Grant's Auto Rants

Industry Profile: Paul Newman

Born a Buckeye on January 26th, 1925 near Cleveland, Ohio, Paul Newman grew up the son of a local sporting goods storeowner with one older brother. After serving in the Pacific during World War II, Paul returned to Ohio to finish a degree at Kenyon College, which he began at Ohio University prior to his service in the Navy (rumor has it that Newman was actually expelled from OU for crashing a beer keg into the side of the university president's car). And while a typical midwestern upbringing may not have the ring of a romantic Hollywood tale, you can chalk Mr. Newman up as one of the best things to come out of a state, which has brought us eight US presidents, two dozen astronauts, the rock and roll hall of fame and enough roller coasters to single-handedly keep the makers of Pepto-Bismol in the pink.

After a short stint in Chicago, Newman was "pulled back" to the G-force state to run the family store after his father passed away. Thankfully for Fast "Eddie" Felson, Butch Cassidy, "Luke" Jackson, and Reggie Dunlop among many others, Newman decided to risk it and take a chance on acting by moving to Connecticut where he studied acting at Yale. He would ultimately go on to join the Actor's Studio in New York.

Today, Mr. Newman's legacy is often summarized by several pursuits. First is his family, which includes wife of 47 years, actress Joanne Woodward, their 3 daughters, two grandchildren, and two daughters from his marriage to Jackie Witte from 1949 to 1958.  Newman's son Scott died in 1978 of a drug overdose, after which Newman set up the Scott Newman Center and Foundation, (the Rowdy Ridge Gang Camp) which provides experiential treatment to people (and their children) recovering from drug addiction or domestic abuse.   

The most famous of his ambitions is, of course, acting, for which he has received no fewer than 8 best actor nominations, one best supporting actor nomination, two Oscars, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian award, an Emmy and a 2006 Golden Globe. Star-struck women named Newman's blue eyes as the most famous in movie history (he'll have to take their word for it, as, ironically, he is color-blind).

While everyone seems to have a favorite, Newman's credits span nearly 70 motion pictures (and many on stage productions) including Cat On a Hot Tin Roof (Liz Taylor), The Long Hot Summer (Orson Welles), The Hustler (Jackie Gleason), and Road to Perdition (Tom Hanks). By all accounts, Paul Newman has been a shoe-in for a lifetime achievement award in acting for several decades. Additionally, Newman has found success in both directing and producing.

During the early 80's, after a few particularly tasty batches of homemade salad dressing were given as Christmas presents to friends, Newman founded Newman's Own food products, which lead to his most noble of passions. Newman's Own organic foods, now run in part by one of Paul's daughters, has been a widely successful brand, which now includes popcorn, chips, salsa, drinks, Fig Newmans, lettuce mixes, dried fruit, coffee and pasta sauce.

What started out literally as a kitchen experiment has blossomed into two flourishing food companies (Newman's Own and Newman's Own Organics), whose total after-tax profits are donated to charity. In 1988, Newman started the "Hole in the Wall Gang Camp" in Ashford, CT, which is a residential summer camp for children with life-threatening diseases.

Combined with donations from Newman's Own and those by foundations, corporations and charitable organizations, Newman' camps (now totally 9, five in the US) have provided over 83,000 children from 34 states and 31 countries with incredible summer experiences and medical care totally free of charge.  To date, Newman's Own has contributed over $180 million dollars to the cause.

Fortunately for the integrity of this blog, Newman took a real interest to auto racing in 1968 while filming Winning. For someone starting to race at the tender age of 47, he honed his skills quickly and debuted in a Lotus Elan in his first event in 1972. In 1977 he would finish fifth at the 24 hours of Daytona and second at the 1979 24 hours of Le Mans.

Additional achievements include SCCA national titles in 1976 and 1979 and GT-1 champion in 1985 and 1986. Newman also competed in the SCCA Trans-Am series winning for the first time in 1982 and again in 1986. One of his most notable (and most recent) wins was at the 1995 24 hours of Daytona, where his team won the IMSA GTS class, making Newman the oldest driver ever to compete never mind win at 70 years of age. Newman has driven everything from a Winston Cup stock car to an off-road entry in the 2004 Baja 1000.

In addition to driving himself, Newman teamed with career driver/owner Carl Haas in 1983 to form Newman/Haas racing. The Newman/Haas current and alumni roster contains countless legends: Mario and Michael Andretti, Nigel Mansell, Christian Fittipaldi, Christiano da Matta, Sebestien Bourdais and Bruno Junqueira. The team has recorded nearly 90 victories and is a five-time series champion.

Mr. Newman can lay claim to significant achievements as a parent, actor, philanthropist, and racing enthusiast. Such is a welcome departure from typical auto industry news, which has consisted recently of little more than Detroit woes and power/money-motivated executives spinning the revolving door at the top companies in search of their next move up the ladder.

A person of Paul Newman's stature comes around all too infrequently and should be seen as the inspiration that he is: not an out of touch celebrity pre-occupied with the scene, but rather an approachable man with a knack for giving. I have personally heard of Mr. Newman's devotion to charity and acts of kindness from a sibling who has volunteered at his CT camp for over ten years.

This Thursday, Paul Newman turns 81.

The other GM...

This week marks the beginning of the iconic NAIAS or Detroit Auto show, which has been one of the "majors" on the auto show circuit for over half a century. While globalization has permanently transformed the industry to the point where it is no longer accurate to portray oneself as simply "domestic" or "foreign," the effects have taken an obvious toll on Detroit's manufacturers.

The Detroit auto show may no longer be "the masters" but it still garners the attention of say the "US Open." Good, bad or otherwise, what happens in the North American, matters everywhere. At least for the moment.

The collapse of GM and Ford relative to the unbounded success by some of the Asian and European companies has taken up "page one" for more than a year now. There has been another story kicking around however, which threatens to become so significant that all of our collective talk about SUVs, fuel efficiency, or outsourcing and the demise of the Big Three simply won't make a difference.

The question is with China and has changed somewhat recently from "if" they become the potential powerhouse of the world to "when." Some domestic hiccups in their economy have slowed the media's sensationalism a bit, but many like to still guess when they may hit their industrial stride.

The reason they like to talk about this so much, well for starters, we have the basic empirical facts. For example, China's current population is greater than North America, South America, the entire European Union, and Japan…combined. Current projections say that 19% or about one in five Chinese residents lives in the "zhong chan" or middle class. This number could grow to roughly 40% or 520 million by 2010.

Now, there has been some discrepancy in what is defined as "middle class" and the country has considerable internal development to experience before they have the ability to compete on the worldwide stage in the most complex industries like computers or automotive, but it is very apparent that they are for real

It is not everyday you can add several hundred million people to your target segment.

A closer analysis of the population indicates that the country itself uses less than 60% of their GDP domestically versus a world average of nearly 80%. Additionally, more than 30 million people in China are still living in poverty. That number equals the number of inhabitants of California or the entire country of Canada. Boiled down, it means that China is making headway outside of their borders and hasn't even started trying yet.

While they do have to first concentrate on establishing their domestic equilibrium, once up and running they have incredible potential. Should this continue into all industries including automotive, they single-handedly have the ability to turn the Detroit Auto Show into the equivalent of your local club championship.

General Motors used the backdrop of the auto show to announce that they have taken over Volkswagen as the number one auto supplier in China. The news is interesting, but because the market is still relatively small and the fact that GM is still reeling from the state of their domestic operations, it has gone largely unnoticed. That each maker is selling half a million cars already in China however, is promising.

Ironically, adopting the foreign-based business model (in China) that the Asians and Europeans used to succeed in North America may be the key to GM's subsisting as a company overall. And who could blame them for trying. They are very familiar with the competitors. In fact, the only new ones are Malcolm Bricklin and the other, other GM, Chinese company, Geely Motors, which has less than 5% of the domestic market.