"Minivan" is joining station wagon as a nearly taboo term in automotive marketing.

Finishing his sentence, Mr. McCabe, 53, added with characteristic brashness, "Based on our knowledge of automotive marketing and our track record that can't be touched."

Inspired by Volkswagen and Doyle Dane Bernbach, other auto importers and their agencies joined the revolution against business-as-usual in automotive marketing.

The next wave of postmodern automotive engineering, or at least automotive marketing, is horsepower.

THE three pillars of automotive marketing, a Honda executive once told me, are price, product and customer service.

"The dealers have a love-hate relationship with the Internet," said Chris Denove, a partner at J. D. Power & Associates, an automotive marketing and research firm in Detroit.

George C. Peterson, president of Autopacific Inc., an automotive marketing and consulting firm in Santa Ana, Calif., said, "It looks like their price increases are pretty reasonable."

The term "halo car" is often used in automotive marketing and journalism to refer to the flagship vehicle.

By mid-decade, Media Results began specializing in automotive marketing.

John Sr. used to race sports cars; his son recently completed two years of studying automotive marketing at the Northwood Institute in West Palm Beach, Fla.