CHICAGO – A high school friend once lost his summer job as a helper on a Pepsi delivery truck after ordering a Coke when having lunch with the boss. He was wearing his Pepsi shirt.

That episode came to mind with news that the manager of Ford’s Dearborn, Mich., truck plant has come up with way to get his workers to buy company products without offering them cash or discount financing.

The manager issued an order that effective earlier this month, salaried and hourly workers can use the employee lot alongside the plant only if they drive a vehicle made by Ford or one of its subsidiaries.

That means an F-150 pickup or a Jaguar sedan are welcome in the lot, but a Toyota Camry has to park across the street.

It’s not a companywide policy or a new idea. When American Motors Corp. was assembling cars in Kenosha, Wis., workers who drove AMC vehicles got priority in the lot while the others had to find places on nearby side streets.

And the United Auto Workers still bans Asian and European vehicles from parking at its headquarters in Detroit, to ensure members are loyal to those they serve and to rile visiting media who have to park their Toyotas and Hondas elsewhere.

Perhaps the term mini is a misnomer. This spring Honda brings out the Fit, a car smaller than the Civic.

But John Mendel, senior vice president of American Honda, said it’s not all that small.

“You can stand a llama up in back when you tumble the rear seat into the floor,” he said.

How does he know?

“We rented a llama.”

Didn’t ask where.

Mendel was asked whether having the Honda Civic and Honda Ridgeline named 2006 North American Car and Truck of the Year by the nation’s automotive media helps sales.

“It won’t force anyone to jump off the couch and say they’ve gotta run down to the store to buy one, but it gives them a reason to go look at one. So it certainly can’t hurt.”

GM said one of the reasons it lost $1.5 billion in the fourth quarter of last year was that between the time it stopped producing the 2006 Tahoe and started assembling the redesigned ’07, now in showrooms, it lost production of 62,000 units.

With estimates that GM makes $10,000 in profit per Tahoe sold, 62,000 lost units cost GM some $620 million.

You may or may not have heard about the live hood ornament at the Detroit Auto Show. Electricians snuck a women into the hall at 2:30 one morning to pose for some in-the-buff photos on the hood of the Dodge Challenger concept.

Jason Vines, vice president of public relations for Chrysler Group, said the episode had a happy ending. Since the “ornament” was nude, the carbon fiber hood on the $2 million concept wasn’t scratched and the car will be at the Chicago Auto Show next week.

Write to Jim Mateja, Chicago Tribune, 616 Atrium Drive, Vernon Hills, IL 60061-1523, or send e-mail, including name and hometown, to [email protected].