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Payne: Living auto legend Bob Lutz celebrated at Willow Run
Posted by Talbot Payne on August 2, 2023
Ypsilanti — The auto industry has produced many luminaries, but few have had the sustained impact of Bob Lutz.
Industry dignitaries and colleagues gathered last weekend in the Yankee Air Museum Hangar at Willow Run Airport to celebrate the living legend’s 60-year career, which spanned significant stints at BMW, Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors. Whether siring some of the industry’s iconic vehicles, speaking his mind on public policy, or pursuing his hobbies 30,000 feet in the air, Lutz left an indelible mark on the industry.
Amidst some 200 cars assembled for the occasion, presenters wove a tale of a man whose outsize personality and influence earned him the nickname “Maximum Bob.”
“Your having the guts to fight the bean counters drives us to this day,” Stellantis North America design chief Ralph Gilles told Lutz, echoing the guest of honor’s 2011 best-selling book, “Car Guys vs. Bean Counters.”
“You were the anti-commodity executive,” Giles added. “Your legend is still with us.”
Born in Switzerland in 1932, Lutz was fascinated by cars at an early age, but he would be a late-comer to the auto industry. Struggling between European and U.S. schools, he joined the Marines in Parris Island, South Carolina — eventually earning his naval aviator wings. Upon completing his military commission in 1959, he picked up production management and business degrees from the University of California-Berkeley while selling vacuum cleaners and flying in the Marine Corps Reserve.
(Lutz is a trustee of the Marine Corps University Foundation and the Marine Military Academy, and the event honoring him raised $22,146 for the U.S. Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation.)
His first job out of college in 1963 was with GM in New York, and in ‘65 the General shipped him to Opel in Europe, where he would champion vehicle performance. He took those performance learnings to BMW in 1971 as vice president for sales. There, in three short years, he established the German marque’s clay-modeling studio and model names.
“You did a lot in three years,” said Franciscus van Meel, CEO of BMW’s M Performance Brand Division from the Willow Run stage, flanked by two of Lutz’s most famous cars, the ferocious BMW CSL racer and the elegant Cadillac Sixteen concept car. “You were instrumental in BMW’s naming convention, and you developed the phrase: ‘The Ultimate Driving Machine.’”
Van Meel also recounted how Lutz brought the American ethic of “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” to BMW. The CSL would go to war against Ford’s Capri in Europe for GT racing supremacy, and open the way to BMW’s revered M Division.
Lutz moved to Ford Europe in 1974, beginning a 12-year stint that would ultimately bring him back to the United States as executive vice president of Ford International Operations. He would lead the development of the Escort III, Sierra and — most significantly — the Blue Oval’s first mainstream SUV, the Explorer.
The development of SUVs — now the best-selling, non-pickup segment — really flowered at Chrysler, where he took up residence in 1986. Though federal mpg rules had essentially outlawed station wagons, Lutz understood customers still craved large hatchbacks. Truck-based SUVs allowed automakers to comply with federal rules and give customers what they wanted, and the Jeep Grand Cherokee born.
In as spectacular a way as possible.
With Lutz at the wheel and Detroit Mayor Coleman Young riding shotgun, the Grand Cherokee crashed Cobo Center’s front glass to open the 1992 North American International Auto Show. It was a display of derring-do that would be synonymous with Lutz’s career. When he wasn’t developing supercars like the V10-powered Dodge Viper, Lutz was satisfying his need for speed with airplanes — including a Czech-made fighter jet that was part of his personal plane and car collection.
“Being the public relations chief for Bob Lutz was an adventure,” recounted Bud Liebler, former Chrysler vice president of marketing and public relations. “One day I got a call from a reporter who’d heard that Bob had crashed his plane.”
A call to Lutz confirmed the rumor to be true. “What am I supposed to tell the press?” an exasperated Liebler asked Lutz at the time.
“Tell them I forgot to put the landing gear down,” replied Lutz.
Steve Pasteiner, president of Advanced Automotive Technologies and founder of Pasteiner’s auto hobby shop on Woodward Avenue in Birmingham, was for years a fellow judge with Lutz of the Meadow Brook Concourse d’Elegance. Pasteiner recalled giving Lutz and GM design boss Wayne Cherry a lift back to their vehicles after the judging — except Lutz pointed to a field at the edge of the property instead of the parking lot. There sat a military-grade helicopter belonging to Lutz.
Maximum Bob hopped out of Pasteiner’s car, lit up the chopper and flew home.
“My God, the man is like James Bond,” said Cherry to Pasteiner as they watched the helo disappear.
“No, James Bond in a fictional character,” said Pasteiner. “This guy is the real deal.”
Chrysler, remembered executives at the event, was the real deal in the late 1990s — its product lineup transformed by the Dream Team of Lutz, designer Tom Gale and engineer François Castaing. Standout products from that era included the cab-forward LH sedans, jellybean-shaped minivans and the aforementioned Jeep Grand Cherokee. “We could do no wrong from 1990 to 1998,” said Paul Wilbur, who then led Jeep and Dodge product planning.
Passed over for Chrysler CEO in 1998, Lutz accepted the CEO’s position at battery-maker Exide Technologies. He published “Guts: the 7 Laws of Business that Made Chrysler the World’s Hottest Car Company.”
But another big automaker would soon come knocking. Determined to shake up GM’s stale product lineup — a wag said it “had the appeal of hospital food” — CEO Rick Wagoner hired Lutz, then 69, in 2001 as vice chairman for product development.
“Thinking back to your many contributions during our time together at GM, I think your biggest accomplishment was to re-focus and re-energize the entire organization on the importance of great design,” wrote Wagoner (who could not attend in person) to Lutz in a letter presented at Willow Run. “Your pushing of the organization to focus on delighting customers, especially with beautiful designs, motivated not just the designers and engineers, but really the entire company, which paid huge dividends in the marketplace.”
In an echo of his past successes, Lutz challenged design to produce a pair of sexy sports cars— the Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky. A torrent of product, followed including the 1,000-horsepower Cadillac Sixteen Concept, Cadillac CTS, Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Camaro, Pontiac GTO and Chevrolet Volt ,while Lutz also approved the first mid-engine Chevy Corvette.
All were on display at the hangar, but the most significant might be the Volt — the first electrified Chevy and the precursor to GM’s strategy to go all-electric by 2035.
Taking the stage at the event’s conclusion, Maximum Bob walks with a slower gait than years past — at 91, he prefers a golf cart to fighter jets — but his wit and insights remain as sharp and candid as ever.
“I think electric cars will eventually take over, but right now they don’t make much sense,” he said before some 400 invited attendees. “And as far as carbon dioxide emissions go, cars burn fossil fuels whether at the tailpipe or when plugged in. The fact is that 90% of the world’s electricity comes from fossil fuels.”
After leaving GM in 2010 in the midst of industry turmoil, Lutz continued as a consultant, dabbled in auto startups, and published two more books: “Car Guys vs. Bean Counters” and “Icons and Idiots.” This summer, his friend Jon Block saw the opportunity for a proper retirement party.
“I am a closet car designer,” smiled Lutz, who constructs exquisite, 1:36 scale paper models as a hobby. “But when I was a young man, my father looked at my design portfolio and forecast a life of hardship. So I got an MBA, then spent 60 years practicing design without a license.”
Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne