“You know how they say that no publicity is bad publicity? Well, they're wrong.”
— Chris Divris, Toyota product planner on the Toyota Tacoma pickup truck — with machine gun mounts on the bed — being the Taliban's vehicle of preference.
“They lost a great deal of their core buyers. When you try to please everybody, often you please nobody.”
— Paul Kuhn, Park Motor Sales, Detroit, on the 1998 redesign of the Lincoln Town Car, which critics say looks like a giant jelly bean. A new design is planned for '03 models.
“Nobody is great forever.”
— Analyst James Hall of AutoPacific, on the ups and downs of the auto industry.
“‘We will not rest until the owner of a BMW who rents a Buick or a Pontiac at the airport, opens the door, sits in and says ‘Holy mackerel, I had no idea American cars were getting this good.’”
— Bob Lutz, on his objective for General Motors products.
Sources: Ward's, Detroit News, Ward's, Wall Street Journal
