I attended my first lunch today as a member of the Detroit-based Automotive Press Association. Saad Chehab, CEO of the Chrysler and Lancia brands, presented a new Chrysler 200 S Special Edition, a collaboration between Mopar and Carhartt. Then $28,870 car has been modified with a clean air intake, performance exhaust, sport suspension, black grille, black wheels, and black Carhartt fabric with the firm’s signature triple stitching in gray. Chehab also talked about some other special edition models, including a John Varvatos Special Edition 300C, which includes many intriguing details specified by the designer himself, and a Motown Special Edition 300.

Asked how Carhartt, a manufacturer of sturdy blue collar work clothes, was a better fit for semi-upscale Chrysler than Dodge or Ram, Chehab explained that “Detroit” was Chrysler’s thing, and Carhartt was a Detroit-based company. Also, Chrysler is the brand for hard working people who want nice things without paying a premium price for them, and Carhartt is also about hard work. As is Detroit in the American public mind, apparently.

The journalists in attendance seemed less than convinced. In contrast, the partnership with Varvatos, also approached because he is from Detroit, occasioned no head-scratching.

This wasn’t the oddest part of the event, though. During the Q&A a female journalist noted that all of the special editions, with their black grilles and black wheels, seemed very masculine. Chehab’s initial response was that he hadn’t thought about this. He second response: “I think masculinity has appeal to a lot of women,” made the woman sitting across from me nearly gag up her Chrysler-funded lunch. His third, as he continued to flail about for a lifeline: “I don’t believe in painting a car pink to appeal to women.”

Mr. Chehab would benefit from media training. The first rule (which I hope to always remember myself): if you haven’t thought about something, don’t do your thinking out loud in front of a room full of journalists. Instead, say you can’t talk about the topic today, and move on.

Beyond the media conference, Chrysler has been doing well, with sales of all three models on an upswing. In an especially amazing turnaround, Chrysler 200 sales are up 265 percent. The Sebring, upon which the 200 was based, was written off as dead by the automotive press years ago. So, even if Chehab, originally trained as an architect, doesn’t always say the right thing, he has often been doing the right thing. If I had to choose between saying the right thing and doing the right thing, the latter would be the clear winner.