GM Design Chief Accuses Huffington Post of Racial Prejudice

Robert Farago
by Robert Farago

As GM stares down the barrel of bankruptcy—oh wait, they’re already bankrupt. My bad. You see, I was reading Ed Welburn’s rant on GM’s FastLane blog. Eddy’s pissed-off at Gerald Sindell’s “ Open Letter to GM CEO Fritz Henderson,” which says GM’s designs reek of “Older white guys wearing suits to the office in Detroit, except for one woman and one black guy.” As the one black guy in question, Welburn’s on the warpath. Hence my confusion. I mean, with GM in C11 and all, you think the head of design would have something better to do than accuse the media of race baiting—even if it is. Which it isn’t. To steal a line from another legendary zombie, can we talk?

Here’s the quote in question, where Sindell accuses GM design team of being a bunch of (mostly) lily-white fuddy-duddies:

I went to your new website, gmreinvention.com, and perused the portraits of the top team, just to get some clues about the design sense there. I see mostly corporate-type guys, in ties and suits, and the one thing that doesn’t leap out is, “Wow — great design sense.” What leaps out is, “Older white guys wearing suits to the office in Detroit, except for one woman and one black guy.” And while we’re all looking at this new website together for clues about the new GM, does it worry any of you that the portfolio of the woman, Susan E. Doherty, is described as: “North America VP, Buick-Pontiac-GMC”? Didn’t anyone tell the web designer that Pontiac was buried several weeks ago?

After a bunch of “We at GM are artists” BS, here’s Wellburn’s indignant, poorly punctuated response:

As for quantifying my colleagues as old white men, I can only point you to my opinion , that diversity is not only represented in skin color or gender; it is diversity of thoughts, ideas, experiences and opinions of our people, that matters and makes us strong.

So, is Wellburn accusing Sindell of being a racist for believing that white people are lousy car designers? It may not be PC of me to say so, but that’s very funny. And what of the facts of the matter? Is there more than one woman and one black guy in GM’s design department? Does Doherty know she’s out of a job, or is no one brave enough to tell her?

Wellburn saves the best for last. I mean, his invitation to Sindell is PR 101 stuff. But the kicker kicks ass.

Ultimately, you and your readers will judge for yourselves. To that end, I’d like to invite you to reacquaint yourself with our award-winning cars and trucks. I would be happy to take you, Mr. Sindell, on a personal tour of GM Design Headquarters in Warren, MI. I implore you to see what we’re working on; and then let folks know what you think. In the interim, the GM design staff will do its part to ensure that design stays in the asset column.

In other words, don’t downsize me ‘bro. (I’m just tasing.)

Robert Farago
Robert Farago

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  • Akatsuki Akatsuki on Jun 10, 2009

    I don't think that thinking creatively is at all the problem. Building unreliable cars for decades and focusing on horsepower over everything else was and is the problem. For most of the population a car is 1) an appliance, 2) a status symbol, in a distant 3) a 0-60 quarter-mile vehicle, and in a even more distant 4) a vehicle that can take a corner well. I would say that GM got it mostly backwards, giving us overpowered drag-racers, which, when they didn't sell, they would just keep doubling down on. I'd rather GM actually got "into the box" and started working on core competencies of reliability and comfort. As for diversity and styling: there is no question that the kind of guy GM builds cars for is the same guy that would have bought an IROC-Z Camaro back in the day. The CTS is so overtly macho, and who buys a lot of BMW 3s? Suburban house-moms. They definitely need to get some people in there who care about the feel of plastics in the car and if they are women or black or archetypical gay fashion designers, so be it.

  • Potemkin Potemkin on Jun 10, 2009

    One of GM's problems has been diversity at all levels of the organization. Promotions were and still may be based on meeting a quota for a certain percentage of women and non whites in management roles irrespective of their talent or ability. GM's HRM mantra was not the best and brightest but rather the most diverse. What you end up with is poor managers and pissed off talented white guys who soon go to companies that will appreciate them.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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