Guess Who Coming Back To Dinner?

[William Maley]

Guess Who Coming Back To Dinner?

William Maley - Editor/Reporter - CheersandGears.com

September 2, 2011

Bob Lutz is making a return to Ren Cen. Today, GM announced the former vice-chairman will be retained to provide counsel to the automaker’s senior leadership team. The 79-year old will be available to executives on a part-time basis effective immediately.

Lutz came to GM in 2005 and is credited for many of the products GM has brought out over the past few years. Lutz retired from the company last May.

Currently, Lutz sits on several other firms advisory boards including Lotus.

Press Release is Below

General Motors Retains Bob Lutz as Advisor

2011-09-02

DETROIT – General Motors today announced the retention of former Vice Chairman Robert A. “Bob” Lutz to provide counsel to the senior leadership team of the company.

Lutz will be available to executives on a part-time consultancy basis effective immediately. He brings a wealth of experience built over the course of more than 40 years in the industry, including two stints at GM. He has also been a senior executive at Ford, Chrysler, BMW and was CEO of Exide Batteries.

Lutz has been providing advice to GM executives informally since retiring from the company in 2010.

[G. David Felt]

SWEET, I like this!

[Drew Dowdell]

The man who can't stay retired.

[regfootball]

ROCK ON BOB!

[G. David Felt]

No Need to ever retire when you have a love of auto's.

[hyperv6]

This is some of the best news I have seen in a while. We will still have someone there to ruffle some feathers for the true car people.

I wondered when I read his book he had a lot of help from some key people at GM. I think he will be able to help these people keep doing what hey can do with his backing.

[Camino LS6]

Amen!

[SoCalCTS]

GM was doing so great without him! I hope he doesn't mess it up.

[hyperv6]

GM was doing so great without him! I hope he doesn't mess it up.

GM has been doing great because of him. much of what is now just coming out are things done before he left. Many of these projects were shelved till they had money and staff to do them.

The Cruze Nox, Terrain, Camaro, CTS, Regal, Lacrosse etc were all done under Bob. The coming ZL1, Malibu, Impala and ATS were done under his watch and shelved to wait for funding.

You have to count project years not model years. Bob has not been gone very long and there is very little gap on anything that has been done.

Read his Books Guts and Car Guys Vs Bean Counters and you will learn he is one of the most centered guys in the industry. Yes he has not hit things 100% but no one ever has. Considering much of his work was done pre chpter 11 with little to no funding he did a hell of a job.

The key to things at GM today is he has changed the way they build cars. He empowered the engineers and designers and removed many of the foolish GM rules. He close panel gaps that no one at GM could do before. He threw out the silly rule on tire chains for the cars and now the the tires fit the wheel wells. He threw out the silly think tanks that did nothing but waste money. Interiors at GM have improved with each model change and have not been to this level for nearly 50 years.

I think you will find he is the one that will prevent others from messing it up.

[Blake Noble]

I was thinking this would happen sooner. GM needs Lutz as long as he's around, able, and willing to kick someone in the head.

GM was doing so great without him! I hope he doesn't mess it up.

As with 85 percent of your posts here, I think you just chime in to say something contradictory to the consensus view and nothing more.

[ocnblu]

He's my hero.

[SoCalCTS]

I was thinking this would happen sooner. GM needs Lutz as long as he's around, able, and willing to kick someone in the head.

GM was doing so great without him! I hope he doesn't mess it up.

As with 85 percent of your posts here, I think you just chime in to say something contradictory to the consensus view and nothing more.

Well, if I didn't you guys would be telling GM to build diesel hatchbacks, with manual transmissions, stripped down interiors, and niche vehicles. Someone has to speak up to all that!

[Drew Dowdell]

I don't see why any of that is bad. GM has their mainstream cars competitive now. And by competitive, I mean the Cruze is kicking butt and taking names, Lacrosse and Regal are selling well and getting good press. The next Malibu, once we know pricing, will likely do very well in the market. Even the current Malibu has held up well given it's age. There is no reason why GM can't do both mainstream AND niche diesel hatchbacks.

[smk4565]

I actually think he should stay retired. He had some good ideas and pushed GM to improve interiors and quality and get a more global approach. But with the winners also came the Astra, Aura, Sky, Solstice, G8, and a lot of money wasted on brands that ending up dying anyway. Most outsiders knew in 2005 that GM had a brand management problem, he himself said GM had damaged brands. If Lutz were great, he would have scrapped those brands then and worked on Chevy and Cadillac.

I'd like to see GM get some new blood in there, like Ford did with Mullally. At least Bill Ford recognized the problem was bigger than they knew how to fix, and Mulally saved Ford form bankruptcy and government bail out. Bob Lutz is the past, GM needs the future.

[hyperv6]

I actually think he should stay retired. He had some good ideas and pushed GM to improve interiors and quality and get a more global approach. But with the winners also came the Astra, Aura, Sky, Solstice, G8, and a lot of money wasted on brands that ending up dying anyway. Most outsiders knew in 2005 that GM had a brand management problem, he himself said GM had damaged brands. If Lutz were great, he would have scrapped those brands then and worked on Chevy and Cadillac.

I'd like to see GM get some new blood in there, like Ford did with Mullally. At least Bill Ford recognized the problem was bigger than they knew how to fix, and Mulally saved Ford form bankruptcy and government bail out. Bob Lutz is the past, GM needs the future.

Get real!

The Astra was brought here pretty much as Opel had done them. The car cost little to bring over and gave Saturn a real car for once worth owning. Same goes for the Malibu based Aura. Pontiac pretty much was dead when Lutz arrived. The GTO, G8 and Solstice were hail marys trying to save them but it was just way too late to do so by the time he arrived. He had too little time and money to do what all was needed.

His biggest error was to make Hummer a brand and not a GMC model It would have been easier and cheaper to make and kill when it has served its time. He states this often.

Bob's skills are not so much what he does but what he can get others in GM to do and permit. He has great assets at GM and knows how to get them to do what they are able to do. Just look at the ZR1.

Mullally has help Ford become more profitable but it was not he who saved Ford alone. Ford was in worse shape than GM and had to leverage loans on their plants a few years prior to save the company. Ford then had to use that money to improve product which they did. The fact remains while they are doing ok they still owe a hell of a lot of money on the outstanding loans and are still balls deep in debt. Too many tebd forget this and just want to jump on GM for their goverment loans. The only thing Ford has is a couple year head start on rebuilding their lines and engines nothing more.

Mullally is doing a good job sorting out the mess but it is more than just him that is working this out.

On the other hand Bob changed in may ways how GM did things from selling, building, engineering, designing and marketing cars. He had a hand in changing how many did their jobs. The fact remains there is more he needs to do.

Even part time Bob can comment on product developlement and placment of key people to do the right things to buils and sell cars. I really think this will be a job he will love and have effective change with more of GM's issues that still need resolved. Dan I assume was smart enough to know the input he has will be of great value. I only hope he is here long enough to get all the right people in place to keep the trends moving ahead to where they need to be.

I saw the new book he wrote as a help to those he left to help them fend off some who wanted to move back to the old ways and remove the improvments.

If you have not read the book you need to as it makes it clear what needs to take place and what so far has been addressed. It is one of the few books that shows how bad it was and how simple it was fix so many things. GM has a lot of smart people but as he points out so man have little common sense.

[smk4565]

I don't think Lutz will hurt in any way, but I don't see him as the savior. He had his chance, with he and Wagoner at the helm the company tanked, and I realize a lot of that had already started before Lutz got there, but he couldn't save them before. And even headed toward bankruptcy, he Fritz and Wagoner were more of the "stay the course" mentality, rather than blow up and start over. Lutz may be able to help in a few places, he knows how to rattle the cages, but I don't think he'll have much impact.

The ZR1 isn't that good an example of Lutz success. All they did was supercharge a Corvette tweak the suspension and put a body kit on it. The interior is terrible, Corvette sales have declined since the ZR1 went on sale, and it isn't like the ZR1 got Chevy tons of publicity and drove up showroom traffic. Yes it is a fast car, but Corvette sales and Chevrolet sales would probably be right where they are now even if the ZR1 never existed.

[hyperv6]

I don't think Lutz will hurt in any way, but I don't see him as the savior. He had his chance, with he and Wagoner at the helm the company tanked, and I realize a lot of that had already started before Lutz got there, but he couldn't save them before. And even headed toward bankruptcy, he Fritz and Wagoner were more of the "stay the course" mentality, rather than blow up and start over. Lutz may be able to help in a few places, he knows how to rattle the cages, but I don't think he'll have much impact.

The ZR1 isn't that good an example of Lutz success. All they did was supercharge a Corvette tweak the suspension and put a body kit on it. The interior is terrible, Corvette sales have declined since the ZR1 went on sale, and it isn't like the ZR1 got Chevy tons of publicity and drove up showroom traffic. Yes it is a fast car, but Corvette sales and Chevrolet sales would probably be right where they are now even if the ZR1 never existed.

It will not take a person to guide GM into the future but a system that is in place that will let a group of people to guide them into the future. This is what Lutz was working on when he left the first time. Keep in mind he was not the leader of GM and did not get to do all he felt needed to be done.

If he had been in Wagoners or Fritz place things would not have been done the same. See the last chapter in the book. But even with that said where GM was when he arrived I feel today with 20 20 hind sight Chpter 11 was not going to be avoided. Even if it was avoided they would not be in the place they are today and there would still have been greater risk they would not have made it. Unless there was some great bail out by someone GM was going down. The economy sealed it even if there was a small chance.

My example of the ZR1 was just to show there was proof that GM could do things like this if rules were changed and engineers could be permitted to do what they could do if someone backed them against the board. Same goes for the design staff.

Things like panel gaps were a mess ast GM. Lutz asked why can't we do one like that pointing out a Hyundai. He was told we can but no one told us too? HE looked at the redesign of the present Impala and told the designer that it need chome around the side windows but the designer told him that would be over budget and he would get in trouble. Bob told him if the car fails to sell then you will get in trouble anyways so do it.

It is not so much the product choices he has made but the way of thinking and doing things at GM that will make a difference. He is letting the talent at GM do their jobs when in the past they either could not or would not out of fear of the system even if they knew they were 100% right. The backing of Bob let them do what needed to be done not so much what he told them to do.

Nearly all the pre 08 product were just things he tried to fix on limited money and time. For Bob to have save GM from Chapter 11 he would have had to been there years earlier. Also Chgpter 11 force many at GM to change the way they did things and go along with Bob. To fix GM will take more than the time Bob spent there and more than just what he can do on his own. It is like a great ship. It take a full crew to get it where it is going as it does time. Bob is only at the wheel tring to make it all go in the right direction with a crew working together. No an easy task.

The fact is it will take a outspoken person that the board will listen to at GM to help guide them in the right direction and to make sure the changes take. There are few people out there that could do this. Even the guy from Ford had a good chance of failing as with the system as it was odds are they would not listen to him. Bob in a way almost shames them into letting him do what was needed by being out spoken.

[hyperv6]

The more I think about it Bobs job at GM was to salvage the divisions he was give. If they lived or died were not his call. His task was to take limited funds and assets on hand to try to salvage what was screwed up in the first place. Cars like the Ion, G6, Aztek and the lack of RWD take generally 5 years or more to ovecome.

Bob made use of the cars that we always complained how come we can't get that here models as well as models like a HHR that was seen as a risk by many but became one of the better selling Chevys of the last 5 years and cost little to develope.

I wondered when Bob left once GM got the influx of money what he could have done with it. Now we may get the chance. The Team of Reuss and Lutz could be just what they need.

[SAmadei]

Lutz joined GM in late 2001, not 2005. He couldn't have worked on the '04 GTO and '04 Grand Prix if he wasn't hired yet.

[hyperv6]

Lutz joined GM in late 2001, not 2005. He couldn't have worked on the '04 GTO and '04 Grand Prix if he wasn't hired yet.

Lutz got there at the time where it was too late to do much with the GP. He said it was too late to change the hard points but he did send the car back to have the nose toned down. They called it the bucky beaver when he got there with it's Aztek like nose. The Lacrosse was so bad that he sent it back and they had to do a major redo that delayed it just over a year. There were limits to the chanes but the cars were bad enough they had to be done. I saw a bad photo of the original 04 GP and it was not pretty. IF you don't like the one we got you should have seen the other. THese photos are rare and for a reason. Note we never got a photo of the first try at the Lacrosse.

The GTO was Bobs but hee needed a RWD perforance car at Pontiac and needed it yesterday with little to no budget to work with. He had to fight the system to get the car here. There were arguments on what part of GM payed for what etc. He also ran in to delays to fix plastics and fuels systems to meet the American market as GM at this time was not making cars to global standards. He would have likes a new body too but it just could not be done. Just look at how long the Camaro took vs the GTO time wise to come to market and there was little infighting.

His book covers the issues in detail. I know from speaking to Scott Setttlmire and Fred Simmond of Pontiac some of the issues faced. I asked Fred why no hood scoops and split exhaust on the 04 and he said give us the money and we would have had them the first year. Scott also pointed out while the car was done and cheaply as possible what the cost were just to test the new fuel system and how many cars were crashed. It may have been done on the cheap but it still was expensive.

Cars like the G6 were done by the time Bob got there. As we can see the Delta cars got a major improvements with each following model and time that Bob could spend on improving them.

The best thing Bob did was to kill groups like Apex at GM that was a major waste of money as were other major money losers. How GM could let a group like Apex last as long as it did is amazing. Paying big money to a bunch of hippie like free thinkers for ideas that were never used. But then again maybe they were behind the Aztek? LOL!

Bob never had the power to stop GM's Chapter 11 as he was a product guy and only over saw design and the needed areas to bring cars to market. He improved major areas but many were still out of his reach and some he was prevented to change. At the end of his book he makes it clear even if he was CEO he more than not would have prevented chapter 11. To be honest there really was no one I think could have.

Even today GM is still mending its ways and still has a lot of work to do with poduct and how they do things. This is why he is back.

Edited September 5, 2011 by hyperv6

[RjION]

Bob Putz

[riviera74]

Bob Putz

Lutz is no putz. Without him, better product would have been inconceivable before, during and after BK. Most of the fault of why GM needed BK belongs to Waggoner and his Board of Bystanders who should have been fired in 2002. All of them. At least GM has real leaders who actually allow better products to be released, rather than extreme mediocrity over the last 25 years or so.

[hyperv6]

Bob Putz

If Bob was here sooner you still may have Saturn. It was too late and once he got some quality product in the dealers they had no money to market it. I still have people today ask what the Astra coupe is and when I say Saturn I get a reply of when did they make these?

Saturn and Pontiac were so far gone by the time he arrived his Damaged Brand statment was an honest one. In his book he points out how GM before he arrived wanted the Saturns plain and non discript. Some one at GM felt people who bought Saturns did not really like cars and were not interested in other than just getting where they were going and friendly dealer staffs.

[hyperv6]

Bob Putz

Lutz is no putz. Without him, better product would have been inconceivable before, during and after BK. Most of the fault of why GM needed BK belongs to Waggoner and his Board of Bystanders who should have been fired in 2002. All of them. At least GM has real leaders who actually allow better products to be released, rather than extreme mediocrity over the last 25 years or so.

I agree on all parts but one. Rick had some blame here but it also was decades of non change and wasted funds that led up to the failure. Rick pretty much had the odds against him saving them even if he had done the right things. The problems were so vast and so many they are still sorting them out.

Bob stated in his book today there are those in GM who feel they did too much for the Cruze and it should cut content and quality. Yes even with sales at the top of the list they want to go back to the old ways.

[Justin Bimmer]

I am in the middle of reading his new book and it should be a must read for anybody who likes GM. It is a great insiders perspective on how screwed up GM was and in some parts still is.

[Camino LS6]

The bottom line for me on this is that with Lutz (and Ruess) around, there is hope that future GM cars will not be composed entirely of boredom.

[Drew Dowdell]

The last time I saw Bob Lutz, he looked rather frail.

[hyperv6]

The last time I saw Bob Lutz, he looked rather frail.

Don't say that. As long as he is still flying he has passed his physical. LOL!

[hyperv6]

I am in the middle of reading his new book and it should be a must read for anybody who likes GM. It is a great insiders perspective on how screwed up GM was and in some parts still is.

His book is a real education for anyone including those who think they know all that was wrong at GM. It goes so much deeper.

If you like this book also read Guts. It is about his time at Chrysler. Get the updated one as it has more info.

Another book to read is On a Clear Day You Can See GM by John Delorean. It just shows how even back in the 60's and 70's how screwed up and counter productive GM was. Rick and the gang were just the ones holding the losing hand at the end others played a very poor game for years at GM. When the pockets were deep and the Asians not as strong it was just so much easier to hide.

But anyone here who has not read Car Guys vs Bean Counters should read it and then have better idea how things were and how they may still be today. You then will understand why Bob coming back may keep the improvments moving in the right direction.

Edited September 6, 2011 by hyperv6