Brian O'Connor

Brian O'Connor: 'Car guys' culture out of gas

Corporate headhunters scouting out auto executives must have a new ad: "No 'car guys' need apply."

What else to say about the installation of ex-Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli as head of the newly private Chrysler LLC? He's the second outside CEO hired in less than a year to help Detroit's automakers adapt to the changing world of selling cars in a global economy.

Change is something Detroit has flubbed for three decades, so it certainly seems the time is ripe for someone other than the "car guys" to set things right.

How many new faces and turnaround plans have we seen from carmakers, all silently sucked under the oozing quicksand of the "car guy" culture?

Resisting change is what we DO in this town. Heck, these days it's our major export. Our biggest event is the Woodward Dream Cruise, a nightmarish orgy of denial that's nothing short of High Mass for the rearview mind of the "car guy."

We don't want a new paradigm -- we want a new pair of fuzzy dice for a 1959 Ford Galaxie Skyliner Hardtop Convertible. It's not that Detroit is a good-ol' boy network -- it's a good-ol' days network.

Now, almost 60 years after the first Volkswagen rolled into the United States, the loudest admission that those days are over is the fact that two of the Detroit Three are now run by non-car guys, "outsiders" who are here to help us cope.

Turns out Detroit's carmakers need a sponsor -- you know, like the alcoholics.

Now that we've admitted it's the right time and certainly the right place, the question is: Are these the right guys?

Over at Ford Motor Co., the experience of former Boeing executive Alan Mulally lines up neatly with the flailing family dynasty. He came from a large manufacturing background that faced wrenching change, subsidized foreign competition, dealt with entrenched unions and market factors like soaring prices for steel and oil.

The plane guy has kept the car guys on the path to Ford's Way Forward. Although Ford stock still languishes, the company did report a surprise $750 million second-quarter net profit last month.

Unlike Ford and General Motors Corp., Chrysler doesn't have an overcapacity problem, but one of strategy, product development and marketing -- issues where Nardelli doesn't mesh like Mulally at Ford.

After a stellar career in the top ranks of General Electric, Nardelli got the CEO spot at Home Depot, boosting profits at first but only to leave in disgrace after he destroyed the customer experience, instituted a militaristic numbers-driven management approach and launched a failed focus away from consumers to contractors.

"He took a business that was doing a good job of creating value for customers and turned them away to his competitors," says Peter S. Cohan, a management consultant and contributor to blogginstocks.com. "It would help if Chrysler came up with some products that people want to buy at a price they can afford. And this guy has not demonstrated a track record at doing that."

If Chrysler owner Cerberus Capital Management LP already has its plans for the carmaker set, maybe Nardelli is just the perfect, clipboard-toting, number-crunching taskmaster to keep the company on track.

And if not, then maybe all we'll be able to say is at least he wasn't a car guy.

You can reach Brian O'Connor at (313) 222-2145 or e-mail boconnor@detnews.com.