Bob Lutz, a Vice President of General Motors in charge of North American products, told a group of reporters recently that global warming "is a total crock of shit". Yes, mothers, get your daughters in the house, because Lutz, in his seeming never-ending attempts to become at least as quotable as Lido A. Iacocca, was either just kidding around --- as he is wont to do, and in which case the media would give him a break, as they (we) have done so many times --- or he really meant it. Now, we find that not only did he absolutely mean it, but he meant it in a way so ethereal and universal in scale that most of us mere mortals simply would not understand.
If any of you ever thought, "Well, you know, this guy Lutz ... He seems really smart, and he says he has balls made of iron ... But does he, you know, 'get it'?"
Well, the official answer is in: No, he doesn't. Lutz, somewhere north of 74 years of age, wrote a book called "Guts", spends his off-hours collecting, restoring and driving vintage cars, which is to be expected, and he also does the same with vintage fighter jets (no kidding) and has also, by the way, been in-charge and the force behind all of General Motors North American product planning for the past few years and some of that actual product, too.
Remember the Pontiac GTO? Not the old one, the new one. Now, I know a bit about the original 1964 Pontiac GTO; I ghost-wrote an autobiography for the man who was the marketing genius behind that car, who created the image of the "American musclecar". But we're talking about the one which Lutz dreamed-up after flying to Australia (in the corporate jet, or one of his fighters?) and driving an existing car made by GM's Australian division, Holden, called the Monaro. Monaro had the same GM small block V8/six-speed stick shift which is in the Corvette. All Lutz figured had to be done to make the Monaro just right for American buyers was swap the driving position (drivers in Oz sit on the right-hand side of the cockpit), make sure all the safety regulations were met and put it in Pontiac showrooms ... and tell the salespeople to be ready to take orders! (Photo - Actual photo of the last Holden Monaro/Pontiac GTO coming off its Australian assembly line on June 14, 2006; now, do we give you folks more than the average Web user has a right to expect? You bet we do!).
Well, who do you know who bought one of the "new" Pontiac GTOs? Right ... we thought so ... 
and there's a reason for that: It was a sales disaster in no small part because before you can sell someone a car or truck, first they have to come into the showroom.. In fact, the last Pontiac GTO, which was also the very last Monaro-based coupe produced, came off the assembly line in Australia on June 14, 2006.
Lutz's dream was to give buyer's the choice of the Pontiac GTO or the Chevrolet Camaro (planned to go on-sale as a 2009 model).
The problem for us all, whether one thinks global warming is a "crock of shit" or not, is that Lutz has huge power within the company, some say even more than the legendary divisional "General Managers", like John DeLorean and Semon E. "Bunkie" Knudsen, had in the glory days of GM, when the only problems the company had were, 1) Making enough cars for eager buyers, and, 2) keeping Washington from breaking-up the company for being a monopoly. (Photo - Lutz introduces the Chevrolet Volt to the media at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show).
The time has come, clearly, for new thinking and perspective at the highest levels of GM. We went out on a big limb on this website in saying that at the recent Los Angeles Auto Show, GM had the most comprehensive selection of high-mileage, low-emissions vehicles of any car-maker at the show. The Chevrolet Tahoe SUV was even named "Green Car of the Year", because GM, along with BMW and Daimler, had developed a "dual-mode hybrid automatic transmission" (do a search for that on this site; we have a full explanation of this impressive technology) which nearly doubles the big truck's mileage. Our feeling is that these big trucks are going to be sold for the next several years anyway, so there might as well be some major mileage/emissions improvements as they slowly fade into the sunset.
Then there was the Volt. A wonderful car first intro'd to the world at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show, which would be able, said Lutz, the the LA Show late in 2007, to achieve 640 miles on 12 gallons of gasoline. Here's how it works, according to GM: A small, gasoline-powered single-cylinder "generator" in the Volt keeps batteries in the vehicle charged, and those batteries feed electricity to motors which actually drive the wheels. The Volt can also be "plugged-in" to a standard household 110-volt outlet. After an overnight charging session, Volt can travel the first 40 miles or so of the next trip on E-power only. (Photo - Bob Lutz and his "new" Pontiac GTO).
Volt was a lovely, exquisite use of (they said) the very latest E-tech, and at the LA Auto Show, Lutz said it
would be on-sale by 2010. Then a few weeks later, at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show, GM PR reps changed the story a bit: Not only would the car not be available by 2010, but so much research and development work still needed to be done on just the various concepts behind Volt, that the car might actually never be available. Lutz, in charming the media, as he is known to do, with his impressively-large cigar, impressively-open and often foul-mouth and apparent constant need to impress, said at that Detroit Show, essentially, that while it might not be available in 2010, it probably would be at some future time, but it was difficult to say exactly when. Or even if. Or probably. And we won't pursue the "large cigar" concept, and just accept Sigmund Freud's line about certain types of dreams: "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar".
Now Lutz has another, very real problem, which has exposed the "Wizard behind the curtain" to the general public, letting them see the Lutz which journalists have known for years, even decades; Lutz, speaking to reporters in Texas a few weeks ago, described global warming as "a total crock of shit". And thanks to the Web, Lutz is "outed" as a fellow who not only doesn't 'get it', but he doesn't 'get it' on such a grand scale that nothing short of a contrite apology and retirement from GM should be his next steps. Their stock went up some 32 cents today, so no one will have to throw any benefit dinners for him.
Remember that Lutz isn't just some crank-caller to a radio station trying to get his curse-word on the air, this is the man who is almost single-handedly in-charge of the future product which will be conceptualized and prototyped, then planned, built and (hopefully) sold by all of the General Motors divisions in all of North America, including Hummer, Saab, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, GMC and on and on. Yes, GM, the car-maker which until just recently was the #1 producer and seller of vehicles in the world (and just when did Toyota take the lead from GM? And when did Lutz go to work for The General?) (Photo - Lutz in his natural habitat, surrounded by breathless reporters barely able to contain their glee in being allowed this close to the man).
Here's how the industry publication AUTOMOTIVE NEWS told the after story, wherein our favorite cartoon character, Little Bobby Lutz, says that the only reason the media and the public didn't understand what he meant by "crock of shit" is because reporters and even just average folks don't get ... you saw this one coming ... the "Big Picture"; here's some of the AN story, which they culled from the Reuters newswire:
General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz has defended remarks he made dismissing global warming as a "total crock of shit," saying his views had no bearing on GM's commitment to build environmentally friendly vehicles. Lutz, GM's outspoken product development chief, has been under fire from Internet bloggers since last month when he was quoted as making the remark to reporters in Texas.
In a posting on his GM blog on Thursday, Lutz said those "spewing virtual vitriol" at him for minimizing the threat of climate change were "missing the big picture."
"What they should be doing in earnest is forming opinions, not about me but about GM and what this company is doing that is ... hugely beneficial to the causes they so enthusiastically claim to support," he said in a posting titled, "Talk About a Crock."
GM, the largest U.S. automaker by sales and market share, has been trying to change its image after taking years of heat for relying too much on sales of large sport-utility vehicles like the Hummer and not moving faster on fuel-saving hybrid technology. "My thoughts on what has or hasn't been the cause of climate change have nothing to do with the decisions I make to advance the cause of General Motors," he wrote. (Photo - Rather than focus on the Volt and technologies necessary for the future, Lutz has championed a V8-powered sporty car, GM's answer to the Ford Mustang and all-new Dodge Challenger, this 2009 Chevrolet Camaro, seen here in prototype form at a regular Southern California weekend morning gathering of Car Nuts).
Lutz said GM was continuing development of the battery-powered, plug-in Chevy Volt and other 
alternatives to traditional internal combustion engines. GM is racing against Toyota Motor Corp. to be first to market a plug-in hybrid car that can be recharged at a standard electric outlet. Lutz has previously said GM made a mistake by allowing Toyota to seize "the mantle of green respectability and technology leadership" with its market-leading Prius hybrid.
A 40-year auto industry veteran who joined GM earlier in the decade with a mandate to shake up its vehicle line-up, Lutz is no stranger to controversy. As part of a campaign against higher fuel economy standards, Lutz wrote in a 2006 blog posting that forcing automakers to sell smaller cars would be "like trying to address the obesity problem in this country by forcing clothing manufacturers to sell smaller, tighter sizes."
Automakers ended their opposition to higher fuel standards in 2007 when it became clear that proposed changes would become law with or without their support. In December, President George W. Bush signed a law mandating a 40 percent increase in fleetwide fuel economy by 2020, the first substantial change in three decades. -30- (end of AN/Reuters story)
Again, this guy just doesn't 'get it' at all --- From his stupid, childish statements to the ridiculous "explanation" he gives for all the consternation about them; that is, attacking his critics as being too dumb and unsophisticated to understand the vision of such a wise man ... Well, it's just ridiculous. (Photo - At the November, 2007, Los Angeles Auto Show, Honda showed this early production version of their "FCX Clarity" EV, which uses hydrogen as a fuel which is converted to electricity after it passes through a fuel cell; the only emission is pure H2O; GM showed the Chevrolet Volt at the same show, but after the show, Lutz was not specific on when or even if Volt would be sold in the US).
In the meantime, GM continues to eat the dust of Toyota, and Lutz seems somehow okay with that; otherwise, a vehicle like the Volt would already be on-sale. Clearly, new transmissions for GM's largest light trucks, which are a good thing, but shouldn't be the only thing, and the V8-powered 2009 Chevrolet Camaro have Lutz's interest; he can't be bothered with trivialities like real MPG and emissions improvements across the entire GM line.
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