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The black impact on car designs: the urbanization of the auto industry includes big grilles, big wheels, big rims and big bucks.

Article Excerpt
If, indeed, a picture is worth a thousand words, the following image speaks volumes about the urbanization of the American auto industry: Gracing the cover of DUB magazine, Big Boi, half of the hip-hop duo OutKast, was swathed in bling. He had a 120-diamond bracelet wrapped around his wrist and a matching Rolex Oyster watch on the other wrist. A custom-made pendant with 75 more diamonds, dangling from a 32-inch diamond-encrusted white gold chain, hung around his neck, and his black boots were covered with skull and crossbones. Even his white-on-gray pit bull had a white gold chain latched to its collar. And the backdrop for this flashy duo was a Buick. A Buick!

It wasn't just any Buick that Big Boi, aka Antwan Patton, was leaning on. It was a 2007 Buick Lucerne that had been "tricked-out" with purple suede seat inserts and matching suede headliner. The car had custom headrests, with the skull and crossbones logo of Big Boi's Purple Ribbon Records label. The Lucerne had been lowered 2.5 inches in the front and three inches in the rear, and it sported 22-inch wheels.

And it is making the rounds of DUB's 7th Annual 15-city Custom Auto Show & Concert Tour.

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What the tricked-out Buick represents is every automaker's need today to reach out for a stamp of approval from urban America. Why? Because urban America is now the acknowledged arbiter of what's cool in the U.S. auto market; and just about everybody will buy what's cool.

In short, the urbanization of the auto industry is about billions of dollars worth of sales. "For the longest time, the core of the automotive industry was buried in suburban middle America, right smack dab in the middle of Michigan," says Marques McCammon, general manager of car and truck sales at Saleen Special Vehicles in Troy, Mich. "They really didn't connect with the urban industry. They shied away from a lot of the urban influence because they thought it tended to be negative. The reality is Blacks and Latinos may not be the consumer audience, but they are definitely the image audience."

For sure, African-Americans are the cutting edge of urban America. But the word urban is fast disappearing as a synonym for Black. Urban is now a lifestyle practiced mainly by Blacks and Hispanics but also by Asians...

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