This book is about branding iron, as in Detroit Iron, as in cars. Applying both a scalpel and an axe to the world of selling cars, we examine the role that branding has played in shaping the way Americans think about the cars we buy. And, sadly, an auto industry where the art of branding has fallen on some very tough times.

Branding Iron is about grit, the kind our forefathers used to tame the American West. They were rugged individualists—mavericks who carried six shooters and used them. Hard-nosed men and brave women who lived tough, often short lives. They never owned a cell phone or read a marketing textbook, but they had the bravado to run the herd, not become part of it.

What has happened to us? We’ve gone safe, soft and somnolent. And in the process we’ve lost our nerve. We’ve become Generation B: bland and boring. We equate risk with trying vanilla flavoring in our latte. We’ve joined the herd. Most of us, anyway.

The car business is over a century old, yet it remains one of the most dangerous, daunting, and dynamic businesses on earth—an arena characterized by unthinkable financial risk, homicidal competition, and constant change. The car business provides a window on the world of branding and, more specifically, on how the value of a brand can disappear overnight—and how an industry can devalue the entire concept of branding and thus commoditize its own product. This trend is not limited to the auto industry, yet events and practices within this industry make it a showcase for costly muddled thinking.