a very critical time. The answers they give could set the tone for the industry for months to come. Take Chrysler CEO Tom LaSorda. LaSorda was at the helm last summer when Chrysler allowed its inventory of unsold cars to balloon, and then compounded its sins by building cars without dealer orders and warehousing them in an open-air sales bank. The fiasco cost Chrysler's marketing boss his job and put LaSorda on the hot seat. How long he'll keep his job has become the subject of intense industry speculation. There has even been gossip about a possible successor. Volkswagen's Wolfgang Bernhard, who helped run Chrysler a few years ago, is expected to announce later this month whether he will leave VW for a job someplace else. LaSorda won't be able to keep any secrets from his boss, DaimlerChrysler (Charts) chairman Dieter Zetsche. He will be in an interview room close by. In addition to explaining his own role in the inventory fiasco, Zetsche will shine some light on the future of Mercedes-Benz's two marginal sub-brands, Smart and Maybach. Another executive in the spotlight is Porsche's Wendelin Wiedeking. Flush with cash, Porsche is stepping up its stake in VW and will soon own nearly 30 percent of Europe's largest automaker. Wiedeking, who sits on VW's board, will be facing a barrage of questions about what changes he will be pushing at VW and how extensive Porsche's influence will be. The two companies have a long history together: Ferdinand Porsche designed the original VW Beetle and the first Porsche sports car was built on a cast-aside Beetle frame. Now that Porsche and VW have successfully collaborated on the SUV that became the Porsche Cayenne, other joint ventures could be in the wind. GM (Charts) is expected to blanket the show with high-ranking executives, along with their minders from the public relations staff, whose mission will be to convince the world that GM has halted its long slide toward bankruptcy and is on its way to recovery. Exhibit A will be the 2008 Chevy Malibu. Its design both inside and out is more refined and fashionable than anything to come out of GM since the 1958 Cadillac Eldorado. But after GM's sales - including those of the redesigned full-size pickup trucks - tanked in December, the execs are going to have to make a harder sell than they expected. The elephant in the room at the auto show will be the perilous situation at Ford (Charts). The number two U.S. automaker hopes to drown out any talk about its business prospects with wall-to-wall promotion of the cars it will be putting on sale, as well as some daring new concepts. But at a small meeting with journalists in Detroit last week, Ford's top executives made it very clear they realize how grim their situation is. "Nothing focuses the mind like knowing that if you fail, the banks own the business," said North American boss Mark Fields, who has morphed from cheerleader into truth-teller. And CEO Alan Mulally, recently arrived from Boeing (Charts), who jokes that he is practicing how to say "auto show and not air show," declared bluntly that Ford "is at a turning point." 2007 is expected to be another tough year at Ford but the direction where it is heading should be clear by the time the 2008 Detroit auto show rolls around. __________________________ |
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