Suzuki Motor Co

These drivers wave at each other on Pacific Coast Highway. They beep crossing paths down Torrey Pines Scenic Drive. They rub fenders on campuses from San Diego to Berkeley and call themselves Club Samurai. Their bond is the Suzuki Samurai, a pug-nosed, four-wheel-drive dormouse, introduced in 1985, that California's youthful and carefree have taken to their hearts and hot spots with a regional burst of public affection that hasn't been seen since the first wine cooler.

Hoping to counter a wave of negative publicity following reports of serious safety problems with the popular Suzuki Samurai, Suzuki began a week-long nationwide advertising blitz Thursday night, the company said Friday. The U.S. sales arm of the Japanese auto maker began to buy advertising time on network news programs and on local television news shows across the country beginning Thursday, airing ads that quote from positive reviews of the Samurai in auto industry trade magazines.

The Suzuki Samurai, one of the hottest products on the American car market over the past three years, was hit with a devastating public relations blow Thursday from the publishers of Consumer Reports magazine.

A barely simmering controversy over the safety of the Suzuki Samurai boiled over Sunday when the maker of the sports utility vehicle lashed out at charges that the Samurai may be dangerously unstable. In a lengthy statement, Suzuki of America Automotive Corp. said that a consumer group's charges that the Samurai may be unsafe "are misleading and without substance or foundation."

General Motors will increase its modest exports of U.S.-built autos to Japan next year, taking advantage of the decline in the value of the dollar against the Japanese yen, GM officials said Thursday. GM President Robert Stempel said that, early next year, the company will begin shipping its sporty Pontiac Grand Am, along with its new Chevrolet Corsica and Beretta compact models, into Japan. The Grand Am models to be exported come from a GM assembly plant in Lansing, Mich.

A Los Angeles federal judge has reversed a potential $19-million judgment awarded to a young motorcycle mechanic who successfully sued Suzuki Motor Co. over patent rights to a suspension system he invented in his garage. In a ruling made public Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William P. Gray ordered a new trial on Donald G. Richardson's claims that the Japanese cycle manufacturer stole his invention when it marketed a new "full floater" suspension system on many of its models.

A youthful motorcyclist who developed a new, rough-terrain suspension system for his cycle won an award that could total $19 million from Suzuki Motor Co. Friday when a jury decided that the mammoth Japanese manufacturer had stolen his invention. A federal court jury in Los Angeles decided Don Richardson, a lifelong motorcycle enthusiast, should be entitled to worldwide royalties for the unique floating shock absorber that he designed at the age of 19.