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At this year, year's New York Auto show, GM's introduced Americans to three concept cars that were designed in Korea. On this week's "What Works" CNNMONEY.com's Peter Valdes-Dapena says we should get ready for more international flavor from Detroit's automakers.

I'm here at the New York Auto Show, and behind me are three small car concept vehicles. These cars were designed in Korea by one of GM's 11 global design centers. And I think one of the reasons that GM brought these cars here is to start getting Americans used to the idea that GM isn't just an American car company. They are a global car company. And if they are gonna be competitive here in the America, they need to start bringing in the expertise of some of those overseas divisions here to the US. For example, small cars, they're a big deal in Korea, and GM relies on them to develop small car platforms here in use, not just here, but all over the world.

And this whole global rationalization thing doesn't just apply to engineering. It also applies to design. Both Ford and GM, now have executives in charge of their entire global design operations. And when GM has a big design job, they now have a competition among design groups from all over the world. When they needed a new look for Saturn, the folks that won the job were Opal designers from Europe. And when they needed a new look for the next generation Buick, Lacrosse, Chinese designers actually submitted some very nice ideas. So the next Buick Lacrosse that comes out may have an interior with a lot of influence from Chinese designers.

What I'm not talking about here is the world/ car. That's the idea that you are gonna have one car, you are gonna build it and sell it everywhere in the world. We pretty much know that doesn't work too well anymore. What we are talking about is tapping into expertise of different divisions of the company from different parts of the world. For example, rear wheel drive engineering from Australia, maybe small SUVs from Brazil and small cars from Korea taking that engineering expertise, combining it with the best possible design no matter where in the world it happens to come from. And putting all that together to create the best specific products you can for the different markets that where they fit.