Maximum Bob: Over and out

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Let’s not bury the lead: Robert ‘Maximum Bob’ Lutz, the legendary product man, is departing General Motors.

He’s been at the company since 2001, serving as vice chairman of global product development, and is best known -- when not flying fighter planes -- for shepherding the Chevy Volt program from drawing board to, well, embryonic stage.

Now, the troubled automaker says, he’ll step down April 1, and Thomas Stephens will take his role (although, notably, Stephens reports to company President and Chief Operating Officer Fritz Henderson, whereas Lutz had a gold-plated hot line to a higher authority -- Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner -- when it came to steel and rubber). From April through the end of the year, Lutz will continue to advise the company on product-related matters, but he will retire for good at year’s end, the company said.

‘Bob Lutz was already a legendary automotive product guy when he rejoined GM in 2001,’ Wagoner said. ‘I’m looking forward to Bob’s continued contributions to GM for the remainder of 2009 –- and I know the impact of his efforts leading GM global product development will continue for years to come.’

Despite a nearly $7 million in estimated 2008 compensation, Lutz’s departure comes as a surprise, because the globe-trotting car guru has repeatedly emphasized his commitment to pumping out new GM product. Just a few weeks ago in Detroit, he was standing on center stage as GM introduced a slate of new production and concept vehicles, including the new Buick LaCrosse, which he called, among other things, ‘beautiful.’ (Critics strongly begged to differ.)

Perhaps the project he is most closely associated with at GM is the Volt, the extended-range electric car that the company has been heavily hyping for two years now, and which the company promises for late 2010, and Lutz himself has called a ‘game changer.’

What does his departure mean for the project that is indisputably his baby?

According to Lutz, nothing. In an e-mail this morning, Lutz said that he would see the project through to completion and that it’s ‘100% safe and on track.’

In a GM blog item posted this morning, Lutz said, ‘I relinquish these responsibilities secure in the knowledge that the guiding philosophy of pursuit of absolute product excellence is now firmly embedded in the organization. That unquestionable fact made a very difficult decision much easier for me.’

Even so, his departure is a watershed moment for GM. Among industry analysts, as well as on Wall Street, Lutz was widely considered the best thing about an automaker with more warts than beauty marks. He has insisted on breaking ground with new products, improving manufacturing processes and globalizing GM’s lineup, all key elements of the company’s turnaround plan submitted to Congress in December.

And he’s not an easy piece of talent to replace.

With more than four decades in the business, the former Marine has his fingerprints on some of the most famous vehicles of the last several decades. At Ford he helped get the Explorer SUV made; at Chrysler he was behind the Dodge Viper and the Plymouth Prowler, as well as the cars using the (in)famous cab-forward design; and at GM, he’s moved the pieces on the Pontiac Solstice, the Cadillac CTS and Buick Enclave, among others. Heck, he even played a role in developing BMW’s 3-Series back in the early 1970s.

More than anything, Lutz innovated and nurtured the idea that automakers could make, and indirectly profit from, cars that improved the image of a company, even if they splashed red all over the bottom line. They’re called ‘halo cars,’ and nobody did them better than Lutz.

All that and he could fly fighter planes and helicopters as well. The auto world may never see another figure like him. Then again, who’s to say he stays retired?

-- Ken Bensinger

Photos (top and center): Bob Lutz and Chevy Volt. Credit: General Motors

Photo (bottom): Plymouth Prowler. Credit: Chrysler