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OCTOBER 9, 2006
Hot Asian Cars, Designed In Detroit Toyota and others are hiring as Motown fast becomes an engineering mecca The brawny new 2007 Toyota Tundra pickup set to go on sale early next year was being measured, poked, and prodded in mid-September in Dearborn, Mich., right in the shadow of Ford Motor Co.'s (F ) world headquarters. The National Truck Equipment Assn. conference was in full swing, and dozens of makers of ladders, tool racks, and utility boxes were preparing to outfit the new trucks for the contractor and builder crowd, a bunch that usually buys Fords, GMs, and Dodges. The redesigned Tundra, with telescoping rearview mirrors and a center console that holds hanging file folders and a laptop, may be seen as the most worrisome broadside in the Asian onslaught against the U.S. auto industry to date. And it's ammunition for critics who think Detroit is as hopeless as the woeful Detroit Lions. But the truck was mostly designed and engineered not in Japan or even Toyota's California studios, but 35 miles from Ford in the Toyota Technical Center USA Inc. in Ann Arbor, Mich. So while most of the news these days from the Big Three is bad -- multibillion-dollar losses and more than 70,000 jobs about to vaporize -- the Detroit-to-Ann Arbor corridor is no industry graveyard. Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai, Kia, Suzuki, and at least one Chinese automaker are all prowling for engineering and design talent around Detroit. And Ford, GM, and Chrysler (DCX ) are paying five-figure retention bonuses to keep their top talent. The Asian cars and trucks developed and designed within a 40-minute drive of Detroit read like a list of the most hated vehicles in Big Three boardrooms: Toyota Camry, Sienna minivan, and Avalon sedan; Nissan's (NSANY ) Titan, Altima, and Versa; and soon vehicles from Hyundai and Kia. Toyota's E. Charles "Chuck" Gulash, a former General Motors Corp. engineer who is vice-president of research and materials engineering at Toyota's Michigan tech center, says several of the company's vehicles have benefited from being designed around the Motor City and specifically Ann Arbor, "a truly global town, drawing students and engineers from all over the world to the university [of Michigan]." Indeed, versions of the Sienna, Tundra, and Avalon designed in Japan didn't take off until after their Michigan makeovers. TALENT CENTRAL Without ever leaving the state, local talent has plenty of opportunity at Asian car companies and suppliers. Toyota Motor Corp. (TM )employs almost 700 people at a 106-acre campus in Ann Arbor, and it's building a second facility nearby with room to grow. Hyundai-Kia opened its tech center in Ann Arbor a year ago and so far has about 300 designers and engineers working on vehicles to be built at Alabama and Georgia plants. Nissan already has 1,200 workers, mostly engineers and designers, in nearby Farmington Hills. And Visionary Vehicles, the venture between entrepreneur Malcolm Bricklin and Chinese automaker Chery Automobile Co., is scouting a tech center location around Detroit. Résumés pour into Hyundai, Toyota, and Nissan, many from employees at the Big Three, say executives, though up to 70% of hires are students who have interned or worked for them part-time. "Tech jobs tied to real intellectual capital in the auto industry have a great future at the Big Three and their competitors, as the Asian investment shows," says David E. Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor. Jessica Nunn, a senior in chemical engineering at the University of Michigan, figures she has a leg up in the job market, having worked briefly for Toyota in materials research. Her skills are in demand at auto companies and petrochemical giants researching fuels, so she could stay put -- or "see some of the world," says the Detroit native. But the way hiring is going, it looks as if she can always come home.  By David Kiley
BW MALL
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