About a year ago, General Motors Corp.’s Gary Buch shook the Detroit snow from his boots and settled into his new job as show vehicle engineering leader for the company’s new California Concept Center in North Hollywood. He shook the dust off GM in the process. When the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show opened a few weeks ago, the Chevrolet Borrego, the first concept car developed at GM’s North Hollywood design studio, turned heads in a way the company had not done in years. The Borrego, combining tricked-out compact-car styling with the rough road performance of a sport utility vehicle and the cargo-carrying ability of a truck, got a strong nod of approval from car enthusiasts and industry pundits. With the introduction, GM became a player once again. “That vehicle is not as important in what it is as much as what it represents,” said Chuck Schifsky, executive editor of Motor Trend magazine. “I think the direction the Borrego shows is that they can design. They can do it.” In recent years, nearly every other automobile manufacturer has established design facilities in Southern California, where most believe auto trends begin. Like GM, most of the design centers are engaged in the development of innovative ideas that don’t always find their way to the production line, but those in the industry say the centers provide car makers with insights to market demands they can’t get back in Detroit, or in Asia and Europe, and that helps these makers build sales. GM’s design staff had worked exclusively in Detroit since its last Southern California design facility, in Newbury Park, was closed in 1996, limiting the company’s access to the best talent and affecting its market share for some of the industry’s most important segments, like the youth market. “It’s difficult to attract design talent to Detroit, Michigan,” said George Peterson, president of AutoPacific Inc., a Tustin-based automotive marketing research and consulting firm. “They also missed out on having their ear to the ground in terms of what’s happening. GM has been criticized for thinking the entire world revolves around GM and Detroit, Michigan.” Targeting a younger market GM’s cars have had little to offer 20- and 30-somethings, who represent about 100 million potential car buyers, market researchers said. According to J.D. Power and Associates, 30 percent of cars and 32 percent of trucks are purchased by people under 40. But at Chevrolet, only 26 percent of cars and 29 percent of trucks are purchased by buyers under 40. “It’s quite a bit lower than the industry average, so they are not doing as well among this age group as they are overall,” said Walter McManus, executive director, global forecasting for J.D. Power. Like its Detroit brethren, GM’s market share has been steadily declining in recent years as import makers have grown stronger. GM’s fourth quarter financial results reflected some of that weakness. Corporation-wide, the company reported earnings of $609 million, or $1.15 a share in the fourth quarter, down 52 percent from $1.26 billion or $1.95 a share for the same period in 1999. Sales dipped to $45 billion from $46.26 billion a year earlier. Although GM attributed most of the profit plunge to losses overseas, it said a decline in North American sales was also a factor. About a year ago, GM acquired a former bakery in North Hollywood, transformed it into a design studio and moved in about 30 designers, engineers and others who would serve as eyes and ears for trends and create prototypes, concept cars which manufacturers use to test the market for innovative styling and performance features. With its front-row seat to Southern California’s car culture and the lifestyle that shapes many of the designs geared to younger buyers, the GM designers and engineers began to see a growing segment of young drivers who were souping up Honda Civics and other compacts to drive at off-road events. They also came face to face with the lifestyle differences that fuel a demand for cars that can serve double duty for work and play. “The biggest difference is the cultural difference we experience daily,” said Frank Saucedo, a California native and director of the North Hollywood design center. “California has a long history of car culture year-round. We’re exposed to that daily, and I think it reflects in everything we do.” The new environment, with its funky, industrial-chic styling and its artsy surroundings in North Hollywood, also gave the designers and engineers a sense of freedom they say they would not have had in Detroit. “There’s an attitude of less constraint from being in the corporate world with people always looking over your shoulder,” said Franz VonHolzhausen, chief designer. “We’re not behind security walls and clocking in. We’re not told to dress in a certain way.” Back in Detroit, staffers usually wore Dockers or dress slacks. In North Hollywood, dress leans to jeans and shorts, a casual attitude that extends to work routines as well. “When I was back in Detroit, I would do a lot of communications using e-mails,” said Buch, who, while based in Detroit, spent weeks at a time in L.A. during the development of the Borrego. “We would have had another layer or two of documentation. Out here, I talk to Frank (Saucedo), he and I make an agreement. He tells his guys and gals and off we run.” The group’s first assignment, to develop a vehicle to appeal to the 20-something marketplace, began with a rough design from Detroit that looked pretty much like a pickup truck. The North Hollywood staff expanded on the idea, designing a vehicle that could transport its occupants to the ski slopes as easily as it drove the freeways. “The biggest thing that stuck out with me was the center in California was trying to get the pulse of California, and some of the comments they would make when we were talking about content and features. I would have said, ‘Wow, I never thought of that,'” said Buch. “In Detroit, I never thought of that because you don’t have the options where one minute you can be in the surf or one moment on the ski slope.” The Borrego is a compact with off-road capabilities that can also be transformed into a pickup truck by folding down its rear seats. The all-wheel drive vehicle is based on a Subaru platform, the result of GM’s 20 percent stake in Fuji Heavy Industries, which makes Subaru. It even comes equipped with an air hose to wash off the trail dust or sand after a day of hiking or surfing. “It was one of those vehicles that you looked at it and you wanted to get behind the wheel and go find a big dirt hill to drive up and down,” said Schifsky. “We see a lot of concept cars. The only time I’ve ever really felt that is with some high-end concept cars, maybe the Jaguar F-type roadster.” Like many concept cars, the Borrego may not be built for mass production at all, or it may be altered in its production form to meet specific cost guidelines.