????Here's an exchange that Vlasic quotes:
????Lutz: "What we've got to do is put another thousand dollars worth of goodness into the car to give it more value. You can command better prices then."
????Wagoner: "I understand. The problem is, how are we going to live through that time when the vehicles are better, but we are not commanding better prices?"
????Lutz: "If we keep this incentive war going, we're going to give whole margin away. Once your margin is zero, you can multiply it all you want, and it is still zero."
????Wagoner: "Don't get all finance-y on me -- that's my specialty, not yours. We're trapped in this system. The only thing we can do is to move full-steam ahead."
????(In an author's note, Vlasic explains: "Conversations were reconstructed based on the recollections of at least one participant; others involved were asked about their accuracy.")
????Over at Ford, the principals get much gentler treatment, as befits their ability to steer past bankruptcy by taking out a monster loan. Picture Tom Hanks as Bill Ford, the popular, easy-going everyman (who incidentally controls an auto company), and Tom Cruise as Alan Mulally, the ever-smiling, high-energy action hero who makes the superhuman look ordinary.
????The seeds for the Ford-Mulally bromance are planted at a secret meeting in Ann Arbor at Ford's house where Ford tries to recruit the Boeing executive to the automaker:
????Ford: "I'm pretty fearful of what I sense is coming at us, and it would be so much better if I had an executive who had been through what we're about to go through."
????Mulally: "Remember, I'm an engineer. I solve problems, and I create things. If you're going to turn this around, you need a plan."
????(Ford brings up fuel economy, hybrid cars, and protecting the environment).
????Mulally: "God, I have your vision too! I have to make that happen."
????(But Mulally's decision to "make that happen" comes only after several weeks of dithering. Finally, he places a call to Ford):
????Mulally: "This is just so compelling. I want to turn around this great company with you."
????Ford: "Oh my god. How soon can you get here?
????A key supporting role in this melodrama belongs to the United Auto Workers' president Ron Gettelfinger, who throws a wrench in the works every time a solution appears to ease the industry's crushing labor costs. Paging Willem Dafoe.
????But Gettelfinger meets his match when he battles Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne over concessions on wages and benefits. Gettelfinger's favorite tactic is to get up and leave the meeting without saying a word.
????Marchionne (played by Al Pacino): "Do you think I'm fucking stupid? We need to come up with a competitive wage rate and structure here!"
????Gettelfinger: "I believed the Germans when they came in. Then I had no choice but to support Cerberus. You are the third guy saying you are going to save it. Why should I believe you?
????Marchionne: "I know how to run a car company, not like that nonsense at Cerberus. I may be lousy at a lot of other things. But I know how to run a car company."
????Once upon a Car contains plenty of meaty supporting roles as well: George Clooney as Ford's Mark Fields, whose good looks don't prevent him from building an impressive career; Dustin Hoffman as Steve Girsky, the self-described "fast-talking New York Jew" who became GM's truth-teller; and a walk-on role for Brad Pitt as nonagenarian investor Kirk Kerkorian (that's Pitt as an old man in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.)
????Casting should start as soon as possible because roles could change. Leadership of the domestic industry seems to rotate every few years, and another company may find itself on top. Who knows? If only George C. Scott was still with us to take on the role of GM CEO Dan Akerson.
