General Motors is taking serious steps to make sure that the company’s next generation small pickups are a success. Here’s the exclusive.

Amidst all of the GM-related small pickup news, we were shocked to find out that the development of all small pickup trucks has been reassigned to Chief Engineer and Vehicle Line Executive (VLE) Jeff Luke.

Mr. Luke is already in charge of  many projects, including GM’s full size trucks and SUV’s, vans and small/midsize crossovers. We’ve been told Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre personally made his way from the Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit to GM’s Technical Center in Warren, MI just to give the orders to one of The General’s best executives.

Leading up to this news, we’ve reported on GM’s strategy in the U.S. small truck market and brought you spy photos of two distinct small pickups undergoing testing (here and here). Despite all of this information, it’s still not clear just what is in store for the U.S. market when it comes to GM’s next generation small truck offering. Stay tuned as we learn more…