DETROIT ? If you didn’t know any better, you might think today’s automotive designers were going out of their way to confuse vehicle buyers.

About the only thing hipper than creating a car or truck that climbs to the top of its class is designing a vehicle that doesn’t quite fit into a class at all. For example, Chevrolet’s upcoming SSR roadster has been labeled both a sporty pickup and a sports car with a pickup bed.

The idea, industry analysts and executives say, is to create unique, head-turning designs that catch consumers’ eyes and lure them to a brand. It’s a risky proposition, but it emphasizes the critical nature of styling in today’s business, where the quality gap among major automotive brands continues to narrow.

The latest in design and styling will be on display through Jan. 19 at the 2004 North American International Auto Show, one of the industry’s most prestigious stages. The world’s major automakers plan to introduce more than 60 production and concept vehicles at the exhibit at Detroit’s Cobo Center.

Highlights include the next-generation versions of two American icons — Ford’s Mustang and Chevrolet’s Corvette — as well as new offerings from exotic Italian brands Ferrari and Lamborghini.

Some of the show’s oddball looks could provide a glimpse of what to expect in showrooms next year or next decade, observers say.

“With the exception of full-size pickups, the industry is moving away from vehicles that serve the mass market,” said Jeff Schuster, an analyst with J.D. Power and Associates. “You need a product portfolio that addresses consumers’ various life stages and personalities. The ultimate goal is to make a connection.”

Already, the days of walking into a dealership and choosing from just a handful of cars and pickup trucks have gone the way of eight-track players. Minivans and sport utility vehicles share space these days with crossovers (the Chrysler Pacifica and Nissan Murano, for example) and sport utility trucks (Ford’s Explorer Sport Trac and Honda’s upcoming SUT, among them.)

Such vast variety is relatively new and the result of enhancements in both design and manufacturing. For one, high-tech innovations in automakers’ design studios allow them to create more models at far less the cost than a generation ago.

Production improvements also allow companies to build several models on the same platform using the same underpinnings, a more efficient process called flexible manufacturing.

The result: More pressure on design shops to come up with what General Motors Corp. vice chairman Bob Lutz calls gotta-have vehicles.

“Horsepower is going to continue to go up, and fuel efficiency is still going to be important,” said J Mays, Ford Motor Co.’s vice president of design. “And the quality of vehicles is going to be on par, I think, regardless of the manufacturer. So the only battleground left becomes design.”

Having fun with design

At GM, the world’s largest automaker, the challenge for new design chief Ed Welburn is creating distinctive styles for each of the automakers’ brands — making sure a Chevrolet doesn’t look like a Buick doesn’t look like a Pontiac.

Welburn, promoted to the top design job in October, acknowledges the challenge but considers it an advantage for the company.

“Each brand has a mission that’s different, and we can deploy them to cover the market in a way that no one brand can do,” said the 30-year design veteran at GM whose work has included the Hummer H2 and Cadillac Escalade. “Each brand has a different character, a different emotion, and customers have different sets of values. The team must have a clear understanding of the mission for that particular brand.”

With concepts, automakers show vehicles that could end up in production, lead to other designs or simply go away. Philosophies differ among automakers.

Officials with Chrysler’s Jeep brand, for example, acknowledge that the Treo concept introduced several months ago in Tokyo is likely years away from possible production but an important project that ponders the brand’s future.

“That’s an example of taking one of our brands and pushing it 10, 12 years out there,” said Tom Tremont, Chrysler’s vice president for advance design and strategy. “We like to use our concepts to say, ‘What would I do in 10 or 12 years with a Jeep.”‘

Tom Semple, president of Nissan Design America Inc., said the Japanese automaker typically takes a somewhat less futuristic approach with its concepts.

“What we’re going to show you is not just pure entertainment,” Semple said. “What we’re trying to do as a car company is be serious and have fun at the same time. What we plan to do is design cars that will make people stop and look and say, ‘These guys really know what they’re doing.'”