Q & A with GM products chief Bob Lutz

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Q & A with GM products chief Bob Lutz
February 11, 2007

BY TAMARA AUDI

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

GM products chief Bob Lutz sounds off on the primacy of design and the role California culture plays in Detroit's future:

QUESTION: Where does design fit into the GM strategy?



ANSWER: "Design has had a complete reversal at GM. In the late '90s we went to an organization structure that essentially disempowered design completely. All the responsibility for vehicle aesthetics was a handed to vehicle line executives, none of them who are trained designers or especially trained in the art of design, or selecting design. Each line executive was assigned a designer. When the line executive decided time was up or whatever, the design director was simply told your designer who was assigned to me has agreed we stop. And that's how things like the Aztec got done, and a number of vehicles from the late '90s that were not particularly memorable. One of the things I got to do when I came here was to realize how wrong that is."

Q: Why is design important?

A: "Design is the last great differentiator in products. All cars work well. They all have about the same fuel economy, give or take, but nothing you're going to feel in your wallet. They're all safe, they're all comfortable, they all have heat and air conditioning. It's hard to make a technical argument for one car over another. What you're left with is, do I love it? Do my friends admire it? Do I feel good about myself when I drive it, when I'm sitting in it? These are all the non-transportation parts of an automobile. It's surprising, but when you think about it, clothing is supposed to be about keeping us warm and hiding our nakedness, but clothing has a far greater symbology than that. So it is with our furniture at home. It's just supposed to function. We could all sit around on cement bricks and orange crates but we don't do that, do we? Human beings are programmed to be attracted to beauty, to like nice things in every aspect of life. We're attracted to people who look nice.

Q: But beauty means different things to different people. How do you handle that?

A: "Since not everybody has the same taste, in order to have a vehicle be successful it has to stand out from the crowd. There are some exceptions, I haven't met anybody who looks at the Sky and doesn't say, 'I love that.' But you have the Dodge Viper, which 30 to 40% of people said this is the most brutal-looking, powerful thing I've ever seen, I have to have it! And then you had a lot of people say this is horrific, this is crude, vulgar, unrefined, overstated. That was a sharply polarizing vehicle but it worked. The original Ram pickup was sharply polarizing but it worked. The Aztec, well, it didn't work because it was polarizing but 90% of people didn't like it, and 10% did. What I say about the Aztec is it's like having an ugly dog. You realize your dog isn't very attractive but you love him because he's yours.

"Good design tends to be polarizing. The safest way to design a car is to research it to where nobody objects. If you research it to that point, you're guaranteed to get a bland car and a design that nobody hates enough to reject, but nobody loves it either. We've been guilty of slipping into that mode. We've avoided design risk."

Q: So what's your design philosophy now?

A: "Our design philosophy is go with the character. Buick has to have sweet harmonious almost romantic traditional American luxury. Chevy is bold, adventurous. Pontiac is to be sporty, high performance, a little bit aggressive-looking, more brutal. Saturn, more import-oriented, designed for the cerebral, and on and on, brand after brand. We're asking, what does that brand require? And then go for a design that is as exciting and as innovative as possible. And then deal with the need to make it as a high-volume product in our plants. Another thing we do for all of our brands, we are sure that the vehicles are designed in such a way that they look very rich and very expensive. We like it when they look ten to twenty thousand more than they cost. When people first saw the Solstice, people would say, whoa, where'd you get that? Is that a forty five, fifty thousand dollar car? No, twenty five. And they said, this, for twenty five? That's what we're going for.

Q: So designers have more power now?

A: "They're back to basically running the asylum."

Q: What type of design work is done in LA that can't be done in Detroit?

A: "Here's the benefit of the West Coast studio. People here in Michigan are very talented designers, and we swap people, send them over there and people there come here. So it's not a matter of talent. People here are very talented. But the people here in Michigan are all working on specific vehicle projects. They have got to deliver something at the end of the day. They're very intently focused on one or the other truck or car. The people on the West Coast, less so. They have no production-related programs.

They can observe the evolving scene in California. They're full-fledged members of West Coast car culture. We all know that California is a little bit different in its tastes and it's a bellwether for tastes that will ultimately head east. It's useful to have some people scheming and dreaming up new ways to execute Cadillac, or Chevrolet, in sort of a dream factory where they don't have to worry about, can this be produced? Is there enough investment? How would the stamping guys shape this hood? They are more artistically the point of the spear.

The people here in Warren are narrowly constrained. They're constrained by cost, by the windshield has to have an angle, that the header is high enough, that the sheet metal has to be shaped in such a way for the metal fabrication. They have to work in very, very close cooperation with the engineering and manufacturing people. You design some sweeping one-piece instrument panel and you think, how the hell would they ever get that into the car? The advance people, we don't want them to worry about reality. We want them to dream."

Q: Do your dreamers ever participate in reality?

A: "Sometimes what'll happen, we'll be working on a car here in Warren and it's having a hard time gelling. Sometimes designers have the equivalent of writers' cramp. That sometimes happens in design, they start off on the wrong foot and they have trouble having that breakthrough scene. They call the West Coast and say, could you guys womp up some proposals, let's see what kind of ideas you have? Then we call Simon Cox who has a small studio in England, and say we're having trouble with the Caddy design, why don't you submit something? A couple of weeks down the line, you get a submission from Simon and one or two from the California group and all of a sudden you see everybody coming to life as they realize there are some other ways this can be interpreted. So there's this internal cross-pollination of ideas."

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California designin'
Amid sun and surf, auto artisans are given the task of dreaming up vehicles that could save Detroit.
February 11, 2007

BY TAMARA AUDI

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

LOS ANGELES -- It is another blindingly sunny afternoon in Malibu, and the ramshackle collection of pricey beach shops known incongruously as Country Corners brims with the rich and gorgeous. One of Britney Spears' mansions lies up a dirt lane. The bar where Mel Gibson drank himself into an anti-Semitic stupor is down the road.

At a corner table outside a café sits the classic California girl: a tall, slim, flawless blonde in white capris, a gauzy shirt and delicate gold necklaces, eyeing the Sunday crowd from behind oversize Gucci sunglasses. But nothing is what it seems in this land of manufactured illusions, even in the daylight.




The flawless blonde is a designer for General Motors. And she is doing research.

"Look there. See?" she says in an urgent whisper, nodding slightly toward a young woman striding by in slouchy boots and a tangle of layered blouses. "That look is on its way out."

At 34, Vicki Vlachakis already is an acclaimed designer; her stamp is on two of GM's recent triumphs: the Saturn Sky and Pontiac Solstice. The sleek, eye-catching sport convertibles managed to reinvigorate two GM brands as Detroit strains to avoid catastrophe.

Vlachakis (pronounced, vla-ha-kis ) is at the front of a small but increasingly influential pack of smart, young designers Detroit counts on to make it relevant to an under-40 crowd that not only doesn't much care for American vehicles but, just as troubling, has almost no loyalty to the home team.

Vlachakis, who is equally at home in the Warren Tech Center and in a strappy dress for glossy magazine photo shoots, was named by House & Garden magazine as one of America's top 50 tastemakers of 2006.

She was photographed, her tresses lilting in the breeze, in the desert behind the wheel of the Sky. "In an industry where horsepower can overpower design flair, " the magazine gushed, "Vlachakis has made a name for herself by injecting interior oomph into cars."

Part car geek, part Malibu glam girl, Vlachakis insists, "design is going to be the big thing to pull us out of this mess."

It's a mission launched by GM products chief Bob Lutz, who has restored power to designers. "They're back to basically running the asylum," Lutz said in an interview last week.

"Design is the last great differentiator in products," Lutz said. "All cars work well. They all have about the same fuel economy. They're all safe. They're all comfortable. They all have heat and air-conditioning. ... What you're left with is, 'Do I love it? Do my friends admire it? Do I feel good about myself when I drive it? When I'm sitting in it?' "

GM takes cues from the fashion industry to create more luxurious interiors. A new commercial for its Acadia SUV shows fabrics, feathers and diamond necklaces floating into the air, finally gathering to form the vehicle. Industry observers call GM's new devotion to design the "Lutz effect."

Emotion over engineering

"It's his return to the idea that you can't let the accountants run the place," Rebecca Lindland, a director with Global Insight, an industry analyst firm, said of Lutz. "He is our Ralph Lauren, our Givenchy. He understands that buying a vehicle is a very emotional purchase. It's really coming back to the idea that consumers want beautiful vehicles."

Design is king, and it's not only designers who will tell you so. Consumers are demanding beauty from even the most mundane products: from Target's cheap, chic cone-shaped vacuum cleaners to Toyota's belated redesign of the reliable, reliably bland, Camry.

"It used to be the accountants, then the engineers," Imre Molnar, dean of Detroit's College of Creative Studies, said of the design-by-committee approach that led to icons of mediocrity like the Lumina or such oddities as the Aztek.

While Michigan is still heavily involved in design, Detroit is absorbed in designing vehicles that will be produced and on the roads in the next few years, while the more distant future is unfolding out West. Every major automaker is represented in southern California, with advance design studios spread from the beaches of Santa Monica to the outskirts of San Diego.

Designers wax about the state's natural beauty and the inspiration they draw from its sunsets and coastline. But there are more practical reasons. An L.A. studio allows automakers to capitalize on the area's creative talent and forward-thinking tendencies. It also provides entrée into a massive consumer market and a car culture ahead of the national curve on driving trends, including fuel efficiency and environmentally sound vehicles.

The Solstice, for one, was conceived in GM's design team in North Hollywood. "I thought about the car on the Pacific Coast Highway early in the morning, the way it would look, the way it would feel," Vlachakis said.

She then spent the next few years in Detroit trying to hold on to that image as the vehicle worked its way from show car to factory floor at the Warren Tech Center.

Lutz fast-tracked the car through GM's bureaucracy to preserve the vision of the car's two young lead designers, Franz Von Holzhausen (now with Mazda) on exterior and Vlachakis on interior.

The duo met with engineers, and the result was a near-miracle in the auto industry: a car that actually bears a strong resemblance to the designers' sketch, with Vlachakis' large, rounded shapes and sleek, simple gauges left intact.

When the Solstice went on sale in 2005, GM sold the first 1,000 online in 41 minutes. By that August, when the Solstice went into production, Pontiac had orders for 12,000 more.

A year later, while most Pontiac vehicles were sitting on lots for months, the Solstice moved in less than three weeks. BusinessWeek dubbed the Solstice "Pontiac's Budget Porsche."

The Sky, released after the Solstice, is even hotter, typically selling in less than two weeks.

"Those cars do well because where else can you get a convertible that size that looks as good for that price?" said Chris Li, a researcher for a unit of J.D. Power and Associates, which tracks automotive sales. Both vehicles are large and priced in the 20s to start.

Expectations against limitations

Though it seems like an easy, logical formula -- build a cheap car that looks great -- it can be a maddening balance for an automaker. A low price often means cheap materials and fewer features, which can limit designers. And there are other pressures: political and economic imperatives demanding less oil consumption. There is also the small matter of predicting the future. What will people want in 10 or 20 years? The answer to that question is being sought in California, in guarded, password-protected design palaces. Eight foreign carmakers are headquartered in Los Angeles County, and most major automakers have advanced design studios there, with more planned for 2007. Automakers employ 15,000 in Los Angeles County, part of a thriving business that the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. recently described as "L.A.'s hidden industry."

While Detroit toils in the earthly business of producing vehicles, designers in California operate in GM's metaphorical kingdom of heaven.

"It's useful to have some people scheming and dreaming up new ways to execute Cadillac or Chevrolet in sort of a dream factory where they don't have to worry about, can this be produced?" Lutz said. "Is there enough investment? How would the stamping guys shape this hood? We don't want them worrying about that. They are more artistically the point of the spear."

World away from Detroit

Vlachakis lives in a quiet, whitewashed condo jutting out of the Malibu hills. From a balcony, she can see a blue corner of the Pacific and breathe in the low-hanging, green-mountain mist. Detroit seems like a far-off planet of cold and concrete.

Inside, bright, whimsical plastic toys sit on shelves. Dolce Vita black strappy sandals lie crookedly on the floor. Her fashion-forward grasp of the cultural zeitgeist has proven a vital asset to GM.

Vlachakis grew up 50 miles east in Pasadena. As a 12-year-old, she was a popular girl who preferred to sketch cars on the back of her notebooks.

By the time she finished high school, she had fallen in love with automotive design and enrolled at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, the only woman in her graduating class. Vlachakis said she has been encouraged by GM to maintain her youthful vibe in an industry that hasn't always celebrated change.

Vlachakis walks into one of her favorite spots, a Malibu shop called Madison, where celebrities are spotted and trends are born. She picks up a Marc Jacobs silver-hued, teardrop handbag and runs her hand over it. "The metallic look is softening. See how the coloring here is not harsh but soft and tempered? See how the shape is simple? We're seeing simpler, softer shapes."

Shapes that are found in the swirling circles of the Solstice.

"People want something expressive and sculpted," she said, referring to the vehicle's melting, swooning curves.

Take a toaster, she says. It's no longer enough that it toasts bread. A toaster must be sleek, chrome and complement your sleek, chrome food processor. The Treo smartphone Vlachakis keeps on the passenger seat of her Solstice, she notes, is a model of high design. So is the squarish, en vogue bottle of Fiji water next to it.

"Look at Ikea. Look at Target," Vlachakis says. "They've made design not just attainable but a must for everyone."

Target's tagline Design for All is something she understands well. Anyone can make a $200,000 car: unlimited resources, high-end materials. The guys at Aston Martin have it easy. The challenge is making a $20,000 car, something for the masses that does not look mass-produced. In that way, GM -- and its Detroit rivals -- don't have it so easy.

Which is why it was such a triumph when the Solstice, listed at $20,490, was the only American car named to Automobile Magazine's Most Beautiful Cars of 2006, listed alongside a $171,286 Bentley and, yes, a $162,250 Aston Martin.

Vlachakis finds ideas in the funky furniture shops and architecture in Venice Beach or in the iconoclastic detail of a well-made piece of jewelry. These days, she's especially taken by prefabricated concrete, steel and wood homes going up in trendy neighborhoods outside Venice.

To capture the masculine feel of the Sky interior, with its motorcycle-style gauges and punchy graphic interior, she drew inspiration from a chunky Tag Heuer watch.

Convincing the public on design

It is another perfect, bronze-sky sunset in Malibu, and a group of young men and women are encamped at a restaurant table, the darkening Pacific churning in the distance.

They are mostly automotive designers, Vlachakis at the center, discussing a recent trip to St. Tropez when what passes for a barroom brawl among car geeks breaks out.

"A lot of people seem to want traditional things," her friend Mike, a Malibu real estate agent, said. "I can move a Cape Cod or a traditional farmhouse in a minute, but I have a hard time selling the modern, angular stuff."

Vlachakis leans forward and cuts in: "The average buyer does not understand modern architecture," she answers. Designers, she argues, cannot always force design principles on the public. People like to be challenged, within limits. They might love the idea of the modern, angular home but end up buying the Cape Cod.

It is a lesson she's learned firsthand. Her sketch for the Solstice exterior, which Lutz rejected, was what she describes as funkier than the sketch GM went with. She still loves the Solstice (enough to own one, she notes), but it was an acknowledgement that the classic and comfortable can still trump the futuristic and funky.

There is, it turns out, a philosophical schism in GM's design house. While designers all favor pushing the consumer forward with challenging, even polarizing designs, some contend the industry hasn't gone far enough.

Sushi arrives and the table quiets. Outside, the valets run back and forth, fetching diners their Jaguars, Mercedes, BMWs and Porsches. Not a GM vehicle in the bunch. Vlachakis' back is turned from the valet. She can't see, but she doesn't have to. She already knows what she is up against.