All Quiet On The Commodore Front
Sydney Morning Herald 02/20/04
author: Joshua Dowling
Copyright of John Fairfax Group Pty Ltd


The last time Bob Lutz visited Holden with senior executives from General Motors, he set the wheels in motion to export the Monaro to America. On this week's flying visit, General Motors' flamboyant product chief and his peers had a sneak preview of the all-new 2006 Commodore range, most of which is likely to be exported or assembled overseas.

Reports in overseas motoring media claim that General Motors is close to announcing the Commodore's global plans. But at a media briefing on Tuesday at Holden's proving ground on the outskirts of Melbourne, Lutz said a date was yet to be finalised.

Everybody is hard at work and the assumption is it will all be approved, but [the corporation] likes to time these [announcements] for maximum effect, said Lutz. Our friends in the communications department are trying to keep a lid on it for the time being.

Part of the reason for the delay in the announcement is that it affects many parties. The skeleton of the next Commodore is likely to be used in vehicles sold in the USA, Europe, Korea, China and the Middle East.

The 2006 Commodore will be the first vehicle to use the all-new structure. But, thanks to computer and satellite technology, Holden designers could style Commodore-based variants for GM affiliates - namely Saab, Cadillac, Buick and Pontiac - from their studios in Port Melbourne. Technology allows the three-dimensional designs and other vital statistics to be transmitted electronically to GM's design centres in the US and Europe.

Once [the 2006 Commodore] is over we're going to have some spare engineering capacity, said Lutz. With the technology

you can have Holden chief designer Mike Simcoe design a Cadillac, transfer the data

to Detroit, and then have designers in America mill the clay model there, polish it up and critique it. Nowadays it almost doesn't matter where the physical clay [model] is.

Saab's advanced design studio, he said, is currently working on a Cadillac project. So, I think very definitely that Holden will be more involved in future global design. Lutz also stressed that Australian designers - not Americans - would design the next generation Pontiac GTO.

Meanwhile, the Free Trade Agreement between Australia and the US would not automatically lead to an export order for Holden utes, Lutz said, because Holden's factory in Adelaide is running at maximum capacity and negotiations with America's powerful United Auto Workers (UAW) union are yet to take place.

We have a highly co-operative relationship with the UAW, Lutz said. You don't want to disrupt it. It's like if I want to buy another airplane. I can absolutely do it and confront my wife and say it was my money, I decided I needed another airplane and she would say, 'Yes, dear', but there would be a disturbed relationship for a considerable period of time.

When asked if the UAW would accept more imported vehicles if the trade agreement with Australia was ratified, Lutz said: Intellectually, it's understood. On an emotional level, it's hard to digest at a time when we don't have all our [factories] running at full capacity and we're still talking about having excess capacity in the US.

Don't forget that, for Americans, the concept of the country existing in a global economy is much harder to accept than it is for Europeans and other people because we were like a world unto our own for so many decades.

Lutz said the UAW might be less opposed to imports once Cadillacs were exported to Europe: It's a two-way street.

Lutz, 72, who has worked for BMW, Ford and Chrysler during his illustrious career and who flies fighter planes in his spare time, said he has no plans to retire. I don't think about it, he said. As far as I'm concerned, I serve at the pleasure of [General Motors CEO] Rick Wagoner and the board of directors, and I'm willing to do it as long as they'll have me.

I'm having the time of my life, he said as he sampled the Monaro-based Pontiac GTO at 200kmh on Holden's high-speed test track. This job beats retirement any day. Tell me where in retirement you can do this.

Living in a time warp

Feel like you're living in the past? Try being a car designer. I've written a cheque at a store and dated it 2008, said Ed Welburn, the global design chief of General Motors, and the sales clerk looked at me kind of funny and said, 'Ah, sir'. I spend all my time at the moment living and thinking 2006, 2007, 2008 - just trying to remember what year it is can be a problem.

After being locked up in a studio all day designing cars for the future, the world can suddenly look pretty old when you get outside, said Welburn, the first African American to head General Motors' styling division.

Welburn says he has wanted to design cars since he was 11, when he wrote to the company and asked how he could become a designer. I asked them what kind of courses I needed to take, what schools I needed to attend, and they wrote me back and gave me guidance, he said.

Welburn completed a summer internship at the end of his junior college year and was invited back after he completed his senior year. He started work with GM when he was 20 and has been there since. Welburn, 53, sits at the same desk as his idols, former GM design chiefs Harvey Earl and Bill Mitchell. On his desk is a framed photograph of himself as a young summer intern shaking hands with Mitchell. It's a great photo - I had a big afro - you know, it was 1971 - and I just treasure that photograph.

Welburn, whose recent credits include the retro-themed Chevrolet SSR, Hummer H2 and Cadillac Escalade, has mixed emotions about being the first senior African-American designer at GM.

For a lot of people, it's a difficult question to ask but I don't mind talking about it. It does feel good, but I don't dwell on it. It sends a message to people from any background that they can achieve anything. The other day, I was a Black History Fact on [TV show] Rap City, he laughed. My children's friends called and said, 'Hey, your dad's on TV'.

Being the first means that GM didn't have one before. So you've got to look at it both ways. It would have been nice for it to happen earlier, whether it be me or someone else.

I've had some very well known African Americans, people who are legends, who have come up to me complimenting me on what I'm doing, and when that happens it's pretty humbling.

People in government, people in the movie industry. When Jesse Jackson congratulated me, he almost had tears in his eyes. That's when I kind of went, 'Wow' and realised it was a pretty big deal.

 

Great article!

I don't want to read to much into this, but noticably absent is Chevy. ???

 

Maybe because it would be unthinkable for the "Chevy" to styled anywhere but here.

 

[QUOTE]
Lutz also stressed that Australian designers - not Americans - would design the next generation Pontiac GTO.

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This is kind of a scary idea.

 

GM is/was deciding if Chevrolet should have a car bigger than Impala. GM apparently want's Buick & Cadillac to be home to the "aspirational" RWD big cars (what's coming in 2007 or 2008), but seems to be torn about Chevrolet having one.

If I remember, Kurt Ritter was against it, prefering Impala to go RWD & be a "sports sedan" (much like a budget BMW 5 series), but would have to wait till GM's "volume" cars go RWD in after 2008. There was/is also a proposal that Chevrolet would get a version of the new large car, the Caprice.

Holden's upcoming new chassis as you know is already engineered as much for the US as it is Australia, and Holden already makes a left hand drive Chevrolet Caprice it exports to the middle east. If GM decided to, it would take little or no effort to import the Chevy Caprice here.

That's probably why Chevrolet wasn't mentioned in the article, they already make it.

The Chevrolet Caprice is called the Holden Statesman in Australia's home market.

There WILL be a Chevrolet coupe, however. The only question is it's name.

 

I hope Americans will actually be doing the exterior design for the next GTO. The biggest problem with the 2004 GTO is that it does not look aggressive enough. It's one thing to have the platform engineered in in Australia - that's fine, but the styling of the vehicles should reflect the tastes of the markets where each vehicle is sold.

 

I also did not like this quote.

 

I agree. I think it's hard to get a feel of another country's cultural influences in a studio on the other side of the world. That's why Honda, Toyota and the like have their styiling and design studios in So.Cal. for the Amrican market.

 

Yup, judging from the Holden designs I've seen, they are certainly lacking.

Based on the current GTO, engineering wise, I have little complaint.

This does raise some doubts from me though. I'm hoping they don't make the same mistake twice.

 

I think the current Holden's look a hell of alot better than anything coming from Chevy.


Also a month or so back I mentioned the Camaro rumors to a GM media rep (pretty high ranking), and oddly he kept stearing me away from the Camaro saying Chevy would likely get a car on the lines of a Caprice.

 

I would relate this to Bob's Lutz's statement. I wouldn't be surprised GM is trying as hard as possible to keep the word and car mum as to not cause any ill will towards to agreement before it's nessesary.

 

I'm going to go out on a limb here and make a prediction. I believe we will see both imported and domestically built Zeta cars. At a guess I'd say that the El Camino will remain an Aussie built vehicle when it comes here as will other niche versions of Zeta. The higher volume versions are likely to be built in North America to pacify the unions.

 

I'd say you are on a very solid limb.

 

Americans should style american cars, although I do admit... it could be better than something we come up with based on what we have now: Aztec, malibu, silvy fascia, utility vans and the chrome bar in general (all IMO of course). Id much rather drive a somewhat dull car like the goat than a car with off the wall styling[nothing to do with who makes it]

 

Could be because they were referring specifically to the sedan-sized version of Zeta. Hopefully its because most of the Chevy styling has already been done.