It has been a trying year for the American auto industry - and that’s putting it mildly. With two of the Big Three auto manufacturers receiving government bailouts after filing for bankruptcy and countless others coping with the recession through layoffs and dealership closings, the instability left consumer confidence in American automakers shaky at best. Data from AutoPacific, a Tustin, Calif., research company, shows that when respondents were asked in June 2009 if they would be concerned about purchasing a vehicle from General Motors, the result was a staggering 58 percent yes. Chrysler fared even worse, with 62 percent of respondents answering in the affirmative.

The good news, however, is that the worst of it appears to be over. Consumer reluctance to buy Chrysler or GM models dropped double digits once both manufacturers had made it through bankruptcy in July 2009 (42 and 53 percent, respectively). Granted, those figures are still high compared to the likes of Ford, Toyota and Honda, but the numbers are clearly heading in the right direction for automakers, and the Big Three’s existence is no longer in flux.

The auto industry has taken steps based largely upon guidance from market and trend forecasting studies to keep current with (and - ideally - ahead of) consumer needs, wants and expectations. With a minimum four-year life cycle from R&D to the showroom floor, automakers rely on research projections to take them from rock bottom to rock solid in both sales and public opinion. We may not be out of the woods yet, but researchers are working diligently to analyze the effects of the past 18 months and help auto manufacturers move forward. The crisis has pressed them to trim the fat, reevalute demand and seek to define consumers’ ever-evolving (and always personal) definitions of “value.”

In August, to gain some insight into what went wrong and what the future might hold, we spoke with three su...