With new cars from GM , the General could win a major victory

Catch the watercooler chat or bar-room bustle in Detroit these days and the betting odds are that General Motors will make it back from the brink, but Ford is doomed. The logic behind it says that GM at least has a good product strategy.

And you know what? That seems to be the case. I chatted with some GM executives and designers in recent weeks, talked to industry intelligence folk, and prodded around to see what's coming. At long last it looks like we'll soon see the fruits of labor from GM car czar Robert A. "Bob" Lutz.

The spate of new models that will hit showrooms starting this fall and through 2009 are vital. Sure, Chairman and CEO G. Richard Wagoner Jr.'s cost-cutting campaign has slowed the bleeding. But GM has been steering itself in and out of profitability while shrinking itself since 1980. What the company really needs are some hot models that will boost sales, jack up revenue, and bring some respect back to GM's brands. Lutz vowed in a recent e-mail that we will see "no more ugly or middle-of-the-road cars or trucks from GM. I won't have it."

Will he come through? This is the guy who crowed a few years ago that the slow-selling Chevrolet Malibu and Pontiac Grand Prix amounted to an assault on the passenger car market. That assault never made it to the beachhead.

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woood - 8/28/2006 9:57:03 PM

+1 Boost

Way to go General! Just don't forget to distinguish the brands.