GM'S PLAN A SOFT LANDING

Remember the old ad slogan, "This is not your father's Oldsmobile"? Well, this is no longer your father's auto industry -- but GM is still run as if it were. Fifteen years ago management struck a deal with unions that made it all but impossible to close auto plants or lay off workers without incurring massive costs. GM also agreed to cushy retiree benefits that put it at a severe disadvantage. Much of what ails GM today flows from that accounting reality and its inability to increase the business at home. The need to keep those plants running, to generate cash, and to feed a sprawling web of aging auto brands compromises car design and results in too many models that sit for years without an update. The bedrock principle upon which GM was built -- offering a car to feed every market segment -- has degraded into a series of contrived brands, most with little identity, and bland, overlapping product lines.That explains how GM's "performance" division, Pontiac, ends up as one of four units selling essentially the same family-hauling minivan. Or how Pontiac's G6 sedan was launched this year with a basic four-speed transmission and cheap plastic interior, making it a middle-of-the-pack contender against cars like the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, or Nissan Altima. Says Gerald C. Meyers, who ran American Motors Corp. until it was bought by Renault in 1984 and who now teaches crisis management at the University of Michigan: "Instead of deciding what they want to do, they do everything and do none of it well."Compare that with how the most successful car companies -- Toyota, Nissan, and Honda (HMC ) -- do things. They concentrate research dollars on fewer vehicles, pack them with the latest features and technologies, manufacture them in low-cost, nonunion U.S. factories, and update them relentlessly. Look at the numbers: GM execs doled out $7 billion for capital spending and research and development last year, vs. $15.3 billion for Toyota. The portion of that spent in North America gets spread over GM's 89 auto models and eight divisions, compared with Toyota's 26 nameplates in three divisions. Toyota models average sales of 80,000 units a year in the U.S., whereas GM squeezes out just 52,000 sales per model on average. And Toyota models stay on the market for an average of three years before their next redesign, compared with nearly four for GM's cars.