Bob Lutz is a long-standing figure in the automotive industry. He’s held top executive positions at each of Detroit’s major automakers, and recently he opened up about what it was like working at each of them.
Lutz was the featured guest on the most recent Miked Up podcast by The Detroit Free News, where he spends the near majority of his time discussing what it was like to be inside the walls of Chrysler, Ford and General Motors.
Of course, it’s the GM stuff we’re interested in here, and Lutz had plenty to say. Specifically, he stated GM had the awful mentality of building cars that were “good enough” for customers. Instead, Lutz worked to weed out the procedures used to create vehicles and opened the company to more creative aspects once again.
He exemplifies the last-generation Pontiac Grand Prix, which he states received $4,000 worth of incentives the day after hitting dealership lots. This, according to Lutz, was due to a tarnished reputation and the “good enough” mentality by GM.
It’s easy to see where the fruits of his labor ended up, specifically in the Monaro turned GTO, Solstice/Sky twins and more. Listen to the entire episode at the link up above.
Comment
Bob has been outspoken in all his books about the automakers and how the GM culture was so damaged when he arrived.
Case of panel gaps. He asked why they could not match Hyundai on gaps. The guy in charge said he was not told to do it. Bob said well can you match or beat them and he said yes. Then do it!. It took several hundred dollars on some press mods and the 08 Malibu then had class leading gaps.
This is just one example he gave of the mess inside GM had become. If you read his books it is easy to understand how many in GM did not know about the ignition issue.
One supplier had told Bob he could sell the same bearing to GM for 3 times the amount under a different part number because they had no clue the same part was already stocked under a different number much cheaper.
Bobs work was just too late to do much at GM. He had no money to make the GTO right. He was too late to save Pontiac and they still fought him on changed he wanted made.
But what Bob did do was start the culture change inside GM from political infighting to doing what was right for the product and customer. Mary has continued on what he had started and it continues to improve. This to me is going to be the legacy Bob leaves and too often he gets little credit for the start of the change.
He also plowed money into programs like the XTS, ZL1, Malibu and other products at the time they went Chapter 11. While all these cars were delayed and a little dated at release at least GM had something to release while they finished the replacement Malibu, Alpha line and Trucks.
Look at Chrysler and they still have yet to replace much and what they did was just re bodied Fiat based cooperate products that failed. The only bright spot was Jeep and Sergio is stealing the money there for Alfa and other products that have underwhelmed. If he has let Chrysler do as Jeep has they could have funded all of the other FCA projects and increased volumes to where they needed to be.
The GP was a mess. He had to fix it before it was released. It has a Aztec like nose and issues. I had a 04 GTP Comp G with bouncing headlamps and a back seat as hard as plywood. The Lacrosse was so bad he delayed it a year. I never saw the Buick but the GP was a mess till he fixed it as much as he could.