Chip Off the Old Engine Block

AUTOMAKER KNUDSEN

ONE of the enduring mysteries of U.S. business is how a product can suddenly catch fire with consumers or, at times, just as suddenly lose favor. Nearly 30 years ago, General Motors' William S. Knudsen, a Danish immigrant bicyclemaker turned automan, was the one who lit the fuse under Chevrolet and sent it out ahead of Ford as the most popular U.S. car. His reward was the presidency of General Motors. Three years ago, Big Bill Knudsen's son, Semon Emil Knudsen, took on a similar job: he was made boss of G.M.'s sputtering Pontiac division, thus became, at 43, G.M.'s youngest auto-di-vision boss. Pontiac was the weakest of all the auto divisions, languishing in sixth place in overall U.S. car sales. Last week "Bunky" Knudsen's hot-rodding Pontiac was at the top of the medium-price field, with 30% of that market; sales were up (117% in April, 60% for the year), and Pontiac was in a nip-and- tuck race with lower-priced Plymouth for third place in overall standings. On G.M.'s corporate-profit sheets, Pontiac stood second only to Chevrolet; around the G.M. building in Detroit there was quiet talk that Bunky Knudsen might well become G.M. president some day. From the start, Bill Knudsen insisted that his son be on his own. When Bunky was 14, his father told him that he could have a new (1927) Chevrolet if he would stop at the plant. Bunky hurried over--and found the car in several thousand pieces. "It took me a couple of months to assemble the darn thing," he says, "but I finally got it running." THE challenge turned him into a car bug. It also made him determined to fill his father's oversized boots. A broad- shouldered (185 Ibs., 6 ft.), soft-spoken young man, Knudsen had the single-minded drive of a piston. He worked in auto plants in summer, went to Dartmouth, then to M.I.T. ('36) for his degree in engineering. After several years at other companies, he arrived at Pontiac, as a menial "tool chaser." He tried everything, just so it added another bit of experience: defense plant chief inspector, car-assem bly superintendent, assistant master mechanic, boss of a new "process develop-ment" section searching to make prod- ucts more efficiently. Says Knudsen: "As long as you're interested enough to take any job that comes along, you'll find something worthwhile to do, and it usually turns out to be a better job than the last one." By the time he was 43, he had performed chores in no fewer than 106 G.M. plants.

The top Pontiac job tied all the work together. Knudsen's first move after he became general manager was to go to the styling center. He knew what was wrong with Pontiac; it had a "grandma image" in the customer's mind. He wanted to change it so "teenagers would shout, 'Cool, man, real cool.'" The 1957 Pontiac was only 30 days from pilot production, just 60 days from volume production. Walking around the car, Knudsen announced abruptly: "Let's take the silver streaks off. That's the biggest change we can make." The stylists were shocked. They reminded the new boss that Big Bill Knudsen himself was the onec who introduced the streaks, in 1935. But off they went, the first move to face-lift grandma.

HE reorganized the division (retirements and transfers were encouraged, "and we did some firing too," says Knudsen) and set out to redesign the Pontiac from the wheels up--and out--aiming to make it real cool by this year. His biggest change was to widen the car by 2^ in. and push the wheels out as well. The effect was spectacular. The car not only looked flashy, but also the wide-track wheels gave better balance and road ability. Equally important, says Knudsen, "it gives people something to talk about. They can see it and they can understand it." Where the average age of previous Pontiac buyers was around 45, today's buyer is between 30 and 35. Another sales lure: Knudsen cut the price of expensive models, held the line on the lower-priced models, so that Pontiac's top-selling Catalina costs less than a Chevrolet Impala.

For Bunky Knudsen, the rewards of success are a $100,000 annual salary, a sprawling, twelve-room colonial farmhouse, with two tennis courts and a swimming pool, on 40 acres in suburban Birmingham, Mich., where he lives with his wife Florence and their four teenage children. Knudsen does not spend much time there. His work day is ten hours long, and part of every evening is spent slamming Pontiacs, a new one each day, around the roughest roads he can find. Knudsen, who fidgets when he hears his success mentioned, likes to recall one of the few pieces of advice his father gave him: "Before you tell someone how good you are, you must tell him how bad vou used to be."

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