Wheels

by Arthur Hailey

  In the design directors’ dining room, several others were already breakfasting when Brett DeLosanto came in. Characteristically, instead of ordering from a waitress, Brett dropped into the kitchen where he joshed with the cooks, who knew him well, then coerced them into preparing Eggs Benedict, which was never on the standard menu. Emerging, he joined his colleagues at the dining room’s large, round table.

  Two visitors were at the table—students from Los Angeles Art Center College of Design, from where, not quite five years ago, Brett DeLosanto himself had graduated. One of the students was a pensive youth, now tracing curves on the tablecloth with a fingernail, the other a bright-eyed, nineteen-year-old girl.

  Glancing around to make sure he would be listened to, Brett resumed a conversation with the students which had begun yesterday.

  “If you come to work here,” he advised them, “you should install brain filters to keep out the antediluvian ideas the old-timers will throw at you.”

  “Brett’s idea of an old-timer,” a designer in his early thirties said from across the table, “is anyone old enough to vote when Nixon was elected.”

  “The elderly party who just spoke,” Brett informed the students, “is our Mr. Robertson. He designs fine family sedans which would be even better with shafts and a horse in front. By the way, he endorses his paycheck with a quill, and is hanging on for pension.”

  “A thing we love about young DeLosanto,” a graying designer put in, “is his respect for experience and age.” The designer, Dave Heberstein, who was studio head for Color and Interiors, surveyed Brett’s carefully groomed but dazzling appearance. “By the way, where is the masquerade ball tonight?”

  “If you studied my exteriors more carefully,” Brett retorted, “then used them for your interiors, you’d start customer stampedes.”

  Someone else asked, “To our competitors?”

  “Only if I went to work for them.”

  Brett grinned. He had maintained a brash repartee with the majority of others in the design studios since coming to work there as a novice, and most seemed to enjoy it still. Nor had it affected Brett’s rise as an automobile designer, which had been phenomenal. Now, at age twenty-six, he ranked equal with all but a few senior studio heads.

  A few years ago it would have been inconceivable that anyone looking like Brett DeLosanto could have got past the main gate security guards, let alone be permitted to work in the stratified atmosphere of a corporate design studio. But concepts had changed. Nowadays, management realized that avant-garde cars were more likely to be created by “with it” designers who were imaginative and experimental about fashion, including their own appearance. Similarly, while stylist-designers were expected to work hard and produce, seniors like Brett were allowed, within reason, to decide their own working hours. Often Brett DeLosanto came late, idled or sometimes disappeared entirely during the day, then worked through lonely hours of the night. Because his record was exceptionally good, and he attended staff meetings when told to specifically, nothing was ever said.

  He addressed the students again. “One of the things the ancient ones will tell you, including some around this table eating sunny side ups … Ah, many thanks!” Brett paused while a waitress placed his Eggs Benedict in front of him, then resumed. “A thing they’ll argue is that major changes in car design don’t happen any more. From now on, they say, we’ll have only transitions and ordered development. Well, that’s what the gas works thought just before Edison invented electric light I tell you there are design changes coming. One reason: We’ll be getting fantastic new materials to work with soon, and that’s an area where a lot of people aren’t looking because there aren’t any flashing lights.”

  “But you’re looking, Brett, aren’t you?” someone said. “You’re looking out for the rest of us.”

  “That’s right.” Brett DeLosanto cut himself a substantial portion of Eggs Benedict and speared it with his fork. “You fellows can relax. I’ll help you keep your jobs.” He ate with zest.

  The bright-eyed girl student said, “Isn’t it true that most new designs from here on will be largely functional?”

  Speaking through a full mouth, Brett answered, “They can be functional and fantastic.”

  “You’ll be functional like a balloon tire if you eat a lot of that.” Heberstein, the Color and Interiors chief, eyed Brett’s rich dish with distaste, then told the students, “Almost all good design is functional. It always has been. The exceptions are pure art forms which have no purpose other than to be beautiful. It’s when design isn’t functional that it becomes either bad design or bordering on it. The Victorians made their designs ponderously unfunctional, which is why so many were appalling. Mind you, we still do the same thing sometimes in this business when we put on enormous tail fins or excess chrome or protruding grillwork. Fortunately we’re learning to do it less.”

  The pensive male student stopped making patterns on the tablecloth. “The Volkswagen is functional—wholly so. But you wouldn’t call it beautiful.”

  Brett DeLosanto waved his fork and swallowed hastily, before anyone else could speak. “That, my friend, is where you and the rest of the world’s public are gullibly misled. The Volkswagen is a fraud, a gigantic hoax.”

  “It’s a good car,” the girl student said. “I have one.”

  “Of course it’s a good car.” Brett ate some more of his breakfast while the two young, would-be designers watched him curiously. “When the landmark autos of this century are added up, the Volkswagen will be there along with the Pierce-Arrow, the Model T Ford, 1929 Chevrolet 6, Packard before the 1940s, Rolls-Royce until the ’60s, Lincoln, Chrysler Airflow, Cadillacs of the ’30s, the Mustang, Pontiac GTO, 2-passenger Thunderbirds, and some others. But the Volkswagen is still a fraud because a sales campaign has convinced people it’s an ugly car, which it isn’t, or it wouldn’t have lasted half as long as it has. What the Volkswagen really has is form, balance, symmetrical sense and a touch of genius; if it were a sculpture in bronze instead of a car it could be on a pedestal alongside a Henry Moore. But because the public’s been beaten on the head with statements that it’s ugly, they’ve swallowed the hook and so have you. But then, all car owners like to deceive themselves.”

  Somebody said, “Here’s where I came in.”

  Chairs were eased back. Most of the others began drifting out to their separate studios. The Color and Interiors chief stopped beside the chairs of the two students. “If you filter Junior’s output—the way he advised to begin with—you might just find a pearl or two.”

  “By the time I’m through”—Brett checked a spray of egg and coffee with a napkin—“they’ll have enough to make pearl jam.”

  “Too bad I can’t stay!” Heberstein nodded amiably from the doorway. “Drop in later, Brett, will you? We’ve a fabric report I think you’ll want to know about.”

  “Is it always like that?” The youth, who had resumed drawing finger parabolas on the tablecloth, looked curiously at Brett.

  “In here it is, usually. But don’t let the kidding fool you. Under it, a lot of good ideas get going.”

  It was true. Auto company managements encouraged designers, as well as others in creative jobs, to take meals together in private dining rooms; the higher an individual’s rank, the more pleasant and exclusive such privileges became. But, at whatever level, the talk at table inevitably turned to work. Then, keen minds sparked one another and brilliant ideas occasionally had genesis over entree or dessert. Senior staff dining rooms operated at a loss, but managements made up deficits cheerfully, regarding them as investments with a good yield.

  “Why did you say car owners deceive themselves?” the girl asked.

  “We know they do. It’s a slice of human nature you learn to live with.” Brett eased from the table and tilted back his chair. “Most Joe Citizens out there in communityland love snappy-looking cars. But they also like to think of themselves as rational, so what happens? They kid themselves. A lot of those same Joe
C.’s won’t admit, even in their minds, their real motivations when they buy their next torpedo.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Simple. If Joe wants just reliable transportation—as a good many of his kind say they do—all he needs is the cheapest, simplest, stripped economy job in the Chev, Ford, or Plymouth line. Most, though, want more than that—a better car because, like a sexy-looking babe on the arm, or a fancy home, it gives a good warm feeling in the gut. Nothing wrong with that! But Joe and his friends seem to think there is, which is why they fool themselves.”

  “So consumer research …”

  “Is for the birds! Okay, we send out some dame with a clipboard who asks a guy coming down the street what he wants in his next car. Right away he thinks he’ll impress her, so he lists all the square stuff like reliability, gas mileage, safety, trade-in value. If it’s a written quiz, unsigned, he does it so he impresses himself. Down at the bottom, both times, he may put appearance, if he mentions it at all. Yet, when it comes to buy-time and the same guy’s in a showroom, whether he admits it or not, appearance will be right there on top.”

  Brett stood, and stretched. “You’ll find some who’ll tell you that the public’s love affair with cars is over. Nuts! Well all be around for a while, kids, because old Joe C., with his hangups, is still a designer’s friend.”

  He glanced at his watch; there was another half hour until he would meet Adam Trenton en route to the proving ground, which left time to stop at Color and Interiors.

  On their way out of the dining room, Brett asked the students, “What do you make of it all?”

  The curiosity was genuine. What the two students were doing now, Brett had done himself not many years ago. Auto companies regularly invited design school students in, treating them like VIPs, while the students saw for themselves the kind of aura they might work in later. The auto makers, too, courted students at their schools. Teams from the Big Three visited design colleges several times a year, openly competing for the most promising soon-to-be graduates, and the same was true of other industry areas—engineering, science, finance, merchandising, law—so that auto companies with their lavish pay scales and benefits, including planned promotion, skimmed off a high proportion of the finer talents. Some—including thoughtful people in the industry itself—argued that the process was unjust, that auto makers corralled too much of the world’s best brainpower, to the detriment of civilization generally, which needed more thinkers to solve urgent, complex human problems. Just the same, no other agency or industry succeeded in recruiting a comparable, constant flow of top-flight achievers. Brett DeLosanto had been one.

  “It’s exciting,” the bright-eyed girl said, answering Brett’s question. “Like being in on creation, the real thing. A bit scary, of course. All those other people to compete with, and you know how good they must be. But if you make it here, you’ve really made it big.”

  She had the attitude it took, Brett thought. All she needed was the talent, plus some extra push to overcome the industry’s prejudice against women who wanted to be more than secretaries.

  He asked the youth, “How about you?”

  The pensive young man shook his head uncertainly. He was frowning. “I’m not sure. Okay, everything’s big time, there’s plenty of bread thrown around, a lot of effort, and I guess it’s exciting all right”—he nodded toward the girl—“just the way she said. I keep wondering, though: Is it all worth it? Maybe I’m crazy, and I know it’s late; I mean, having done the design course and all, or most of it. But you can’t help asking: For an artist, does it matter? Is it what you want to give blood to, a lifetime?”

  “You have to love cars to work here,” Brett said. “You have to care about them so much that they’re the most important thing there is. You breathe, eat, sleep cars, sometimes remember them when you’re making love. You wake up in the night, it’s cars you think about—those you’re designing, others you’d like to. It’s like a religion.” He added curtly, “If you don’t feel that way, you don’t belong here.”

  “I do love cars,” the youth said. “I always have, as long as I remember, in just the way you said. It’s only lately …” He left the sentence hanging, as if unwilling to voice heresy a second time.

  Brett made no other comment. Opinions, appraisals of that kind were individual, and decisions because of them, personal. No one else could help because in the end it all depended on your own ideas, values, and sometimes conscience. Besides, there was another factor which Brett had no intention of discussing with these two: Lately he had experienced some of the same questioning and doubts himself.

  The chief of Color and Interiors had a skeleton immediately inside his office, used for anatomy studies in relation to auto seating. The skeleton hung slightly off the ground, suspended by a chain attached to a plate in the skull. Brett DeLosanto shook hands with it as he came in. “Good morning, Ralph.”

  Dave Heberstein came from behind his desk and nodded toward the main studio. “Let’s go through.” He patted the skeleton affectionately in passing. “A loyal and useful staff member who never criticizes, never asks for a raise.”

  The Color Center, which they entered, was a vast, domed chamber, circular and constructed principally of glass, allowing daylight to flood in. The overhead dome gave a cathedral effect, so that several enclosed booths—for light-controlled viewing of color samples and fabrics—appeared like chapels. Deep carpeting underfoot deadened sound. Throughout the room were display boards, soft and hard trim samples, and a color library comprising every color in the spectrum as well as thousands of subcolors.

  Heberstein stopped at a display table. He told Brett DeLosanto, “Here’s what I wanted you to see.”

  Under glass, a half-dozen upholstery samples had been arranged, each identified by mill and purchase number. Other similar samples were loose on the table top. Though variously colored, they bore the generic name “Metallic Willow.” Dave Heberstein picked one up. “Remember these?”

  “Sure.” Brett nodded. “I liked them; still do.”

  “I did, too. In fact, I recommended them for use.” Heberstein fingered the sample which was pleasantly soft to the touch. It had—as had all the others—an attractive patterned silver fleck. “It’s crimped yarn with a metallic thread.”

  Both men were aware that the fabric had been introduced as an extra cost option with the company’s top line models this year. It had proven popular and soon, in differing colors, would be available for the Orion. Brett asked, “So what’s the fuss?”

  “Letters,” Heberstein said. “Customers’ letters which started coming in a couple of weeks ago.” He took a key ring from his pocket and opened a drawer in the display table. Inside was a file containing about two dozen photocopied letters. “Read a few of those.”

  The correspondence, which was mainly from women or their husbands, though a few lawyers had written on behalf of clients, had a common theme. The women had sat in their cars wearing mink coats. In each case when they left the car, part of the mink had adhered to the seat, depleting and damaging the coat. Brett whistled softly.

  “Sales ran a check through the computer,” Heberstein confided. “In every case the car concerned had Metallic Willow seats. I understand there are still more letters coming in.”

  “Obviously you’ve made tests.” Brett handed back the folder of letters. “So what do they show?”

  “They show the whole thing’s very simple; trouble is, nobody thought of it before it happened. You sit on the seat, the cloth depresses and opens up. That’s normal, of course, but what also open up in this case are the metallic threads, which is still okay, providing you don’t happen to be wearing mink. But if you are, some of the fine hairs go down between the metallic threads. Get up, and the threads close, holding the mink hairs so they pull out from the coat. You can ruin a three-thousand-dollar coat in one trip around the block.”

  Brett grinned. “If word gets around, every woman in the country with an old mink will ru
sh out for a ride, then put in a claim for a new coat.”

  “Nobody’s laughing. Over at staff they’ve pushed the panic button.”

  “The fabric’s out of production?”

  Heberstein nodded. “As of this morning. And from now on we have another test around here with new fabrics. Rather obviously, it’s known as the mink test.”

  “What’s happening about all the seats already out?”

  “God knows! And I’m glad that part’s not my headache. The last I heard, it had gone as high as the chairman of the board. I do know the legal department is settling all claims quietly, as soon as they come in. They’ve figured there’ll be a few phony ones, but better to pay if there’s a chance of keeping the whole thing under wraps.”

  “Mink wraps?”

  The studio head said dourly, “Spare me the lousy jokes. You’ll get all this through channels, but I thought you and a few others should know right away because of the Orion.”

  “Thanks.” Brett nodded thoughtfully. It was true—changes would have to be made in Orion plans, though the particular area was not his responsibility. He was grateful, however, for another reason.

  Within the next few days, he now decided, he must change either his car or the seats in his present one. Brett’s car had Metallic Willow fabric and, coincidentally, he planned a birthday gift of mink next month which he had no wish to see spoiled. The mink, which undoubtedly would be worn in his car, was for Barbara.

  Barbara Zaleski.

  6

  “Dad,” Barbara said, “I’ll be staying over in New York for a day or two. I thought I’d let you know.”

  In the background, through the telephone, she could hear an overlay of factory noise. Barbara had had to wait several minutes while the operator located Matt Zaleski in the plant; now, presumably, he had taken the call somewhere close to the assembly line.

  Her father asked, “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you have to stay?”

  She said lightly, “Oh, the usual kind of thing. Client problems at the agency. Some meetings about next year’s advertising; they need me here for them.” Barbara was being patient. She really shouldn’t have to explain, as if she were still a child requiring permission to be out late. If she decided to stay a week, a month, or forever in New York, that was it.