Bankruptcy could restore what decades of complacency killed.

The way that GM does business will also become less … Eisenhower era. Bankruptcy will enable it to renegotiate its supplier relationships and right-size its dealer network. It should become more efficient at procuring everything from tires to sun visors. It’s not going to leave Chapter 11, and the sale of its good assets, as a radically reorganized, horizontally integrated firm, but it is going to emerge as a company with vehicles that in many segments are more compelling that what the competition is selling. The Cadillac Escalade Hybrid, for example, is the best full-size SUV on the planet. Corvette gives European supercars a run for their money, at thousands and thousands less. Over the next decade or so, there’s going to be much more choice in the U.S. auto market. Before, GM tried to compete for customers on almost every front. Now, it won’t have to. It will be able to concentrate on building and marketing the vehicles it does well.

As the dead weight falls away, the GM that rises from bankruptcy has a legitimate shot at being something it hasn’t been … ever. Cool. That’s right. The New GM won’t be huge, powerful, vast. It will (oh please, oh please) be operating out of the Warren Technical Center, hammering home its market share in China, producing horsepower and handling where necessary and fuel-economy across the board. It will be nimble. It will potentially win the next-generation powertrain race. Its ability to sell cars to everyone will go away, but the everyone cars have been built by Toyota and Honda since the 1980s. The New GM could offer something superior. Remember the old advertising tag line: “When better cars are built, Buick will build them.” Now when cooler cars are built, the New GM will build them.

American cars lost their cool sometime between the 1970s gas crisis and June 1, 2009. It’s about time they got it back.