allowed, within reason, to decide their own working hours. Often Brett DeLosanto came late, idled or sometimes disappeared entirely during the day, then worked through lonely hours of the night. Because his record was exceptionally good, and he attended staff meetings when told to specifically, nothing was ever said.
He addressed the students again. 'One of the things the ancient ones will tell you, including some around this table eating sunny side ups . . . Ah, many thanks!' Brett paused while a waitress placed his Eggs Benedict in front of him, then resumed. 'A thing they'll argue is that major changes in car design don't happen any more. From now on, they say, we'll have only transitions and ordered development. Well, that's what the gas works thought just before Edison invented electric light. I tell you there are disneyesque design changes coming. One reason: We'll be getting fantastic new materials to work with soon, and that's an area where a lot of people aren't looking because there aren't any flashing lights.'
'But you're looking, Brett, aren't you?' someone said. 'You're looking out for the rest of us.'
'That's right.' Brett DeLosanto cut himself a substantial portion of Eggs Benedict and speared it with his fork. 'You fellows can relax. I'll help you keep your jobs.' He ate with zest.
The bright-eyed girl student said, 'Isn't it true that most new designs from here on will be largely functional?'
Speaking through a full mouth, Brett answered, 'They can be functional and fantastic.'
'You'll be functional like a balloon tire if you eat a lot of that.'
Heberstein, the Color and Interiors chief, eyed Brett's rich dish with distaste, then told the students, 'Almost all good design is functional. It always has been. The exceptions are pure art forms which have no purpose other than to be beautiful. It's when design isn't functional that it becomes either bad design or bordering on it. The Victorians made their designs ponderously unfunctional, which is why so many were appalling. Mind you, we still do the same thing sometimes in this business when we put on enormous tail fins or excess chrome or protruding grillwork. Fortunately we're learning to do it less.'
The pensive male student stopped making patterns on the tablecloth. 'The Volkswagen is functional - wholly so. But you wouldn't call it beautiful.'
Brett DeLosanto waved his fork and swallowed hastily, before anyone else could speak. 'That, my friend, is where you and the rest of the world's public are gullibly misled. The Volkswagen is a fraud, a gigantic hoax.'
'It's a good car,' the girl student said. 'I have one.'
'Of course it's a good car.' Brett ate some more of his breakfast while the two young, would-be designers watched him curiously. 'When the landmark autos of this century are added up, the Volkswagen will be there along with the Pierce-Arrow, the Model T Ford, 1929 Chevrolet 6, Packard before the 1940s, Rolls-Royce until the '60s, Lincoln, Chrysler Airflow, Cadillacs of the '30s, the Mustang, Pontiac GTO, 2-passenger Thunderbirds, and some others. But the Volkswagen is still a fraud because a sales campaign has convinced people it's an ugly car, which it isn't, or it wouldn't have lasted half as long as it has. What the Volkswagen really has is form, balance, symmetrical sense and a touch of genius; if it were a sculpture in bronze instead of a car it could be on a pedestal alongside a Henry Moore. But because the public's been beaten on the head with statements that it's ugly, they've swallowed the hook and so have you. But then, all car owners like to deceive themselves.'
Somebody said, 'Here's where I came in,'
Chairs were eased back. Most of the others began drifting out to their separate studios. The Color and Interiors chief stopped beside the chairs of the two students. 'If you filter Junior's output the way he advised to begin with - you might just find a pearl or two.'
'By the time I'm through' - Brett checked a spray of egg and coffee with a napkin - 'they'll have enough to make pearl jam.'
'Too bad I can't stay!' Heberstein nodded amiably from the doorway.
'Drop in later, Brett, will you? We've a fabric report I think you'll want to know about.'
'Is it always like that?' The youth, who had resumed drawing finger parabolas on the tablecloth, looked curiously at Brett.
'In here it is, usually. But don't let the kidding fool you. Under it, a lot of good ideas get going.'
It was true. Auto company managements encouraged designers, as well as others in creative jobs, to take meals together in private dining rooms; the higher an individual's rank, the more pleasant and exclusive such privileges are. But, at whatever level, the talk at table inevitably turned to work. Then, keen minds sparked one another and brilliant ideas occasionally had genesis over entree or dessert. Senior staff dining rooms operated at a loss, but managements made up deficits cheerfully, regarding them as investments with a good yield.
'Why did you say car owners deceive themselves?' the girl asked.
'We know they do. It's a slice of human nature you learn to live with.'
Brett eased from the table and tilted back his chair. 'Most Joe Citizens out there in community land love snappy looking cars. But they also like to think of themselves as rational, so what happens? They kid themselves. A lot of those same Joe C.'s won't admit, even in their minds, their real motivations when they buy their next torpedo.'
'How can you be sure?'
'Simple. If Joe wants just reliable transportation - as a good many of his kind say they do - all he needs is the cheapest, simplest, stripped economy job in the Chev, Ford, or Plymouth line. Most, though, want more than that - a better car because, like a sexy-looking babe on the arm, or a fancy home, it gives a good warm feeling in the gut. Nothing wrong with that! But Joe and his friends seem to think there is, which is why they fool themselves.'
'So consumer research'
'Is for the birds! Okay, we send out some dame with a clipboard who asks a guy coming down the street what he wants in his next car. Right away he thinks he'll impress her, so he lists all the square stuff like reliability, gas mileage, safety, trade-in value. If it's a written quiz, unsigned, he does it so he impresses himself. Down at the bottom, both times, he may put appearance, if he mentions it at all. Yet, when it comes to buy-time and the same guy's in a showroom, whether he admits it or not, appearance will be right there on top.'
Brett stood, and stretched. 'You'll find some who'll tell you that the public's love affair with cars is over. Nuts! We'll all be around for a while, kids, because old Joe C., with his hangups, is still a designer's friend.'
He glanced at his watch; there was another half hour until he would meet Adam Trenton en route to the proving ground, which left time to stop at Color and Interiors.
On their way out of the dining room, Brett asked the students, 'What do you make of it all?'
The curiosity was genuine. What the two students were doing now, Brett had done himself not many years ago. Auto companies regularly invited design school students in, treating them like VIPs, while the students saw for themselves the kind of aura they might work in later. The auto makers, too, courted students at their schools. Teams from the Big Three visited design colleges several times a year, openly competing for the most promising soon-to-be graduates, and the same was true of other industry areas - engineering, science, finance, merchandising, law - so that auto companies with their lavish pay scales and benefits, including planned promotion, skimmed off a high proportion of the finer talents.
Some including thoughtful people in the industry itself - argued that the process was unjust, that auto makers corralled too much of the world's best brainpower, to the detriment of civilization generally, which needed more thinkers to solve urgent, complex human problems. Just the same, no other agency or industry succeeded in recruiting a comparable, constant flow of top-flight achievers. Brett DeLosanto had been one.
'It's exciting,' the bright-eyed girl said, answering Brett's question.
'Like being in on creation, the real thing. A bit scary, of course. All those other people to compete with, and you know how good they must be. But if you make it here, you've really made it big.'
She had the attitude it took, Brett thought. All she needed was the talent, plus some extra push to overcome the industry's prejudice against women who wanted to be more than secretaries.
He asked the youth, 'How about you?'
The pensive young man shook his head uncertainly. He was frowning. 'I'm not sure. Okay, everything's big time, there's plenty of bread thrown around, a lot of effort, and I guess it's exciting all right'- he nodded toward the girl - 'just the way she said. I keep wondering, though: Is it all worth it? Maybe I'm crazy, and I know it's late; I mean, having done the design course and all, or most of it. But you can't help asking: For an artist, does it matter? Is it what you want to give blood to, a lifetime?'
'You have to love cars to work here,' Brett said. 'You have to care about them so much that they're the
