GENERAL MOTORS vice chairman Bob Lutz barely got time to pull on his slippers before he waived his plan to retire at the age of 77 to reprise his “ultimate car guy” role at the reincarnated GM.
“Marketing is my occupational speciality, it’s what I was trained in, it’s what I did for the first 20 years of my career,” said Lutz, who has worked at all three US automakers – Ford, General Motors and Chrysler – over the past four decades. “I was in product development almost illegally.”
The new GM emerged last week from bankruptcy protection after 39 days, focusing on four brands in a bid to return to profitability after $88 billion in losses since 2004.
GM’s chief executive Fritz Henderson said that Lutz was “critical”and joked that the company had to retain the former marine fighter pilot to prevent him from “recycling through another set”� of automakers.
Lutz will be responsible for crafting the images for GM’s four remaining brands: Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC.
As the leader of design at GM, his stamp has been on cars such as the Chevrolet Malibu and Cadillac CTS sedans, both of which were greeted with praise from auto critics.
He’s also the champion of the electric Chevrolet Volt, a car that GM plans to sell by the end of next year.
“We have to be much bolder, much less risk-averse,” Lutz said. “Very frequently, the General Motors way is to sanitise the message to the point where no one is offended.
“But when no one is offended, there’s no interest in the message anymore.”
Lutz’s primary job will be advertising, communications and marketing, areas that previously fell under several different officers.
He'll still have an advisory role with product development, which will be led by Tom Stephens, who was named as Lutz's replacement in February when it was first announced that the vice chairman was to retire. – Bloomberg