Devoted to branding and building and protecting brands

When you're basically held hostage by the UAW, your freedom of action as a manufacturer and marketer is pretty much limited.  No freedom to improve margins, no freedom to control costs, no freedom from built-in competitive disadvantages.  I'm not letting the suits off the hook for a generation of uninspired brands (with some rare exceptions we all know about), but Japan, Korea and Germany consistently come up with more reasons to buy their iron than does Detroit.   They tend to see  their cars through the eyes of their customers, and don't see customers through the lens (windshields?) of their cars.