The Perils of Lulu

"We are taking the gloves off," Wilfred MacDonnell, president of Great Lakes Steel Corp., told a Detroit press conference last week. Aides stepped forward with six aluminum auto bumpers, methodically proceeded to mutilate them by dipping them in corrosive baths, firing shotgun blasts into them, twisting and turning them into shapeless forms. Next, the same treatment was applied to six steel bumpers--which somehow managed to survive. Steel and aluminum are warring over the nation's largest metal market: the U.S. auto industry.

Alarmed by aluminum's steady encroachments into Detroit--the average 1961 auto has 62.8 lbs. of aluminum v. 56.1 lbs. in the 1960 model--steelmen were provoked to open hostilities by the aluminum industry's prediction that its favorite metal is about to be used in bumpers, wheels, more auto engines and other auto parts. Indelibly etched in the memory of every steel producer is a 1959 Reynolds Metals- Co. radio commercial in which two loathsome characters named Rusty and Salty set out to feast on steel auto accessories but were frustrated by "rust-free aluminum" ("I'm having a bad time, Salty. This side trim is aluminum"). Setting out to do likewise, Great Lakes Steel has recently sponsored commercials in which "Lulu La Lumium," a Tallulah-voiced aluminum bumper, is constantly banged and bent by a steel bumper with a strong masculine voice. Sample dialogue:

Lulu: Ouch! Say, big boy, why did you let me bump you? You've messed me all up.

Steel Bumper: Oh, oh. Got yourself another dent. Look, why don't you give people a break? Let Great Lakes Steel take care of the bumpers, and you go back to your pots and pans.

Word around Detroit was that other other steel companies would soon join the fray and that the aluminum men were considering bringing back Rusty and Salty as competition for Lulu La Lumium.

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