It’s hard not to like former General Motors vice chairman Bob Lutz. The 83-year old auto exec was born in Switzerland before moving to the United States and flying planes in the Marine Corps, he can speak five languages, and he helped bring cars like BMW 3-Series, Dodge Viper and fourth-generation Pontiac GTO to life. However he recently made statements in his usual column at the back of Road & Track magazine which seemed a touch out of character.
As Motorsport reports, Lutz isn’t a fan of manufacturer sponsored racing. If the former GM employee were in charge of a major automaker today, he would “no longer spend the money – not on Formula 1 nor any other open-wheel series, the DTM, any sedan series, and most certainly not on NASCAR,” according to May’s R&T issue.
During his time at Chrysler in the 90s, he was “able to stave off,” dropping major money on NASCAR sponsorship, but notes “the door barely slammed behind me before Dodge signed up for major sponsorship.” Later in his career working for GM Lutz said he was “vocal in my disdain for Pontiac’s and Chevrolet’s NASCAR involvement,” saying it wasn’t helping Pontiac sales in the slightest.
There’s no doubt manufacturer sponsored racing is big bucks, but in some cases, not all, we think it can pay off. Any Corvette Racing team member will tell you there are hoards of Corvette owners who love to see their cars beat Ferraris and Porsches on the racetrack, and the spirit of the brand might not be there if it weren’t for the manufacturer backed team. This is true for other automakers as well, such as Ferrari, McLaren and BMW.
Lutz thinks the main reason manufacturer sponsor racing teams and programs is they want “the VIP treatment.” According to him, “wining and dining, meeting drivers, touring the track,” and other opportunities are “bestowed on mid-level executives who fund the programs out of their marketing budgets. We’re not so sure about that, but there are hundreds of Team Chevy fans who would be happy to tell him he’s underestimating manufacturer backed racing’s benefit.
Comments
Would like more info. on the new Buick Advent SUV.
I think you mean the Buick Envision. Advent seems as though it could be a controversial name for a car.
Anyway, here’s a good place to start: http://gmauthority.com/blog/gm/buick/envision/2016-envision/
If that’s not what your looking for there’s also the Encore and Enclave, which seem like they could also (maybe?) be mistaken for ‘Advent’.
Lutz is right. He is not saying don’t offer racing collaboration or involvement. But the amounts being (over) spent could go to a car program… Say, an affordable RWD sedan program.
That will win much more fans and sales.
I think you overestimate the number of people who care about rwd. Dodge has it on some cars and they aren’t lighting the sales charts on fire.
Because Dodge does AWD instead….
He has a bit of a point. It doesn’t matter how many times Audi wins Le Mans I’m not buying one or a vw. Or Mercedes in f1. Cars are just too big of a purchase for me to take that into consideration.
Well the head line is misleading here. Bob is against racing that has nothing to do with real product but endorses racing that used production based product like the Corvette and ATS road race cars.
Here is the trouble. Racing used to always include some production based products nothing was special and often it was required to be production.
Today we have NASCAR for real reasons to tube chassis and funny cars that don’t even look stock other than a bow tie. These cars work for some marketing and pride but has little to do with really show casing product that people will buy.
It was ok with NASCAR and NHRA back when racing was cheap but today cost are off the chart and it really has so little return per investment. It is kind of a damned if you do and damned if you don’t deal anymore. This is why it is key to lower cost in racing.
I really would love to see them step things back more to stock. Keep the cars safe but get back to the roots. It would slow them down some but racing would be closer and the cost would also come down. Close racing is more fun at a lower speed vs. follow the leader unable to pass per too much dirty air at 200 MPH.
I do give credit for GM trying to keep RWD cars as the choice for the track but I am afraid that may be coming to an end.
I love racing as much as you can. I was a Dale Sr and Jr fan from way back. But I just do not have the same interest as I used to have. Growing up with racing in the 60’s-90’s it was so much more simple and much more fun.
This is a tough one as companies can not skip the most popular racing. But the shame is the real production like racing is great but so few TV networks cover it and so few watch it. The Corvettes are a blast to watch and if you have never seen the ATS or CTS Cadillac’s race you are really missing some of the best racing. I even got to hang out with Johnny O Connell The ex Corvette Racer and present Cadillac Champ. He is one of the best racers to talk with and he will even e mail you. Class guy in one of the best racing series that so few know about.
The MFG and Racing bodies really need to get together and make some major changes as things are just out of hand cost wise for everyone. Many races anymore have empty seats and rating for many like NHRA are in the tank. It pains me to see this as my livelihood is in the racing industry and it is something I love.
Totally agree with regard to NASCAR. Grew up on that stuff & couldn’t wait until Sunday afternoons to catch a race. There was something about the magic of certain teams each year working out of small garages.
Now there are a couple of mega teams who build everything for everyone else & the cars are all common template with different stickers. IROC was more interesting to watch way back when vs NASCAR today.
It only takes one a few moments to look around at the number of large sponsors that are pulling their money away from the sport as they are not getting the return on investment they had hoped.
If it were me, I’d ditch NASCAR and do my wining and dining at Le Mans.
I can understand Lutz’s point about dropping NASCAR. I remember Dodge briefly pulling out of it in the 90’s. The body of NASCAR cars are all the same, the only difference is that they have different decals to mimic the front and rear fascias of the production cars. Besides that, they’re nothing like the cars they’re supposed to be. I understand that NASCAR uses the same body for safety reasons and so that no manufacturer will have an aerodynamic advantage, but if there were a way to actually use a Camry, SS, Fusion, or Charger body, that may go a long way towards helping sales of the production cars.
I don’t know enough about the other racing programs to comment about their efficacy regarding sales, but I assume the manufacturers have done research and see some advantage in racing sponsorship generally. But regarding NASCAR again, it’s also possible the American car corporations support the program because of sentimentality or for legacy reasons.
We’re being forced to accept the argument of either X or Y, all the while ignoring Z. The reason they see diminishing returns or racing vs sales is because the racing has become completely disconnected from the actual product. When NASCAR’s were stock cars and manufacturers needed homologation specials in order to be eligible, yes there was common ground that people could connect with.
Audi winning LeMans in an R18 diesel-hybrid has NO relevance to an A3 sedan sold in Tuscaloosa, nor does Mercedes WDC and constructors have bearing on CLA sales in SoCal.
Bring back production based racing and you’ll quickly watch the costs comedown and the competition scale upwards. An excellent example is WSBK vs MotoGP, Kawasaki pulled out of MotoGP citing costs, only to end up in production based WSBK competing with a FRACTION of the budget and walking away with World Championships.
Fraction of the audience though. I have this weekends MotoGP race at COTA set to record on fox sports but world superbike isn’t broadcasted. Got to find it on YouTube
For sure, but they’re a dedicated group. Audience size however doesn’t factor, production based racing is ALWAYS cheaper then prototype racing.
for WSBK use torrents, I downloaded Aragon 1,2, WSS, STK1000 1, 2 and STK600 in 20 minutes and watched while waiting for the COTA download 😀
Here is the problem Racing in general is down in all series.
The ones that still drive the most viewers and fans are the ones that are the least product promoting. The series that do the best to promote real product is pretty well unknown or unloved by the general public for the most part.
There has been talk of Jeff Gordon going to the Pratt and Miller Corvettes next year. If this is true it will help the series and Corvette exposure for sure. Dale SR had plans to run the Corvettes after getting out of NASCAR at the end of 2001 but he never got the chance. He has planned to race 2001 and walk away with no official last season. He may have run a race or two here and there but he had wanted to race the Corvettes and go to Lemans. That would have been fun.
Chevy will use indy this year to promote the new Camaro at Belle Isle and the 500 for the 2016 Pace Car. But it hurts they are not more production bases in the engines.
Agreed. The NASCAR fusions running Ecoboost branding highlight the disconnect, even more so that the fan base doesn’t think its an issue. For that matter who is the fan base, what are the demographics?