Now, the hard part for GM, Chrysler

If General Motors and Chrysler survive bankruptcy proceedings, they will be mere shadows of their former corporate selves, but many Americans still will be pulling for them to make a comeback.

There are many pieces of the gigantic financial puzzle that will have to fall back into place for the U.S. automakers, but nothing will succeed unless the companies give the public what it really wants — not only what makes a substantial profit for GM or Chrysler.

A good place to start would be to pay more attention to the 20-something college student or recent graduate, a segment Detroit automakers largely and inexplicably abandoned about 30 years ago. Whether this had roots in the Generation Gap of the 1960s and '70s is unclear, but both firms have concentrated on more conservative and older working class, middle class or wealthy drivers and left the hip young car buyers to the Asian and European automakers. This was a grave mistake.

The flaw in this approach has been that the college students who buy cheaper-model or older-model Hondas or Hyundais or Toyotas or Saabs or Volkswagens or Subarus as their first car are more than likely to keep purchasing foreign autos and drift away from American models.

And ultimately, college-educated drivers purchase a higher percentage of new cars over the course of their lifetimes simply because they make more money. Yet small wagons or hatchbacks that can carry bikes

or skis or canoes or camping gear, or inexpensive sedans that get good gas mileage and last a long time have not been a Detroit specialty since at least the '60s.

The emphasis, instead, has been on boxy sedans for straightlaced Middle West conservatives, or big soft-riders with V-6s or V-8s, and later on SUVs and bigger and bigger pickup trucks. Even the pickup, an American original and still a specialty here, has ballooned in size until fewer and fewer of those college students or recent grads want to own one.

Where, in fact, has the 4-cylinder pickup gone? It went from prevalent to almost nonexistent, as if every pickup buyer needs — or would want — a massive truck with a massive engine. To do what?

GM and Chrysler also would benefit greatly from auto designers from outside their stilted corporate box. How can the Asians and the Europeans design autos that appeal to high school or college students but U.S. automakers can't?

After securing billions in bailout money from the federal government, the least the U.S. automakers could do is show some innovation. Shifting their focus to include all Americans would be a great start.