GENEVA - For an American visiting the annual Geneva Auto Show this week, entering the Ford Motor Co. exhibit was a tantalizing but taunting affair - the company's freshest revamps and newest models are for eyes only.
The company's curvaceous Focus Coupe-Cabriolet, new Fiesta hatchback, and Mondeo sedan with racy bucket seats are highly regarded overseas. They are also coveted by many Americans, some of whom are swaying to smaller cars because of rising gas prices, and others who simply want the flashier styling and performance long demanded in Europe. But so far, the closest most Americans have been to a European Ford is the movie screen: Actor Daniel Craig, playing James Bond, drove a Mondeo in last year's "Casino Royale." The sharp-looking models are not available in the United States.
Ford's US models are "not as exciting, and we know that," said J Mays, the company's vice president of global design, at the Swiss show on Tuesday. "We're pushing very, very hard to inject a lot more excitement into the US product, as well as the products we're going to sell globally."
With their North American divisions sagging, Ford and General Motors Corp. in particular are betting that they can boost morale at their headquarters with more global vehicle platforms, bolder designs, and increased collaboration with their European arms.
While the home market has seen years of losses - including GM's record $38.7 billion last year and Ford's record $12.7 billion in 2006 - the Big Three (Chrysler LLC being the third) have fared rather well overseas. In 2007, Ford of Europe posted a pretax profit of $744 million, GM Europe reported a $524 million loss compared to the North American division's reported $3.3 billion, and Chrysler enjoyed sales increases of 8 percent outside the United States in 2007 while its North American division sank 3 percent.
While the Focus was originally billed as Ford's first true global car, the company ignored the US model, which still is largely based on an eight-year-old design, as it gave Europe a second-generation Focus. Only in recent years, Mays said, has a market of younger consumers eager for such cars developed. Part of the reason can be found online.
"Whether they live in Kentucky or Shanghai or Puerto Rico, they all have exactly the same information and they all want exactly the same thing, which is the best design that is globally available," said Mays, pointing to the explosion of car enthusiast blogs. "There simply wasn't that sharing of information in previous generations."
GM has already changed Saturn from a brand focused on cost to one fixated on avant-garde design.
The Aura sedan and Astra hatchback, shared with GM's Opel and Vauxhall brands, have helped Saturn see its average revenue per vehicle rise about 40 percent in the past few years, according to GM chief executive and chairman Rick Wagoner.
"The fundamental change in Saturn is moving from what had developed into a low price car brand with some neat stuff on the consumer side to a significantly more sophisticated product lineup," Wagoner said in Geneva.
While GM is infamous for "badge engineering" - sharing the same car across several brands, the philosophy that helped kill Oldsmobile - executives say that era is over and while the company is still building cars that share similar parts, they no longer share personalities.
"At the end of the day, the question of whether or not you can keep a body style alive is: Are you able to create a lot of enthusiasm about maintaining it?" said Hans Demant, GM Europe's managing director of Opel.
Demant said GM's three global platforms (a fourth, which the upcoming Chevrolet Camaro will use, has an uncertain future) will give the company freedom to tailor vehicle lengths, wheelbases, and suspensions to specific markets, as opposed to simpler engine swaps.
Chrysler, meanwhile, has also accelerated the fusion of its US and European models, but its focus isn't on regional-specific design. With the exception of a 300C wagon and a selection of diesel engines, most of Chrysler's overseas models are built to the same specifications as its US versions, or are imported directly. Still, the company aims to double its international sales by 2012, said Anthony Neville, Chrysler's marketing manager in Ireland.
"It's very much the American manufacturer taking a stroll in Europe," Neville said. "It's really only in the last few years that the company has pushed in Europe."
