We shall keep faith.

Like a rock.

Sound like titles to religious and deeply spiritual books?

In fact, they're marketing slogans for cars and trucks, and just a sampling of how automakers have tried – and continue to try – to appeal to more than just a customer's need for transportation.

As automakers in the United States try to sell cars and trucks, marketing experts say they try to sell more than just engines, upholstery and sheet metal – they try to sell image. And, often, they come off sounding quasi-spiritual.

"The image of automobiles is an ever-important part of marketing advertising today," said Mike Bernacchi, a professor of marketing and consumer behavior at University of Detroit Mercy. "A car represents much more than transportation. It embodies a person. It embodies a lifestyle."

"There's a Pontiac slogan right now that embodies what automakers have in mind – 'Fuel for the soul.' The idea is to get as close to an individual's 'spirit' as you can."

With slogans such as Honda's "The power of dreams" and Chrysler's "Drive = Love," it's easy to see how car companies aim at a person's spirit.

But – literally speaking – how close to the spirit do they actually come?

For example, do automakers know or care anything about a person's spiritual beliefs?

The answer, according to Detroit-area automakers, is simply "no."

"We don't' use (religion) as a factor in our market research," said James Kenyon, a marketing spokesman for DaimlerChrysler AG.

Peg Holmes, vehicle sales and marketing spokeswoman for General Motors, says GM doesn't look at its customer's religious beliefs, either.

"(Marketing) has more to do with psychographics – what a person's lifestyle is," said Holmes. "If you like a sporty car, you like a sporty car.

"You can have 100 people in church, but they're not all the same just because they go to the same church."

In other words, religion can bring different types of people together – but to sell cars, automakers find it beneficial to focus on what makes people different.

That's the reason, Holmes said, that GM doesn't advertise in religious media outlets. Indeed, most automakers stay away from faith-based publications, radio and television stations.

Some dealers, however, are different. For example, Martin "Hoot" McInerney, who's been a car dealer in Detroit for 50 years and owns six dealerships, sponsors shows on a Catholic radio station.

McInerney, a parishioner at St. Hugo of the Hills in Bloomfield Hills, says his customers care about his sponsorship of Catholic radio.

"You'd be surprised," he said. "A lot of people come in here, and they tell me it's the only reason they came in here. It makes you feel good."

Apparently, it can make a buyer feel good, too.

Reid Gough, who attends St. Colman Parish in Farmington Hills, this week bought a new Lincoln Navigator off of the lot of McInerney's Star Lincoln Mercury dealership in Southfield.

Faith matters when buying a car, Gough said, because you could support someone with the same beliefs.

"I think it's a support-type thing," said Gough, who heard McInerney was a sponsor of Catholic radio. "We have to support each other.

"There's a moral basis there."

Of course, picking a Catholic or Christian car dealer is different than trying to factor faith into picking the right car company to buy from.

No automaker is trying to pitch its product as the car for Christians.

And Bernacchi says, that – sensibly – is because few consumers exercise moral muscle when they decide what car to buy.

"Faith or faithless, there's not much consideration given to that," he said. "The closest we come is the whole environmental issue – the idea having to do with gas mileage. And that's not a faith issue.

"(Faith) is overwhelmingly not in the majority of consumer's calculus today."