The move to China for sure is not a demotion it is a very key place to be sent if you are to move up. Only the best and brightest are being sent there to spend time before they move them up.

Nesbitt will be in time the head of design at GM. If GM can hold on to him he is being goomed for Welborns job. Just as Bill Mitchell used to be under Harley Earl, Bryan will be under Ed soon. He is much younger and will take Eds place when he retires in the future.

China is now the larget auto market in the world and the most important. The car being designed today are targeted for the China market as much as it is got he NA market. This is why they have been getting all the new cars before us anymore.

China got the Lacrosse, Regal, Cruze and Sonic well before we did and the new Colorado was shown and we have yet to see it here.

Might not cars like the Lacrosse were done by the GM Design studio in China not here. It is something you will see more of. We are now in a global market and most of the cars will be the same less some suspension tuning and market adapted engine packages.

 

This one would have been a ''WoW'' for me.

http://carinfoweekly.wordpress.com/2...goat%E2%80%99/

 

GM can and should do better than this.

This is a poor excuse for the lack of creative tallant. You just can move ahead for ever on rehashed old styling. The key it to create new classics that people will want to see rehashed in 35 years.

To recall the past is fine but you can relive it forever.

What GM did on the new Camaro was fine. It had a element of the 69 but in a much more modern look. The real trick now is what next?

The next car has the issue to deal with moving the Camaro styling forward but in a new way.

Carrying styling points is a needed thing but just don't make them carry the entire car.

 

I read this book about 3 weeks ago. It was very good. Informative on some of GM's pre-BK period in ways that I didn't expect. Some of the truly stupid things were actually done because of metrics that had nothing to do with making better product.

 

Bob Lutz's latest book is a great read, I recommend it to anyone who has an interest in the American auto industry and GM specifically. I hate to see them kill the HHR. However, how about a new HHR on the Cruze platform. Hey Bob, if you see this and still have any pull, how about a good word. There is still a market for the HHR!

 

Bob is kind of working with Lotus right now but keeps in touch with his people at GM.

No HHR but you will be getting some fresh cool cars in the near future. They will not release much info till they are much closer to production. GM is keeping short lead times on new cars. No more 5 year leads like the Camaro or Volt.

Right now the new 6th gen Camaro is well in the works and few if any outside GM have much of a clue other than it will be Alpha bases. It should arrive late 2014 as a 2015.

If you liked this book read Guts by Uncle Bob. He is blunt and to the point in it too. Get the updated verision if you can find it.

 

gm has been mismanaged for the last 35 years ! it goes all the way back to rodger smith . he is quoted as saying gm under my rule will make more money than ever in history.smith started making autocratic decisions with or with out support. good developmentprograms were cut. consolidation in design ,engineering ,product planning and marketing were the order of the day. gone were seperate divisions chevy, olds, and pontiac . the rivals now were put in two divisions. c.p.c. ( chevy ,pontiac and canadian ops. ) and b.o.c. (buick, olds and cadillac ) all to save money . this killed the inter-divisional spirit that made gm the giant it was during the 50 ,60, and 70s . in the 80s he declared that if gm was going to build some oftheir cars with front-wheel drive , they will build all of them with the same design . to hell with their image or product needs! this is the only right way to make money -- share product design. bob lutz is the only real chance gm has to survive in my opinion.as for china if buick wasnt selling so well there we would have been reading its obituary instead of pontiacs. as a avid pontiac collector for many years . i have been hearing this same story over and over for years . the god-father of the gto has been shouting this for years . another great example would be the railway system from the 70s and it come back . what it is folks the people with gas and oil in their vains are gone ,replaced with bean counters and bottom lines . sorry for the mini rant , this is just something near and dear to my heart

 

The Roger Smith era was only one of many waves of mis managment. If you read John Deloreans book on GM you will find out the roots of the issues go back to the 50's and the first real wave happened in the 60's. GM back then was so big it did not matter how bad they screwed up as it did not show badly till market share declined to the point it was in the 80's-90's.

You are correct on China and Buick. To be honest though where Pontiac was it may have still gone as many people really do not understand how bad Pontiac really was. I am as Pontiac as anyone as I still have two in the garage. Pontiac's damage started in and around 1970 after John D left as the engineers understood Pontiac but the leaders had no clue. Wangers has pointed this out. Many of the few highlights from Pontiac were cars done by the engineers and not Pontiac Management.

The low point was when Pontiac let the Bird go and had no RWD cars in a lineup that claimed to be the performance division. They did not even get the Turbo for the G5 like the Cobalt SS.

By the time Lutz came it really was too late to save them.

The fact is much of what Lutz and Wagoner has put in place with the Globalization of GM has been paying off as even with the loss of Saturn, Pontiac and Hummer GM has gained market share. They are now also increasing the profits too. There is still some work to do as to fix everything is not a 5 year deal. But at this point as long as the global economy does not effect it GM should turn out ok in the long run. They will never be as strong as they once were but no one ever will be that strong again.

 

I agree that it was a great read for those who want a good behind the scenes look not only into GM's past business issues, but the auto industry as a whole. Bob had lots of good things to say about Lee Iacocca as well (Lee seemed to be a "product guy" that knew the public's automotive preferences, much like Bob).

As per his book, Bob was responsible for getting the HHR from an existing proto to product. GM's process required the design to sit in a holding pattern in the event that a different product was developed in order to serve this niche better. Bob nix'ed the process and requested production immediately. He felt that GM should get in on the trendy success that Chrysler received with the PT.

Highly recommended book for our type of group on this site.