Groucho, I'm not surprised you got a personal reply from Mr. Lutz, he's like that.
Some years back when Mr. Lutz and I were both at Chrysler, I (your basic engineering pawn) sent an e-mail to him with my concerns over the just released 300M and the compromises made that, in my lowly opinion, rendered the car less of a serious sport sedan. My boss at the time told me that I was crazy for doing it. A week later I received through the corporate snail mail his hand written response, thanking me for my note, outlining the reasons for the decisions and actually expressing agreement with some of my points.
My opinion - he's the best thing that could have happened to the old lumbering GM. There's more pure potential in that company than in any other, it just needs to be unlocked at any cost, or Toyota and company will swallow the U.S. auto indistry alive. The U.S. companies just need to quit trying to copy the Asians, and do their own thing, but do it with a passion, while applying the lessons that they admittedly needed to be handed to them by sheer competition. Say what you will, but the new Chrysler 300 does just that. Now it's GM's turn, and if anyone can let the creative juices run there it's Bob. Oh yeah, I still have his note.
Some years back when Mr. Lutz and I were both at Chrysler, I (your basic engineering pawn) sent an e-mail to him with my concerns over the just released 300M and the compromises made that, in my lowly opinion, rendered the car less of a serious sport sedan. My boss at the time told me that I was crazy for doing it. A week later I received through the corporate snail mail his hand written response, thanking me for my note, outlining the reasons for the decisions and actually expressing agreement with some of my points.
My opinion - he's the best thing that could have happened to the old lumbering GM. There's more pure potential in that company than in any other, it just needs to be unlocked at any cost, or Toyota and company will swallow the U.S. auto indistry alive. The U.S. companies just need to quit trying to copy the Asians, and do their own thing, but do it with a passion, while applying the lessons that they admittedly needed to be handed to them by sheer competition. Say what you will, but the new Chrysler 300 does just that. Now it's GM's turn, and if anyone can let the creative juices run there it's Bob. Oh yeah, I still have his note.