Wheels

Beneath the exterior, Brett knew, engineering innovations would match the outward look. A notable one was electronic fuel injection, replacing a conventional carburetor - the latter an anachronistic hangover from primitive engines and overdue for its demise. Controlling the fuel injection system was one of the many functions of the Orion's on-board, shoe-box-size computer.

The model in Studio X, however, contained nothing mechanical. It was a Fiberglas shell only, made from the cast of an original clay sculpture, though even with close scrutiny it was hard to realize that the car under the spotlights was not real. The model had been left here for comparison with other models to come later, as well as for senior company officers to visit, review, worry over, and renew their faith.

Such faith was important. A gigantic amount of stockholders' money, plus the careers and reputations of all involved, from the chairman of the board downward, was riding on the Orion's wheels. Already the board of directors had sanctioned expenditures of a hundred million dollars for development and production, with more millions likely to be budgeted before introduction time.

Brett was reminded that he had once heard Detroit described as "more of a gambling center than Las Vegas, with higher stakes." The earthy thought drew his mind to practicalities, of which one was the fact that he had not yet had breakfast.

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 table-cloth 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 first 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 twentysix, 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 disneyesque 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 are. 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 community land 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."