Turning General Motors into a 21st century Volkswagen – as President Barack Obama has essentially done this week – is an unfortunate necessity brought on by the automaker’s historical inability to manipulate consumer trends into a sustainable, profitable business model.

After all, from a marketing perspective, there’s nobody better than a U.S. car maker and nobody easier to hook than a U.S. car buyer. Cars, more than any other purchase, are intertwined with self-image, emotion, ego. We project ourselves to others with our cars. GM, Ford and Chrysler are our agents.

This is why we were easily convinced by the Big Three that bigger was better. We can blame them for making cars that were bad for the environment, but we must also blame ourselves for lapping them up in record numbers. Now, with President Obama’s swift kick to the industry, those times are over.

The president cannot underestimate the relationship between Americans and their automobiles – it’s more than just transportation. Americans want to drive the car they want, not the car they should. If the latter were the case, we’d all be driving tiny-engined hybrids that run on used cooking oil. We don’t.

This is the danger President Obama runs by taking over car makers with an eye toward fulfilling policy goals – such as cleaner air and lower fuel consumption. Under this government control and influence, we, as a society, would get the cars we need, not necessarily the cars we want.

While an era of responsibility is upon us, trying to rescue the American automotive industry by building cars that Americans may not buy would be, well, disastrously counterproductive.

Volkswagen is an example. In the early 1930s, the “People’s Car” was designed in Germany to target the working classes, and the first Beetle was developed. It was everything one could need: fuel efficient, affordable and reliable – exactly the recipe needed for that time and place.

This is basically what Obama said this week, in forcing GM to oust its chief executive and Chrysler to find a buyer, quick. “The United States of America will lead the world in building the next generation of clean cars,” he said. There’s no doubt the nation needs this to thrive.

Yet the president would be wise to remember Volkswagen. The government-car of the 1930s flopped. Only when private stewardship in post-war Germany gave the pedestrian Beetle a makeover (and cut off its roof for the legendary Karmann Ghia) did its fortunes brighten and industrial might start to grow.

This is job No. 1 for President Obama and his automotive advisers – to reform General Motors and Chrysler into companies that create the products that are responsible for the country from an environmental and economic standpoint.

What will be even more challenging is figuring out how to get American consumers to buy them.