By Warren Brown
Washington Post
Monday, January 8, 2001

DETROIT, Jan. 8 -- Big auto shows are like political conventions. All of the manufacturers and their suppliers arrive with the goal of pushing platforms.

And we're not talking just the chassis framework a car is built around. Car makers have policy platforms too.

Take what happened here yesterday at the opening of the 2001 North American International Auto Show, one of the world's biggest automotive exhibitions.

The top executives of Michelin North America and the tire company's global operations were on hand to announce, ostensibly, a car race. But they really were presenting their vision of the car of the future, an automobile powered by alternative fuels, or by a combination of gas and electric.

The Michelin Challenge Bibendum, in fact, is meant to be a real-world test of environmental vehicles, such as the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight, top finalists in the 2001 National Car of the Year contest.

Michelin executives were mum on the exact cost of this event, first staged in France in 1998. But the investment is well worth a piece of the world's future automotive market, which will be dominated by cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars and trucks, said Edouard Michelin, president and chief executive officer of the company's global operations.

Now, here's a point to ponder: CEO Michelin said that his company's clean-car investment does not mean the payoff will be a net gain in tire sales; but he said it ultimately could prevent a net loss.

"We've been doing research," Michelin said. "Today, speed and durability are not the only elements in vehicle design. Consumers are demanding more. They want cleaner, more efficient vehicles," Michelin said.

In other words, the market is changing. For example, Japan has had a long love affair with all things diesel, largely because diesel delivers more mileage in a country that has to import oil to keep running.

But those diesel exhausts have been choking up the place. Japanese consumers and the nation's legislature, the Diet, are demanding that the car manufacturers clean up their act.

As a result, companies such as Toyota and Honda have accelerated the development of alternative-fuel vehicles, which require tires that have low rolling resistance (less friction) to help deliver the best mileage. Michelin said his company simply is getting in on the ground floor.

But a look around the gargantuan show floor at Cobo Hall here indicates that automakers are trying to play it both ways.

DaimlerChrysler Ag, for example, yesterday rolled out its latest version of the Jeep, the Liberty. Ford Motor Co., with the rousing accompaniment of a gospel choir, presented its concept Ford Forty-Nine, a glass-roofed coupe powered by a Thunderbird V8 engine. General Motors Corp., which will use the show to announce a new range of gas-electric vehicles, also is presenting its super gas-hog, too-big-for-God-and-country Hummer H2 SUT sport-utility truck.

But Michelin said he sees no industrial schizophrenia in all of this. Politicians find voters wherever they can. Car companies travel different directions in pursuit of customers. Suppliers, such as Michelin, play the role of political consultants ¡¾ providing the components needed to help win or maintain the support of the target group. (That's why the company Michelin is making no secret of a new group of Michelin tires designed specifically for sport-utility vehicles). But CEO Michelin has a dream. One day, he says, the people who want practical, fuel-efficient vehicles will get together with the people who want passionate vehicles and produce fuel-efficient models that also have sex appeal.

That has to happen in order for Michelin's investment in tires for higher mileage, cleaner cars to make sense, the company's top executive said.

"A car can be the cleanest car in the world, the most fuel-efficient. But if it has no consumer appeal, it belongs in a museum," CEO Michelin said in an interview. To help avoid that fate, Michelin is using a time-tested, automotive marketing tool in the almighty race, in this case, the Michelin Challenge Bibendum, which will begin Friday, October 26 in Los Angeles and end Sunday, October 28th in Las Vegas.

It all harkens back to the old auto industry slogan: "Race on Sunday. Sell on Monday."

P.S. Bibendum? That's the name of that fat, white Michelin guy, the one with the tire-like torso, generally known in the United States as The Michelin Man.