THE MAKING OF THE MAVERICK

You try to read the car market and all you can say is "You dumb foot drag-gers--you in Detroit--what took you so long to know imports were going to hit a million?" Now the market is damn well defined, and you know what the market says: "Give me a hell of a good buy for two grand, will you?"

THAT is Ford Executive Vice President Lee lacocca's earthy account of a decision that will shake up the U.S. auto market well into the 1970s. This week Ford plants in St. Thomas, Ont., and Kansas City, Mo., begin turning out lacocca's "hell of a good buy." It is the much-trumpeted Maverick, first of Detroit's new line of small cars. List price of the Maverick: $1,995.

The two-door, four-passenger car is designed to beat back the invasion of imports. The Maverick is much lower and wider than the Volkswagen, which Ford executives call "the target car." It is also a bit thirstier--Ford claims about 22 miles per gallon v. the VW's 25 m.p.g. --and nearly two feet longer, measuring 179 in. from its broad nose to its short tail. But the Maverick is also several inches shorter than such "compacts" as Ford's Falcon, which has grown to 184 in. in length and $2,283 in price. Partly because more and more Americans want smaller and less costly cars, imports have swelled from 52,000 in 1955 to 986,000 last year, when they accounted for more than 10% of the 9.4 million sold in the U.S. As lacocca told TIME'S Detroit Bureau Chief Don Sider: "We don't assume that the Maverick is just out to arrest the trend. We expect to get some customers back. We expect this to be a free-for-all."

Freudian Gilt. The company has tooled up to produce as many as 400,000 Mavericks a year, and lacocca has suggested that he would be happy if sales in the first twelve months reached about 300,000. That would make the Maverick a $600 million-a-year proposition. The car will go on sale April 17, five years to the day after lacocca introduced the Mustang, which has been Ford's most successful product since the Model T. The small-car field will soon be crowded. American Motors' new entry, the Hornet, will come out this fall and eventually replace A.M.C.'s leisurely-selling $1,998 Rambler. General Motors is developing a model code-named the XP-887 and expects to have it in Chevrolet showrooms within 18 months. It will probably be smaller than the Maverick, and Ford is already designing a "sub-compact," the Phoenix, to counter the XP-887. Only Chrysler has yet to decide whether to enter the field.

Ford, which has been studying the minicar market for just about a decade, took a long time to decide. In 1962, the company was ready to roll with a small car called the Cardinal, but withdrew it within a few months of production because of fears that the market would not then support a new line. By 1966, however, it was clear that U.S. compacts were losing considerable ground to imports. The Falcon, which reached a peak of 493,000 sales in 1961, was down to 163,000 that year--and to even less in 1967. At a meeting of Ford's new-products group in the "Glass House," the company's Dearborn headquarters, lacocca decided that it was time to move. Chairman Henry Ford agreed.

The company spent 14 months testing the market, and its researchers interviewed scores of Volkswagen owners. For a time, the planners considered importing great numbers of Ford-made cars from Britain or Germany instead of building them in North America. Executives discarded that idea in part because they figured that it might provoke Washington to erect import quotas or raise tariffs.

Finally, in May 1967, Henry Ford and Lee lacocca determined to build a new car, code-named Delta. It was to be inexpensive enough to appeal to three-car families and retired people, yet sufficiently stylish to attract young people on their first or second cars. Ford is attempting to attract young buyers by offering the Maverick in colors that were created at a group brainstorming session, presumably held in a cornfield. The colors include Freudian Gilt, Original Cinnamon, Thanks Vermilion and Hulla-Blue. The standard gag among the executives is that the company will entertain any name except "Statutory Grape."

The Eclectic Car. In all the planning, the primary goal was to build a car that would list for less than $2,000. To do that--and still allow dealers a reasonable 17% profit (v. the usual 21% to 25% markup)--Ford had to pare the tooling costs. So it built an eclectic car. Maverick owes its front suspension to the Mustang; the steering gear comes straight from the Fairlane; the standard 105-h.p. six-cylinder engine and the rear axle were borrowed from the Falcon. Even so, Maverick's development costs added up to a hefty $71 million. By contrast, the initial bill for the Mustang, which was engineered for cheaper, single-plant production back in less inflationary times, came to only $50 million.

Plenty of hard compromises had to be made on the Maverick. Anything that added to style, size or performance raised the list price. In the fervid debates among Ford's engineers, stylists and cost accountants, lacocca was the final arbiter. The accountants wanted plain gray upholstery; lacocca ordered bright plaids, though the decision increased the price of each car by several dollars. He ordered the body made wide enough so that six passengers could squeeze in in a pinch. "I could have taken a slice down the middle of that car, maybe three inches, still gotten four people in and saved maybe $15 or $20," he says. "That's where you come to the moment of truth."

Ford offers a variety of options--including a 120-h.p. engine, automatic shift and air conditioning--that can jack up the price as high as $2,700. But the company has urged dealers to discourage sales of the high-markup options so as not to price the car out of its market. How does the car handle?

TIME'S Sider took one out on Ford's Dearborn test track, found that "It is no Lincoln, but neither is it a VW. There is no feeling of claustrophobia. It handles well, staying in tight on the curves, starting and stopping fast, turning about as sharply as the VW."

Volkswagen executives figure--or at least hope--that the new U.S. small cars will not cut deeply into sales of imports but will take markets away from existing U.S. lower-priced models. To reduce their own chances of loss, some foreign producers will send bigger and fancier models to the U.S. Later this year, for example, VW will begin shipping its four-door Audi (U.S. price: around $4,000). Sweden's Saab will soon begin importing a new Maverick-sized car. "If Detroit can come into our market," says Stuart Perkins, head of Volkswagen of America, "we can go into theirs." It should be quite a fight.

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