COVERT OPS
No frills for GM big wigs

ROOM AT THE INN
So which fancy Toronto hotel hosted the top brass of the world's largest automaker during their latest visit to Ontario?

None of them did.

Leading by austere example, General Motors' corporate brass, including chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner and vice-chairman Bob Lutz, bunked down in Oshawa at a Comfort Inn. It currently has a quoted room rate of $96.66 with a queen-size bed, and slightly more with a microwave and efficiency kitchen.

At a recent dinner in Tokyo, one executive who travelled with the group confirmed. "Yes, it was a motel right next to the freeway (Highway 401) and yes, we could hear trucks non-stop on the highway all night long."

Presumably GM's executive security expert - the smartly clad hulk with the ever-present earpiece - stood guard to ensure all was safe, albeit anything but peaceful.

But how do corporate brass end up in such humble lodgings? They go by the book. GM has an in-house global bible of hotels and motels where all employees - high or low - are permitted to spend the lodging portion of their per diem travel expenses.

MIATA MAKEOVER
Visitors to last month's Tokyo auto show finally got a preview of the hot new turbocharged version of Mazda's Miata roadster, which will be launched in Canada next spring.

THE YEAR OF THE CAR
Having put most of last year's eggs into the truck basket and focusing heavily on the launch of the new-generation, best-selling F-150 pickup, Ford plans to shift gears and promote 2004 as the "Year of the Car."

The automaker expects to start the juggernaut rolling at the Detroit auto show in January. So far the company is promising that each of its seven product brands - Aston Martin, Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Land Rover, Mazda and Volvo - will offer at least one worldwide premiere at the Detroit show.

These debuts reportedly will include final production versions of the Ford Five Hundred sedan, the Freestyle crossover sedan-wagon, a revamped Focus sub-compact and the retro Ford GT sports car.

GTO COMING?
"Help is at hand." This was the recent promise from a senior GM product executive after being asked (yet again) why his company still hasn't engineered the more resilient 8 km/h bumpers needed to make the U.S.-market Pontiac GTO legal in Canada.

The GTO is adapted from GM Australia's Holden Monaro.

Insiders say it was launched in the U.S. so hastily that there wasn't time to engineer a better bumper for Canada. So does this mean we can hope the GTO will finally make its Canadian debut at February's Canadian International AutoShow in Toronto? We'll keep our fingers crossed.

CAMI RAMPS UP
A state-of-the-art, but woefully under-used Canadian auto assembly plant will shortly get back into serious production.

The CAMI plant, located on the north side of Highway 401 near Ingersoll, is a joint venture between General Motors and Suzuki. In recent years, it's produced a trickle of Japanese-designed, truck-based sport-utilities marketed in Canada as the Suzuki Sidekick and Chevrolet Tracker.

Next year, however, CAMI is scheduled to finally get back to work, churning out the 2005 Chevrolet Equinox - a steel-bodied wagon, loosely based on Saturn's plastic panelled VUE sport-utility. A variant of the Equinox, which will be used as a replacement for Suzuki's current XL-7, will reportedly be added to CAMI's production mix sometime in 2005.

That's the good news. On the other hand, insiders report that plans for CAMI to also produce a gas-electric hybrid version of the Equinox have been shelved for at least a year or two.

AND THE SURVEY SAYS…
Coming soon to a phone or computer near you: More polls and surveys about the motor vehicles we like, don't like and those we can't even be bothered to consider.

Many automakers won't make any significant product changes these days without justifying their decisions through a round of 'how are we doing?' surveys and focus groups.

Some argue that this trend has led to the dumbing down of vehicle design and innovation as manufacturers strive to be all things to all people.

Even so, and for better or worse, the industry will soon have access to a new set of survey results that supposedly allow corporate sales gurus to quickly discover awareness levels among buyers and non-buyers as each new-model nameplate is introduced to the North American automotive marketplace.

The AutoVIBES (Vehicle Introduction Brand Excitement Scale) survey will be compiled by Kelly Blue Book (U.S. auto valuation experts) in partnership with consultants at Harris Interactive.

Results will be announced monthly and are expected to make it easier for vehicle marketing specialists to fine-tune their launch, promotion and sales incentive campaigns.