Business: More Dieting in Detroit

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More attention is being paid to aerodynamics—designing "slippery" vehicles with less wind resistance and better fuel economy. As Ford's design chief, William Bordinat, told TIME Detroit Correspondent Paul Witteman: "We never gave a damn about aerodynamics before. Now it has become important." For 1979, Ford has two aerodynamically designed offerings, the Mustang and the Capri, complete with contoured rear-view mirrors and sloping hoods. American Motors, whose mainstay nowadays is its Jeeps, has also struck a blow of sorts for slipperiness by replacing its boxy Gremlin with a sleeker-looking liftback called the Spirit.

In their grille-to-grille battle with imports, U.S. manufacturers have shown some progress. Two million foreign-made cars were sold through early September, a record, but their percentage of U.S. sales dipped to 17.9%, from 18.1% last year. Overall, sales are expected to reach 11.4 million cars in calendar '78, falling just short of the 1973 record of 11.44 million.

As Detroit rolls toward the 1985 fuel-economy deadline, there is no consensus on what cars of the early '80s will look like, but there are clues in the '79s. Like some of them, cars of the next decade will use more lightweight plastics and aluminum and will become even smaller. Chevrolet General Manager Robert D. Lund predicted last week that 7 of 10 Chevys sold in 1985 will be compacts or subcompacts. Engines will be smaller and more fuel-efficient, using fuel injection and turbocharging (which force feeds air into the engine and improves combustion) to maintain at least some of the peppiness of a gas-guzzling V8. Buick has a turbocharged V6 on its '79 Riviera, and other GM divisions plan to use it next year.

But none of the cars of the future will remotely resemble the machine parked last month in Westchester County, N.Y. Alongside the expected lineup of restored Ford Model T's and A's was a 1968 Cadillac DeVille convertible (12 to 13 m.p.g.) owned by Bradley T. Flynn of Pelham Manor. He entered it in a "special category" at the seventh annual Mount Kisco Lions Club antique-auto show.