Henderson sounds like a douche. I'd be pissed with that unnecessary comment if I was Lutz. Some things need to be said behind closed doors, and that was definitely one of them.

 

I have a feeling that either 1) This is all a planned PR stunt (to gauge reaction about introducing a Chevy G8... And no, not just from the enthusiasts)

Or 2) Bob Lutz will eventually tell Fritz to eff off.

Fritz needs to remember that HE is the one that "begged" Bob to stay and provide vision for the company. And Bob needs to remember that HE needs to keep his mouth shut sometimes.

 

 

Yeah, I'm abit surprised at the way he publicly cut Lutz off at the knees. OTOH, who knows what goes on behind the scenes. Bob has a way of just throwing things out there just to see what sticks.

Can you imagine finalizing some decisions and then having someone on your team usurp your decisions with public comments. Not saying that's what happened here, but just saying in general.

 

If Henderson continues to "justify" the absurd rationale behind his opposition to this car, he needs to be usurped.

 

I am begining to believe that Henderson is an idiot. Why go through the trouble of importing a car and limit it to police applications. Why not sell the car to the public and fleets. More money can be made per car selling the car to the public. Not as much money is made with fleet/govt. contract prices.
Lutz is right, the car is to good to waste. IMO Chevy needs a nice semi upscale flagship sedan. The Caprice fits the bill perfectly.

 

I really hope this is some 'good cop, bad cop', set up so that the 'bad cop' can win and thus prove that GM is rebellious rather than beholden to the 'good cop' bean counters that everyone hates anyway.

 

Lutz's additude of "see what sticks" is far from terrible, but he does need to be a little more careful knowing GMs current situation - not much though. GM needs someone to show they can stick a decision and Lutz is the man to do it.

Fritz needs to pay a little more attention (or caution) to what Bob is doing. I suspect there are communication issues between the two of them, as there are between any two heavy-hitters in situations like these. The two need to be a team every step of the way for this to work.

But put your hand on the heartbeat of the industry (enthusiasts and otherwise) and the blood roar is deafening:

Performance mags sighed a great sigh of relief when Bob was confirmed to be staying on at GM. That is important.

Pretty much any mag out there was raving about the G8 and how incredible it was. Every rumor of it returning as any other vehicle has gotten the same response of "Please? Pretty please? Can we? Soon?" And Fritz shooting down interest in it will only show signs of "Old GM" with a detachment to the industry and a lack of good decision making skills.

EDIT:

I thought about that myself - Lutz has a bit of that rebellious teenager quality to him, but with GM answering to government and taxpayers, I think the "unified front" strategy would work better.

My question still remains, was the G8 Import profitable? Did they make money on each car sold and how much, even accounting for the varied exchange rates? We may never know the fine details, but if the G8 just didnt make money, it makes sense to kill it regardless.

 

That's the bottom line right there. The fact of the matter is that people started seeing it as a better value, and buying them, when transaction prices dropped afew grand.

 

Bob needs to b|tch slap Fritz ASAP!

1. Bob is da man!
2. Fritz don't know jack.
3. The G8 is an awesome car & needs to be in GM's American line up.
4. Profit??

 

Its that kind of metality that scares me about Fritz. Rather than thinking like a team player and everyone who's still at the new GM is there because they want to see the company survive; he adopts this "I'm the Man" attitude.

Besides, Fritz needs to remember that while Bob works for him, he works for us... the U.S. Taxpayers.

 

Fritz is a bean counter. He doesn't know jack about cars.
I'd bet that if he hamstrings Lutz too much, Lutz will just tell him to F-off and he'll retire. He doesn't need that kinda crap at his age.

 

Any way you look at it, this is just an incredibly stupid thing for Henderson to say. He better wise up and realize that Lutz is his best asset in getting GM back on track.

 

Seriously, how arrogant can you really be in his position.

 

http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/archives...%e2%80%a6.html

Well, there goes that.

(Is it bad that there are multiple threads in there that are all Caprice-Commodore related?)