GM sees future in looking back; Too late for Olds, but other divisions are catching on in a hurry.

A mere two months after ditching America's oldest car division, General Motors pulled together an unprecedented gathering of car buffs from across the nation for a little history lesson-and a sneak peek at the corporation's designs for the future.

GM hoped the daylong dive into its past, present and future at the corporate design center in Warren, Michigan, would help soothe the jangled nerves of car collectors and automotive historians who, given events like the Oldsmobile debacle, feel that the world's largest car company has turned its back on heritage as a way of designing and selling cars for the new millennium.

Jay Wetzel, vice president and general manager of GM's technical centers, said contrary to widespread opinion, GM does value its heritage and those who seek to preserve it: ``While GM is creating global brands, all of you are creating the longevity of those brands.''

Wetzel is among those trying to make ``GM,'' ``big'' and ``fast'' all fit together in the same sentence. In the not-too-distant past, the General needed 60 months to bring a car to market. Now, that curve is down to 18 months on some projects, Wetzel said, thanks in part to speedy development from design to prototype to production.

While development time is shrinking, GM is taking steps through its corporate and divisional ``brand character centers'' to make sure that cues from the past still show up on its cars of the future. Designers also are learning from mistakes of the past, as well.

For instance, at Pontiac a twin-port ...