WHAT'S INSIDE IS WHAT COUNTS

摘要

General Motors Corp. designer Anne Asensio has "issues"―a whole drawer full of them. The French designer departed Renault two years ago and now heads GM'S interior design group. Her issues drawer is stuffed with examples of what needs sprucing up inside GM vehicles. She pulls out a bulging packet thick with photographs of flaws in the seats of the new Hummer H2 sport-utility vehicle. Some defects are as minor as uneven stitching, but that and everything else needs to be near-perfect if GM wants its interiors to be on par with those of its Japanese and German competitors. There's a gap today, concedes Asensio, but "we have an action plan to fix it." Asensio has been charged by Robert A. Lutz, GM'S vice-chairman and design czar, with renovating the interiors of the company's existing and future models. And GM is only the latest Detroit auto maker to focus on improving what's inside its cars; the other two domestic carmakers have already assigned top stylists to interior design. Says James N. Hall, vice-president for automotive consultant AutoPacific Inc.: "The Big Three are making up for lost ground."