.

Ford Motor Company has just caught Ricky Martin fever, announcing today that it will co-sponsor the upcoming "Livin' La Vida Loca Fall Tour '99" of the Puerto Rican-born superstar.

Photo: Ford

Aptly named "Luxury Rewards," the program offers items valued up to $1,500 and runs Sept. 1 through Oct. 31.

1998 Buick Park Avenue Ultra

Photo: GM

Avenue's attributes:
Power (Taylor Made golf clubs),
Taste (Ducane gas grill),
Comfort (Scandia Down king or queen collection) and
Style (Hartmann luggage collection).

In addition to the rewards listed above, customers who purchase the up-level Park Avenue Ultra will receive a Minolta Vectis S-1 camera kit.

"With Luxury Rewards, Buick dealers have a competitive advantage that no one can match," said Katherine J. Benoit, Park Avenue brand manager. "This program breaks through the competition's incentive clutter and - since each Luxury Reward links back to Park Avenue - reinforces our brand equity." Luxury Rewards can be combined with other purchase incentives, and the program will be supported by national magazine advertising, direct mail and dealer point of sale displays. A Web site has been established (www.parkavenuerewards.buick.com) along with links to and from each of the program's partners, the Buick site (www.buick.com) and the General Motors site (www.gm.com).Customers must take retail delivery from participating dealer stock by Oct. 31.

Park Avenue and Park Avenue Ultra, Buick's full-size luxury sedans, are refined for 2000 with enhancements to a body style that has been a major success in the market. The new generation of Park Avenue is designed to make an elegant and tasteful statement, according to Benoit. "Park Avenue gives you the classic elegance you expect in a luxury car," she said. "More important, every feature has been selected to satisfy a functional need for the driver and passengers. So you might say we add 'reason' to luxury."

The primary customers for Park Avenue include professionals, entrepreneurs and executives who want luxury, style, smooth power, roominess and exceptional value. For 2000, StabiliTrak, an advanced system that helps the driver maintain control of the vehicle especially in slippery conditions, is newly standard on the luxury Park Avenue Ultra and optional on Park Avenue. Additionally, all Park Avenues have seat-mounted side air bags for the driver and right front passenger and rear-seat child seat tether anchors.

The new technology incorporates a robotic paint sprayer equipped with a cartridge-type tank that enables water-based paints to be used in electrostatic painting, which is recognized for its exceptional covering efficiency and high productivity. This new spraying equipment also allows frequent and quick changes in paint colors. Moreover, the amount of paint thinner needed to clean the inside of the equipment during color changes is only one tenth of that used in conventional painting systems.

Standard automobile metallic body painting is comprised of four coats: an undercoat, or primer; a middle coat, or surfacer; a base coat; and a clear coat. For many years, organic solvents were the most commonly used solvent media for paints in paint sprayers, except in the case of the primer. This is because it is easy to maintain a degree of freedom in the control of an organic solvent's viscosity, and to obtain the electrostatic charge required for the painting process.

The use of such solvents, however, creates vapor and wastewater that can have negative impact on the environment. TMC, therefore, has been making determined efforts to improve the efficiency of paint applications and to retrieve thinner used for cleaning, lowering the volume of solvent discharge VOC* on painting lines to 64g/m2. The introduction of the new water-based paint technologies, however, has slashed that figure nearly in half.

Viscosity control of water-based paints is inherently more difficult, and can produce inconsistent paint quality due to changes in the application environment, such as in temperature and humidity. Also, electrostatic painting using conventional water-based paints does not improve productivity. TMC has resolved these issues by developing a metallic water-based paint with a much higher level of productivity than those in the past, and which is not easily affected by the working environment.

Furthermore, by using this paint in a small, cartridge-type paint tank attached to a robot paint sprayer, it is now possible to generate an electrostatic charge directly in the paint itself for optimum covering efficiency. Using the new system for applying the base coat, which has the largest volume of solvent discharge, the VOC in painting processes at TMC's Takaoka Plant has been reduced to 35g/m2, resulting in one of the world's most environmentally-sound painting lines. TMC plans to gradually expand application of this technology to other plants and is further developing it for application of the surfacer coat and, using powder-type paints, the clear coat, in order to fully integrate the low-environmental-impact technology and to further protect the environment.

* volatile organic compounds: a blanket term for volatile organic compounds and organic solvents. (As solvent discharge, VOCs are measured in units of weight per 1m2 of paint coverage.)