Hasta La Ideas

Reviewed by Ray Jepson

GM has routinely been singled out in the last two decades as an example of a bloated enterprise that is so focused on maximizing today’s profit that it sacrifices its very future to do so. According to Bob Lutz, that is a fairly good description of GM when he arrived in 2001 as Vice Chairman in charge of product development. In his book, Car Guys Versus Bean Counters, he chronicles the very wary GM of 2001 through it’s first still-born turn-around, it’s acquisition by the American and Canadian governments and it’s new born success since 2009.

It might seem that a book written by a businessman about how to turn around a business would have little to say about design. In fact, it is clear that Lutz has only a small understanding of design. However, he consistently argues for its position at the front of product development through-out this book, from the horrible failures of the ’80′s and ’90′s to GM’s incredible success of the last few years.

Page Left: GM’s product development hit its stride in 2007, winning double honors: both the North American Car and Truck of the Year awards for teh Saturn Aura and Chevy Silverado. Page Right: (top) Chevy Malibu, 2008 North American Car of the Year and (bottom) 2008 Cadillac CTS, Motor Trend Car of the Year

To start with, Lutz reminisces on the some of the early super-star designers that GM made: Harley Earl and Billy Mitchell. Earl is responsible for creating the GM styling department. After working as a coach builder for years, Earl was hired to design the 1927 LaSalle (a now defunct GM brand). It was such a success that GM president Alfred P. Sloan decided to create the GM art and color section with Harley Earl as its chief. Earl’s success and brilliant work got him all the way up to a Vice President in GM, the first designer to become a VP in a major corporation.

Billy Mitchell took over from Earl in 1958. Mitchell continued a GM prominence in automotive styling, as well as design’s leadership role in defining products. Lutz recounts the story of Mitchell sending a man to Ferrari in Italy, buying a brand new Ferrari for list price, flying it back to Detroit where Mitchell instructed GM engineers to remove the Ferrari V12 and put it in a new Pontiac Firebird concept car he was working on. Mitchell then called the chief engineers down to the GM proving ground. As the Ferrari Firebird V12 circled the track, with it’s engine screaming, Mitchell told the engineers, “That’s how the car should sound!”

However, as GM continued to evolve, the design department lost it’s flamboyant leaders, with Mitchell retiring in 1977. After which, inspired by the successes of Toyota and Honda, GM leadership became obsessed with efficiency and repeatability. In the 1980′s, executives with a purely business background were placed in charge of development projects. All decisions started to be based on metrics and complicated mathematics rather than the emotional touch that successful products always use.

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