Excerpt from High and Mighty by Keith Bradsher, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

GM has been the most aggressive automaker over the last several years in stepping up sales of large, pickup-based SUVs. GM executives like to defend their decision to make vehicles like the Escalade by saying that they are simply building what Americans want. As long as gasoline prices remain low, government regulations remain tilted against cars, and Americans remain enamored of big, macho vehicles worthy of the American frontier, executives at GM and other automakers plan to go on making SUVs.

Harry Pearce, the powerful vice chairman of GM, put it best as he was leaving a press conference in August 2000: "If pigs are big and popular, I guess we'll make pigs."

Copyright Keith Bradsher 2002. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Public Affairs. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher.