gladwell dot com : "......As Keith Bradsher writes in 'High and Mighty'--perhaps the most important book about Detroit since Ralph Nader's 'Unsafe at Any Speed'--what consumers said was 'If the vehicle is up high, it's easier to see if something is hiding underneath or lurking behind it.' Bradsher brilliantly captures the mixture of bafflement and contempt that many auto executives feel toward the customers who buy their S.U.V.s. Fred J. Schaafsma, a top engineer for General Motors, says, 'Sport-utility owners tend to be more like 'I wonder how people view me,' and are more willing to trade off flexibility or functionality to get that.' According to Bradsher, internal industry market research concluded that S.U.V.s tend to be bought by people who are insecure, vain, self-centered, and self-absorbed, who are frequently nervous about their marriages, and who lack confidence in their driving skills. Ford's S.U.V. designers took thei