Bob Lutz Reveals New Structure, Hints at New GM Models
 Who cares what GM has to say? EVERYONE! |
Detroit Bureau
GM, it seems, has been reorganizing nonstop since the early 80s. OK. Maybe that is an exaggeration but the largest industrial corporation in the world has had trouble getting a firm grip on how best to organize itself to compete in a world industry that is diametrically different than the one under which it grew.
Bob Lutz, now in his fourth year of trying to turn around GM’s new products to make them competitive and exciting, spoke to the Automotive Press Association in Detroit last week providing an update and a mostly optimistic view.
A few numbers back up his rosy picture. HHR production has been boosted twice, he says, and the retro vehicle is bringing in many “conquest” sales, that is, customers who owned someone else’s vehicles previously. The new Impala is holding a 50% “turn rate” meaning dealers are selling more than half their inventory of Impalas every month. Cobalt has a 43% turn rate also making dealers very happy. The new Hummer H-3 is posting record sales in spite of fuel prices and is bring in 70% new-to-GM buyers. And, Cadillac sales continue strong, up 17% from last year.
Lutz then revealed the news he came to talk about. Beginning in January of 2006 GM’s design and engineering budgets world wide will become one. Though it sounds rather esoteric, recognizing the increasingly international structure of design and engineering functions at GM is big news. Lutz maintains that the new structure will drastically improve efficiency and stimulate more exciting designs. It would seem on the surface that such a concentration – or a centralization - of design decision-making would result in more homogenous, less bold, designs. Lutz insisted, in answer to just that question form this reporter, that quite the contrary will be true. The efficiencies of administration and an anticipated halving of the number of architectures will leave designers with more independence and flexibility than they had before. Additionally, many actual design decisions will be decentralized with regional offices having more influence over products for their particular markets.
GM’s eleven design centers around the world will remain and now will all report to vice president of design, Ed Welborn. The new buzzword is “interbuildability.” That’s a lot of syllables to say that more creative products will be built on fewer platforms.
Lutz, universally touted as the most enthusiastic “car guy” in the industry, believes there will be little growth in the number of segments in the industry and he believes that GM will gain slowly and steadily in percent penetration in existing segments.
Looking forward to the 2006 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Lutz revealed that GM will show three brand new midsize crossover vehicles that represent a “radical departure” from existing models of that genre. “They will be best in segment in space, fuel economy and design,” he claims. And, in a surprise announcement, Lutz said to anticipate another all new vehicle at the show, “a pusher, not a puller.” A new rear-wheel-drive pony car, perhaps? We can only hope.
