TRAVERSE CITY ? Neil Jackson provides news briefs and observations in part two of his fly-on-the wall report from the Center For Automotive Research’s Management Briefing Seminars that took place last week in Traverse City.

STRAIGHT ANSWER. Asked whether the auto industry world is still round or getting flat, Toyota’s U.S. manufacturing chief Gary Convis emphatically responded, “Yes!”

CAN THEY BUILD WHAT YOU DESIGN? In response to still-rising consumer demand, Toyota has almost doubled its manufacturing capacity, cut new product development cycles from 13 months to 11 months, and opened a Global Product Center that features employee training side-by-side with vehicle development.

QUIET, PLEASE! Toyota assembly plants are installing “quiet tunnels” and “isolation rooms” to help workers detect faint but unwanted body noises which are undetectable in the factory din. This has led to a 90 percent reduction in an already miniscule number of squeaks and rattles.

IT’S OFFICIAL – GM WILL BUILD THE NEW CAMARO! GM chairman Rick Wagoner’s generally upbeat presentation Thursday morning sparked spontaneous applause when he confirmed that GM will produce a new Camaro, and that it will look much like the concept vehicle unveiled (to spontaneous applause) at January’s North American Auto Show.

Would-be buyers will have to wait a bit. Wagoner said production will begin in 2008 with first availability in early 2009.

Meanwhile, he reported, GM is “on track” to cut operating costs $9 billion annually by reducing retiree healthcare costs, closing plants, and accelerating the rate of employee attrition. Suppliers may assume continued cost pressures, as well, although Wagoner didn’t say this.

NOT BRAIN-DEAD! BUT SLOW OUT OF THE GATE. The acclaim accorded to the concept Camaro in January prompted Rick Wagoner to admit back then that “GM would be brain-dead not to produce it.” Today, confirming the Camaro’s production, he didn’t say why it will take GM two-and-a-half years to place it in showrooms.

Everyone assumes a Camaro hardtop and soft-top. In hallway huddles, betting favors a three-part folding hard hat similar to that of Pontiac’s 2007 Solstice. Most often overheard comment: “A competition killer!”

“BEYOUND HERE THERE BE DRAGONS!” Citing a warning on ancient mariners’ charts that dragons might be lurking in unknown waters, Freudenberg-NOK’s CEO Mohsen Sohi said horizons flattened by global partnerships makes it easier to see opportunities as well as dangers. He named China and India as “merge” (not “emerging”) countries where skilled labor, brain power and rising living standards are merging to create product demand. For example, car sales in China rose 47 percent last year. Global partnerships can accelerate this, Dr. Sohi said. “No boundaries, no dragons!”

HIGH SPEED AHEAD AT HYUNDAI. John Krafcik, Hyundai’s V-P for Product Development and Strategic Planning, ran a new TV commercial showing a gazelle being pursued by a hungry lion. The chase is reversed as a suddenly fearless gazelle turns and puts the lion to flight.

The point was clear. Sonata sales are up 55 percent YTD, Azera is up 71 percent (mostly conquest sales), and for five years running overall Hyundai sales have risen 26 percent annually, compounded.

As Hyundai scores with new models featuring advanced safety features, continuous quality improvements, neat styling and strong value appeal, where can Hyundai’s current 3 percent of U.S. market share go but up, up, up?

Krafcik looked comfortable mingling with auto industry kings and princes. Doth the pretender have his eye on a crown?

NAME YOUR POISON — COFFIN NAILS OR EMR? Outside, during a session break, we observed many Japanese visitors puffing on cigarettes, while most Americans had cell phones glued to their ears.

IN UNITY THERE IS STRENGTH. That’s the credo of Neil De Koker, head of the Original Equipment Suppliers Association (OESA). Despite, or perhaps because of the supplier community’s travails, his organization has doubled in size to over 400 corporate members. “We get together to share problems and work on solutions,” De Koker explains. If membership growth is a validating indicator, OESA’s collaborative strategy appears to work!

GOOD NEWS! (We can use some!) Conference host Dr. David Cole opened Wednesday’s program by introducing Governor Jennifer Granholm. “There are doom-sayers, and there are doom-savers. We are savers,” the Governor declared in her relentlessly confident style.

She reminded a standing-room-only audience that Michigan has more auto assembly plants, major suppliers and R&D tech centers than any other state. Yes, business and government must become more nimble, collaborative and mutually responsive, she admitted. “But, manufacturing will be the future of Michigan, and we (state government) will stop at nothing to keep Michigan the auto capital of the world!”

Gov. Granholm returned to the podium minutes later to relate good news (as forecast in this newsletter). Wearing a billion-dollar smile, she announced the signing “at 8:45 this morning” of a 20-year partnership with Ford Motor Company. Tax incentives will help Ford invest enough in Michigan to save 13,000 direct jobs and many thousands of indirect jobs, she said. The state’s $150 million investment will produce a $4.2 billion ROI, according to the Governor.

Turns out that the surprise announcement wasn’t all that surprising. It had been leaked to the press hours earlier.

FIRING UP FORD’S “WAY FORWARD?” Mark Fields didn’t don a flak suit for his feature performance this morning. But, Ford’s executive V-P and President of the Americas appeared to show the strains of pushing his company’s Way Forward rescue team not nearly as far forward as Fields and Ford stakeholders were hoping.

From a jungle of generalities, Fields extracted some telling specifics. “Consumer preferences and expectations are changing at warp speed. It’s no longer true that ‘if you build it, they will come.’ But they WILL come if you build what they want.”

What DO they want? Fields says consumers want environmentally cleaner vehicles that can significantly reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil, but without compromising performance and without raising prices.

Consumer preferences are hooked to demographics. Demand for smaller vehicles will rise; demand for “people movers” will decline. Ford is changing “faster than ever” in order to match what’s happening in the marketplace.

Nine new products will be on sale in the next six months, Fields promises. Among them, a specialty performance Shelby Mustang, new crossovers like the Edge and Lincoln MRX, and a hot performance Lincoln sedan to replace the Town Car.

Later, Fields ducked the question of why the Town Car, loved by geezers, goes out of production after 2007. Geezers are a fast-growing and well-monied consumer segment. Geezers like the Town Car’s comfort and reliability, even if its technology is Jurassic. The Town Car’s scheduled replacement is a hot-rod sedan. Does the Way Forward team need a new direction finder, perhaps?

DAUCH TO THE RESCUE! American Axle and Manufacturing co-founder and CEO Richard Dauch electrified his audience by delivering a three-hour analysis of supplier industry problems and solutions in a blazing 30 minutes.

The legendary manufacturing dynamo exposed the painful realities of foreign competition and domestic failures, and then outlined strategies for success drawn from his own spectacular record of re-energizing manufacturing operations at VW, GM, Chrysler and now at American Axle and Manufacturing (AAM).

With an undisguised recommendation that others follow his example, Dauch said AAM is leading the era of change with a focus on empowering people an