Wheels (40 page)

Seated across the room, his files now beside him, Adam threw in, "Sounds
a lot like life
.”

The other two seemed not to have heard. Obviously, Adam decided, they
would not mind if he got on with some work.
"When you're in a long race, say five hundred miles," Erica said, "does
your mind ever wander? Do you ever think of something else
.”

Pierre gave his boyish grin. "God, no I Not if you figure to win, or even
walk away instead of being carried out
.”

He explained, "You've a lot to
keep checking and remember. How others in the race are doing, your plans
for passing guys ahead, or how not to let guys past you. Or maybe there's
trouble, like if you scuff a tire it'll take a tenth of a second off your
speed. So you feel it happen, you remember, you do sums in your head,
figure everything, then decide when to pit for a tire change, which can
win a race or lose it. You watch oil pressure fifty yards before entering
every corner, then, on the backstretch, check all gauges, and you keep
both ears tuned to the way the engine sings. Then there's signals from the
pit crew to look out for. Some days you could use a secretary . .
.”

Adam, concentrating on memo reading, screened the voices of Pierre and
Erica out.
"I never knew all that," Erica said. "It will
seem different watching now. I'll feel like an insider
.”

"I'd like to have you see me race, Erica
.”

Pierre glanced across the room,
then back. He lowered his voice slightly. "Adam said you'd be at the
Talladega 500, but there's other races before that
.”

'Where ?”
"North Carolina, for one. Maybe you could come
.”

He looked at her directly
and she was aware, for the first time, of a touch of arrogance, the star
syndrome, the knowledge that he was a hero to the crowd. She supposed a
lot of women had come Pierre's way.
"North Carolina's not so far
.”

Erica smiled. "It's something to think
about, isn't it
.”

Sometime later, the fact that Pierre Flodenhale was standing penetrated
Adam's consciousness.
"I guess I'll be moving on, Adam," Pierre said. "Thanks a lot for the ride
and having me in
.”

Adam returned a folder to his briefcase-a ten-year population shift
estimate, prepared for study in conjunction with consumer car preference
trends. He apologized, "I haven't been much of a host. I hope my wife made
up for me
.”

"Sure did
.”

"You can take my car
.”

He reached in his pocket for keys. "If you'll phone
my secretary tomorrow, tell her where it is, she'll have it picked UP
.”

Pierre hesitated. "Thanks, but Erica said.
Erica bustled into the living room, pulling a light car coat over her
pajamas. "I'll drive Pierre home
.”

Adam started to say, "There's no need
"It's a nice night," she insisted."And I feel like some air
.”

Moments later, outside, car doors slammed, an engine revved and
receded. The house was silent.
Adam worked a half hour more, then went upstairs. He was climbing into
bed when he heard the car return and Erica come in, but was asleep by
the time she reached the bedroom.
He dreamed of Rowena.
Erica dreamed of Pierre.

Chapter
seventeen

A belief among automobile product planners is that the most successful
ideas for new cars are conceived suddenly, like unannounced star shell
bursts, during informal, feet-on-desk buR sessions in the dead of night.
There are precedents proving this true. Ford's Mustang-most startling
Detroit trend setter after World War
II
, and forerunner to an entire
generation of Ford, GM, Chrysler, and American Motors products afterward-had its origins that way, and so, less spectacularly, have
others. This is the reason why product teams sometimes linger in offices
when others are abed, letting their smoke and conversation drift, and
hoping-like prospicient Cinderellas
that magic in some form will touch
their minds.
On a night in early June-two weeks after Hank Kreisel's cottage
party-Adam Trenton and Brett DeLosanto nurtured the same kind of wish.
Because the Orion, also, was begun at night, they and others hoped that
a muse for Farstarnext major project ahead-might be wooed the same way.
Over several months past, innumerable think sessions had been held-some
involving large groups, others small, and still more composed of duos
like Adam and Brett-but from none of them yet had anything emerged to
confirm a direction which must be decided on soon. The basement block
work (as Brett DeLosanto called it) had been done. Projection papers
were assembled which asked and answered, more or less: Where are we
today? Who's selling to whom? What are we doing right? Wrong? What do
people think
they want in a car? What do they really want? Where will
they, and we, be f
i
ve years from
now? Politically? Socially? Intellectually? Sexually? What'll populations
be? Tastes? Fashions? What new issues, controversies, will evolve? How
will age groups shape up? And who'll be rich? Poor? In between? Where?
Why? All these, and a myriad other questions, facts, statistics, had sped
in and out of computers. Now what was needed was something no computer
could simulate: a gut feeling, a hunch, a shaft of insight, a touch of
genius.
One problem was: to determine the shape of Farstar, they ought to know
how Orion would fare. But the Orion's introduction was still four
months away; even then, its impact could not be judged fully until half
a year after that. So what the planners must do was what the auto
industry had always done because of long lead times required for new
models-guess.
Tonight's session, for Adam and Brett, began in the company teardown
room.
The teardown room was more than a room; it was a department occupying
a closely guarded building-a storehouse of secrets which few outsiders
penetrated. Those who did, however, found it a source of unwaveringly
honest information, for the teardown room's function was to dissect
company products and competitors', then compare them objectively with
each other. All big three auto companies had teardown rooms of their
own, or comparable systems.
In the teardown environment, if a competitor's car or component was
sturdier, lighter, more economical, assembled better, or superior in
any other way, the analysts said so. No local loyalties ever swayed a
judgment.
Company engineers and designers who had boobed were sometimes
embarrassed by teardown room revelations, though they would be even
more embarrassed if word leaked out to press or
public. It rarely did. Nor did other companies release adverse reports about
defects in competitors' cars; they knew it was a tactic which could boomerang tomorrow. In any case, objectives of the teardown room were
positive-to police the company's products and designs, and to learn from
others.
Adam and Brett had come to study three small. cars in their torn
down
state-the company's own mini
-
compa
ct, a Volkswagen, and another im
port,
Japanese.
A technician, working late at Adam's request, admitted them through locked
outer doors to a lighted lobby, then through more doors to a large
high-ceilinged room, lined with recessed racks extending from floor to
ceiling.
"Sorry to spoil your evening, Neil," Adam said. "We couldn't make it
sooner
.”

"No sweat, Mr. Trenton. I'm on overtime
.”

The elderly technician, a
skilled mechanic who had once worked on assembly lines and now helped take
cars apart, led the way to a section of racks, some of which had been
pulled out. 'E
verything's ready that you asked for
.”

Brett DeLosanto looked around him. Though he had been here many times
before, the teardown operation never failed to fascinate him.
The department bought cars the way the public did-through dealers.
Purchases were in names of individuals, so no dealer ever knew a car that
he was sell
ing was for detailed study instead of normal use. The precaution
ensured that all cars received were routine production models.
As soon as a car arrived, it was driven to the basement and taken apart.
This did not mean merely separating the car's components, but involved
total disassembly. As it was done, each item was numbered, listed,
described, its weight recorded. Oily, greasy parts were cleaned.
It took four men between ten days and two weeks to reduce a normal car
to ordered fragments, mounted on display boards.
A story-no one really knew how true-was sometimes told about a teardown
crew which, as a practical joke, worked in spare time to disassemble a
car belonging to one of their number who was holidaying in Europe. When
the vacationer returned, the car was in his garage, undamaged, but in
several thousand separate parts. He was a competent mechanic who had
learned a good deal as a teardown man, and he determinedly put it together again. It took a year.
Techniques of total disassembly were so specialized that unique tools
had been devised-some like a plumber's nightmare.
The display boards containing the torn-down vehicles were housed in
sliding racks. Thus, like dissected corpses, the industry's current cars
were available for private viewing and comparison.
A company engineer might be brought here and told: "Look at the
competition's headlamp cans I They're an integrated part of the radiator
support instead of separate, complex pieces. Their method is cheaper and
better. Let'
s get with it!
"
It was called value engineering, and it saved money because each single
cent of cost lopped from a car design represented thousands of dollars
in eventual profit. Once, during the 1960s, Ford saved a mammoth
twenty-five cents per car by changing its brake system master cylinder,
after studying the master cylinder of General Motors.
Others, like Adam and Brett at this moment, did their viewing to keep
abreast of design changes and to seek inspiration.
The Volkswagen on the display boards which the technician had pulled out
had been a new one. He reported, with a touch of glumness, "Been tak
ing VWs apart for years. Every damn time it's the same-quality good as
ever.
Brett nodded agreement. "Wish we could say the same of ours
.”

"So do 1, Mr. DeLosanto. But we can't. Leastways, not here
.”

At the display boards showing the company's own mini
-
compact, the
custodian said, "Mind you, ours has come out pretty well this time. If
it wasn't for that German bug, we'd look good
.”

-Mat's because American small car assembly's getting more automated,'
Adam commented. 'The Vega started a big change with the new Lordstown
plant. And the more automation we have, with fewer people, the higher
everybody's quality will go
.”

"Wherever it's going," the techn
ician said, "it ain’
t gone to Japan-at
least not to the plant that produced this clunker. For God's sake, Mr.
Trenton I Look at that !
"
They examined some of the parts of the Japanese import, the third car
they had come to review.
"String and baling wire," Brett pronounced.
"I'll tell you one thing, sir. I wouldn't want anybody I cared about to
be riding around in one of those. It's a motorbike on four wheels, and
a poor one at that
.”