`Maximum’ Bob Lutz is the last of the legendary `car guys’ in the US automotive business. Car guys are those who work in the auto business because they like cars as opposed to the `bean counters’ who work in the car business but treat the product as just another widget.
Car guys are those who work at GM or Ford or Chrysler during the day and then at night, work on their cars as a hobby. On weekends, they would race them. During their free time, they would talk cars with other car guys. That’s what built GM and Detroit in general. What has almost destroyed it has been the rise of the bean counter to positions of dominance in the domestic car industry. Bean counters focus on financial manipulation over product excellence. Maximum Bob, in this book, documents what went wrong and how to address it – not only in the auto industry but in American industry in general which has all too often been led down the same path to doom as the car industry.
The book is partly a biography covering a very short portion of Lutz’s life – his second stint at GM – which recently ended after about a decade. This time around, he tried, with some notable success, to repair the damage he foresaw coming and which caused him to resign from GM many years before. It’s more than a biography, however. It is also a diagnosis of what went wrong with the US car industry and US industry in general. Being Maximum Bob, he generally doesn’t hold back his often controversial opinions being a person who’d rather speak out and found to be wrong than keep quiet.
The book delivers some surprises as well as details of behind the scenes activities, which, from time to time hit the mainstream news. The short book contains no filler. It’s all solid opinion from Lutz including his observations and analysis of what’s needed to fully restore US industry in general and the car business specifically.
Except for solid swipes at media both on the left such, as the environmentalists writing in the New York Times, or the right such as Rush Limbaugh, Lutz explains that much of the problem faced by industry is structural. Somewhat to my surprise, he explains that the union management is often caught in the same structural web as management and thus can’t alter its course even if it’s obvious it must do so. Of course, a good deal of this changed with the recent bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler. It’ll be interesting if GM’s management and the UAW can continue to forge ahead or if they’ll slip back into the mediocrity which they’d sunken into by the turn of the century.
Lutz also takes a few swipes at Ford implying the company is riding a wave of luck and good press. He is remarkably light on his comments about the government ‘takeover’ or Steve Rattner’s group. I suppose one doesn’t bite the hand which has pulled one from the quicksand no matter how noxious that hand is. In a few places he seems to pull a punch or two but he also defends some folks who were unjustly vilified and explains why they were really blameless for the general catastrophe which hit GM and, for different reasons, Chrysler.
In sum, this is must read for those who have even a casual interest in cars or the car business. It is also a must read for those who have an interest in reviving American industry in general or who have heard of Lutz and wish a look into his mind. It is not a thorough autobiography of Maximum Bob’s life and times, however, because it only covers a few years of his rather storied career. It’s a good solid interesting read for anybody who has even a casual interest in a man generally regarded as an industrial genius.
In the end, it’s a heck of a read penned by an industrial legend. We could sure use a few more Bob Lutz’s in the US.
