Traverse City News and Events

21st Century Auto Industry Comes To Traverse City

Sept. 10, 2014

Automobile Magazine co-founder Jean Jennings, Wall Street Journal contributor and best-selling author A.J. Baime and long-time Detroit News Ford beat reporter Bryce Hoffman collectively boast over a half-century's worth of experience covering the automotive industry.

On September 15, they'll bring their stories – ranging from the Motor City's glory days to the near-collapse and resurgence of Ford Motor Company in the 21st century to the career contributions of women in cars – to the City Opera House as a kick-off to the fall season of the National Writers Series (NWS).

The event is a fitting one for northern Michigan, which is not only home to hundreds of auto retirees but provided the connections to make the event possible. Traverse City entrepreneur Wayne Lobdell emailed NWS organizers last winter recommending Hoffman – who had a best-selling hit with 2012's American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company – at the same time Baime approached NWS founder Doug Stanton about blurbing his new book, The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War.

Baime had learned of Stanton while dining with CEO McKeel Hagerty of Traverse City's Hagerty Insurance. Seizing on the serendipity, NWS organizers decided to pair Baime and Hoffman on stage, invited “grand dame of automobile journalism” Jennings to host and secured Lobdell and Hagerty as sponsors.

The result is a planned one-of-a-kind conversation that looks at how Detroit helped “save a world at war” during World War II – before having to save itself nearly seven decades later. Baime's Arsenal focuses on Ford's B-24 bomber plant outside Detroit in Willow Run in 1941, where engineers attempted for the first time to mass-produce airplanes like automobiles.

“Let me be blunt: If it weren't for Detroit, we could all be speaking German,” Baime told The Ticker in a recent phone call. Calling the city's contributions the “most important collective achievement of any city in the nation's history,” Baime continues: “People forget we were the underdogs. We were fighting a losing war...and that building became the biggest producer of B-24s in the war.”

Baime's previous book, Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari and their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans (currently in development at 20th Century Fox starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt), takes readers forward from Ford's crucial role in the 1940s to its 1960s muscle-car heyday. Hoffman – who covered Ford from 2005-2010 and was given unprecedented access to company files and executives for American Icon – picks up the thread at another turning point in the company's history: Ford's near-bankruptcy in 2008 during the automotive crisis, and its historic turnaround under CEO Alan Mulally.

“Ford's path has been very different than that of GM and Chrysler,” says Hoffman. “Ford alone didn't go bankrupt. Ford alone solved its problems without taking a taxpayer bailout. It's a powerful counterpoint to the failure of other automakers...and really a unique story.”

The future of Ford – as well as GM and Chrysler, and the overall automotive and manufacturing industry in Michigan – is a topic ripe for conversation among the authors Monday night. “There are powerful lessons in Ford's turnaround for Detroit,” says Hoffman, citing the company's difficult downsizing efforts to once again become profitable as an example. “I'm optimistic about the future (of Detroit's auto industry)...as long as we understand it's not going to be the same as the past.”

Jennings – who will lead the NWS stage conversation – also speaks fondly of the automotive industry and its prospects. But there's at least one area the former Chrysler test driver, Car and Driver writer and founder of JeanKnowsCars.com believes demands reform.

“There was never a single (female) chairman of a major car company until (GM's) Mary Barra,” Jennings says. “Zero of the top automotive designers in the world right now are women. Less than three percent of car dealerships are owned by women. We need more grants and scholarships...to get women into science, technology, engineering and math.”

Jennings hopes these and other topics of discussion will shed new light on the auto industry at Monday night's event. “I'm going to try to ask questions that aren't just things repeated from (Baime's and Hoffman's) books,” she says. “I'm going to try to expand the conversation.”

An Evening with A.J. Baime and Bryce Hoffman (featuring guest host Jean Jennings) will take place at the City Opera House on Monday, September 15 at 7pm. For tickets, click here

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