Bob Lutz, at 77, is not the obvious choice to be General Motors’ new chief of marketing. While he has a blog, I’m pretty sure he dictates it to others to type in. He has no Facebook page, and I am not aware that he tweets.

Despite a few overly honest declarations about global warming that reflect his conservative leanings, GM CEO Fred “Fritz” Henderson asked Lutz to again delay his retirement, and take on a bit more responsibility, because of his judgment.

Bob may have a voice that sounds like he gargles with battery acid and cigar ashes, but he has an a nearly impeccable sense of what looks right. That’s why former GM CEO G. Richard Wagoner Jr. tapped him in 2001 to become GM’s product chief. Lutz took, for example, a dud of a mid-size sedan, the Chevy Malibu, remade it, and turned it into the 2007 North American Car of the Year. That came a year after its sister car built on the same engineering platform, the Saturn Aura, took the honor in 2006.

Interior designs of GM cars under Lutz now rival those of Volkswagen and Audi.

Lutz was set to hang around as an advisor the rest of this year at GM and then figure out how to amuse himself again in semi-retirement. But one thing has eaten at Lutz the last three or four years. While he has put world-class cars and trucks on the road, too few people have noticed. The word’s not out. Drives him bats.

I have talked to Lutz about advertising on several occasions. He is not so big on decisions made about advertising and marketing based on “tests.” Every crappy ad campaign, after all, “tested great” before it crashed and burned on their air, he says. And he is right.

Bob gets this. So, what I expect is that he will read the “test” results. But he is now in a position to say, “No…this is stupid. I’m not paying for this.”

I recall a few years back when Buick launched this impossibly bad idea for an ad campaign featuring an actor, John Diehl, playing legendary GM designer Harley Earl. Okay, Earl is legendary in Detroit and in auto design circles, but not so much in the bowling alley in Gary, Indiana or the Starbucks in Westfield, N.J. And that’s why it was stupid. GM turned to a dead guy to sell Buick, which, at the time, had an average age buyer of “terminal.”

I asked Lutz what he was thinking. He explained that he and Wagoner thought it was a really dumb idea, too, but that the then-head of Buick brand believed in it. The system at GM has rotated finance, service and even engineering people into marketing roles at the company. They, in turn, become captive to the big ad agencies in town, which look after them like ten- year olds at a high school dance.

So, the idea of deferring huge marketing decisions to people not trained or experienced in marketing has led GM down this path of ruin where its brands stand for very little. The ad strategies, changed as often as oil filters, have created chaos and instability around GM’s brands.

GM has long been very big on protecting and preserving “the way it does things.” The GM Way. Part of that arrogance, that led it into Chapter 11, was letting brand chiefs hang themselves or thrive on their own decisions. The only time the higher-ups, like the CEO, seemed to get overly involved was when an ad ran afoul of some so-called self-appointed moral authority.

The appointment of Lutz to lead marketing is a sign that that era is over.

Lutz has a way of filling up any room he is in. His power at GM has been that no one else in any room he was in had better judgment on how a car should look or feel when you drive it. And everyone else in the company knew it.

Lutz is not trained in marketing. But he has gravitas and a way of pushing stupidity down the hole from whence it came. He is not perfect. Let’s not forget the Pontiac GTO he brought in from Australia. And the jury is out on the styling of the new Buick LaCrosse. And he tried to convince me that making GM’s loser minivans look more like SUVs was going to put them on the map against Chrysler and Honda.

Lutz, a former Marine, strides like a General around GM. A good General. More Omar Bradley than George Patton. The product line, thanks to him, is well-fixed and on track. Quality, design and craftsmanship of vehicles is top-drawer. What comes next is redefining the message and the system through which the new GM creates the message.

He has been given the authority to red-light and deep-six really bad ideas regardless of whose feelings get hurt. He is 77 and with no ambition or prospect to be CEO. That makes him valuable, and dangerous to GM’s long-time ad agencies, at least two of which probably need to be replaced despite many decades of service to GM.

My guess is that CEO Henderson realizes he needs a junk-yard dog, albeit one with demonstrated great judgment, with nothing to lose to go in and shake up every corner of the way GM speaks to the public.

And Bob’s the guy.

In its annual “Car Wars” study, the firm estimates that General Motors will give up 5 points of market share, or about 25% of its current business, while Chrysler will lose six points of share, roughly cutting the company in half from what it is today.

If GM and Chrysler are the big losers in the next few years, who are the winners? ML analyst John Murphy estimates that Hyundai-Kia, Ford and Honda will each gain 3 points of market share or more. Traditional Asian juggernauts Toyota and Nissan will also gain share, but at a slower rate.

Chrysler, which was recently taken over by Italian automaker Fiat with help from the U.S. government, will suffer, said Murphy, because of lack of investment in new products from Cerberus Capital Management in the last two years, as well as scant investment by Daimler the last two years it owned Chrysler before selling to the private equity firm.

Not surprisingly, new products are what drives share. The Merrill Lynch report notes that Hyundai will have the fastest flow of new products, replacing 27% of its showroom with new product a year for the next four years. Between Hyundai and Kia, says Murphy, the Korean tandem should gain 3.5 points of share. Meantime, Ford, says Murphy, is set to replace 25% of its showroom in the same time-frame, with an emphasis on small cars and fuel efficient crossover vehicles that are well timed to the market.

Honda is replacing 25% of its showroom a year for the next four years, with essentially almost all replacements for existing vehicles—Accord, Civic, Odyssey, CR-V. “There is a lesson in that—produce great product and keep improving it year after year,” says Murphy.
Toyota and Nissan, according to Merill Lynch’s research, will be launching new products in the next four years at a slower rate than they have in the past. And he projects that Toyota will only gain one additional share point, while Nissan should pick up a half point.

Europeans, despite an onslaught of new products from Volkswagen, should maintain the same level of market share.

Gains in market share will be crucial to future profitability. The recession has forced GM and Chrysler into Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. Those two, along with Ford, have shed excess manufacturing facilities, onerous union contracts and healthcare liabilities, driving down each company’s break even point dramatically from what it was in years gone by. Chrysler, for example, has set its break-even point at 10% of a 10 million unit auto industry.

Ford is working on a plan to be profitable at it current market share of 15.5% with an industry selling 10.5 million. If Ford gains three share points in the next four years and industry sales rebound to 13 million to 14 million as many expect, Ford, for example, stands to be hugely profitable in North America. Three additional share points of a 14 million unit industry translates to 740,000 more vehicles per year than it is selling today.

GM’s forecast is more toubling. “We believe that GM’s 18%-19% market share target is optimistic and a more realistic range is 15%-16%,” said Murphy. Merrill Lunch estimates that GM will only be replacing 11% of its showroom per year over the next four years as it reorganizes around Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac in North Americas, having sold or closed Saturn, Saab, Pontiac and Hummer.

Auto Industry Task Force chief Steve Rattner quit his post at the Treasury Department after just five months on the job. But what he lacks in tenure in the government post will be far overshadowed by what he got done. Rattner led the lightning quick remake of the American auto industry.

Whether industry watchers like or hate the tactics (Rattner used government sponsored bankruptcy to wipe out creditors and remake the balance sheets of both General Motors and Chrysler) he did spearhead an effort that saved two of America’s Big Three carmakers and countless parts companies from falling into liquidation. Both companies emerged from bankruptcy with less-costly union obligations, far less debt, but also owned by the government and United Auto Workers.

Chrysler lives to fight another day and GM, at least, has a real shot at survival. Once the world’s biggest carmaker, GM is now much smaller. But it can focus on four brands instead of eight. And the company dropped its debt from more than $70 billion to about $17 billion. The leadership team that controlled GM when it was headed into bankruptcy is turning over. Former Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner was controversially ousted in part by Rattner. Now, new Chairman Ed Whitacre is in to make sure CEO Fritz Henderson will make the right moves.

That job, too, will rest on the shoulders of Ron Bloom, a former United Steelworkers negotiator who was Rattner’s No. 2. He takes over the task force. Though much heavy lifting has been done, the job is far from over. Bloom will have to make sure GM and Chrysler are making good progress and don’t squander tens of billions in taxpayer money. If Chrysler’s tie-up with Fiat doesn’t bear fruit, or if the car market worsens, he will play a big role in decided what to do next.

At a minimum, the two companies will have new leadership teams watched closely by Bloom and other task force members. Chryler’s top two executives, former CEO Robert Nardelli and Co-President Tom LaSorda have left. Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne and his team have taken over. While GM lifer Henderson is running the company, he will likely be brooming a number of long-time company managers in the coming months.

Rattner may have overseen the remake of the U.S. auto industry. Bloom will have to watch closely as the two carmakers attempt to stabilize themselves. His job will be to work with the new boards whose directors must make sure the companies are fixed. And if consumers don’t embrace GM and Chrysler, the government may yet have more heavy lifting to do.

Under terms of the deal reported, but not yet confirmed, The Qatar Investment Authority would buy a bit more than 25% of Porsche for $9.7 billion. Porsche’s market cap is a bit more than 8 billion euros. Qatar would also gain Porsche’s options on shares in Volkswagen, which would total about a 20%-25% stake if exercised.

The significance of the pending deal with Qatar is that it will give the sovereign wealth fund a big block of voting shares in Porsche. Up to now, the voting shares have been controlled by the Porsche and Piech families.

But Porsche has run into severe balance sheet problems after a derivative scheme hatched by Porsche went haywire last Fall when the global credit markets collapsed. The scheme was a financial device employed by Porsche to enable it to acquire most of Volkswagen’s shares not owned by the State of Lower Saxony. At present, Porsche owns 51% of VW, but the automaker was out to acquire 75%.

The scheme tripled Porsche’s debt in the six months ending in January to above 12 billion euros. Some analysts have speculated that the debt amount is even higher.

Volkswagen, Europe’s biggest carmaker, and Porsche said in May that they were in talks on a possible combination into a single manufacturer of 10 automotive brands.

The Piech and Porsche families who control the sports-car maker have scheduled a supervisory board meeting for July 23 to discuss the bids by the Qatari sovereign-wealth fund and Volkswagen.

The dealings between Porsche and VW have played out in Germany like a soap opera. At the center of the storm is the clan rivalry between the Porsche and Piech families. Wolfgang Porsche, chairman of Porsche's supervisory board,is the grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, the company's founder. Ferdinand Piech, chairman of VW’s supervisory board is also F. Porsche’s grandson.

Piech is an interesting situation that would hardly be possible in the U.S. with its stricter corporate governance rules. Piech, because of the voting shares the Piech’s control, could block the investment by Qatar in Porsche. If he does so, VW would almost certainly have to absorb Porsche. But if VW does so, it also takes on Porsche’s huge debt load. He may want to block an outsider from having such a huge block of voting shares in his family business. But he would also be reluctant to saddle VW with more than $10 billion of new debt, and allow Qatar to acquire more than 20% of VW.

How well the new models will do is hard to call. The Fit, in particular, may compete with the Insight for sales. The Insight, meanwhile, is showing how tricky projections can be. Before its launch, Honda was looking to sell around 200,000 Insights a year with the U.S. accounting for about 100,000 with the rest split between Japan and Europe. So far, U.S. sales, have fallen short but the car is hotter than expected in Japan where government incentives--not to mention higher gas prices--are boosting hybrid sales. After its launch the Insight was the best selling car in Japan (excluding mini-vehicles, a first for a hybrid, although it lost its crown last month to the new Toyota Prius.

Speaking in Tokyo today, Honda's new chief Takanobu Ito woudldn't say how much the Fit and CR-Z hybrids will cost but said both models would be "affordable". Ito also revealed that Honda is developing larger hybrids that will use a different, more powerful hybrid system than the Integrated Motor Assist (IMA) system used in its current models. Ito said a two-motor system is under development for medium and larger models, although he declined to give specifics. Asked what that means for Honda's clean diesel plans, he admitted that while Honda has diesel technology that meets the strictest emissions standards, its high cost remains a problem. Like Toyota, Honda is favoring hybrids across its lineup.

Here’s an example of throwing the baby out with the bath water. As General Motors barrels through bankruptcy and ditches the long-troubled Pontiac brand, along with it goes the G8 sports sedan. What a shame. The car started in price at $28,000 and the sticker price got close to $40,000 if you bought the high-powered GXP model. When is the last time a Pontiac sold for that kind of sticker price? You’d have to sell two G6 coupes to get that kind of money.

What’s more is that the cars were selling pretty well, especially considering how dismal this car market is. Sports car fans loved the roomy sedan that could be had with a 256-horsepower 3.6-liter V-6 or the 361-hp 6-liter and 4-2-hp 6.2-liter V-8 engines. It’s far better than the GTO was when it came back in 2004. Motor heads snapped up the G8 models as GM prepared to shut down production. Its Australian Holden unit made the last G8 in June.

Sure that last-minute rush pushed sales up. Still, G8 sales rose 150% last month. Pontiac, which everyone knows is dying, sold nearly 16,000 G8s this year. That’s more than Acura sold of its top-selling TL sedan and Infiniti sold of its G37 sedan. In other words, GM had a sporty sedan that was appointed with luxury amenities and sold at top-shelf prices. And out it goes.

I asked a few executives if they might bring it back as a Chevy or a Buick. They would sell a lot more of them at Chevy dealers and inject a bit of passion into a Buick showroom. But so far, it seems not to be. The business case for bringing cars from Australia to the U.S. is pretty tough. But for a company that needs every hit car and all the buzz it can muster, it seems that GM might find a way to keep this one. For those looking for a great sports car, there are some left at Pontiac dealers. And those dealers are willing to haggle.

Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking has been pursuing a strategy of trying to acquire control of VW since 2005 when he first bought a stake in the larger company. That strategy blew up in the CEO’s face, though, last Fall when the global capital markets tanked and Porsche got caught holding risky derivative investments it was using to finance its acquisition of VW.

The dealings between Porsche and VW have taken on a soap-opera-like quality. The VW supervisory board chairman is Ferdinand Piech, the great grandson of Ferdinand Porsche. His family is also part of the controlling stakeholders in Porsche.

The Porsche and Piech clans have long been rivals. At one time, it was believed that Piech and Wiedeking were working in concert to have Porsche acquire VW. But in recent months, Piech has been openly critical of Porsche’s moves and its excessive debt.

Piech, as a significant Porsche shareholder, can, in fact, block the Qatar investment. Qatar is looking for voting shares in Porsche in exchange for investing billions. Up to now, the Porsche and Piech families have controlled all the voting shares.

If Wiedeking is blocked, and the Qatar investment doesn’t go through, there is the strong likelihood that he will be ousted as CEO and that Porsche will be absorbed by VW. It would be a spectacular fall of one of Germany’s leading industrial executives. Wiedeking has been CEO of Porsche since the early 1990s and led the sports car company to be the most profitable, as measured by operating margin, auto company in the world.

Porsche currently owns 51 percent of VW.

Wiedeking has so far failed to secure 1.75 billion euros in loans it wants from commercial banks or from KFW, a state-controlled bank in Germany.

Qatar is approaching a potential investment in Porsche as a passive financial investor and is apparently open to investing in either company.

In Detroit’s hey day, American cars were been fawned over in rock and roll tunes both for their brawny performance and cultural significance. Songs like Bruce Springsteen’s “Cadillac Ranch” glorified big, ostentatious Caddies. “Hot Rod Lincoln” by Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen did far more as an homage to horsepower and a polish job for Ford’s luxury brand than it did for the band’s career. But the same can’t be said for the Chevy Camaro.

The most recognizable tune I can think of is the ‘80s punk ditty “Bitchin’ Camaro” by the Dead Milkmen. In the tune, the Milkmen lampoon the Camaro as a car for rich spoiled kids who guzzle gas and tear up their neighbor’s yard. It’s the hood ornament for crass American suburbia. Here’s a clip of the lyrics:

So you'd better get out of my way
When I come through your yard
Cause I've got a bitchin' Camaro
And an Exxon credit card

For much of its history, the Camaro was a gaudy guzzler for the buzz cut and gold chains crowd. The cars were usually fast, but also inexpensive and unsophisticated. So, frankly, when GM announced two years ago that Chevy would bring the car back, I was very skeptical. It arrives later than Ford’s Mustang and Chrysler’s Challenger. And let’s face it, reborn muscle cars preach to the 50-something guys who already buy American brands, not the import owners that Detroit needs to win back to survive. It sends a signal to people shopping for Bimmers, Hyundais, Priuses and the like that Detroit is stuck in 1970.

But after driving the new Camaro, I have to erase all of that. The car is simply terrific. And it’s far more sophisticated in many ways that competing cars and certainly than the old Camaros. Start with the engine. My test model had a direct-injection V6 which kicks 304 horsepower but gets 29 mpg on the highway. All that grunt still guzzles 19 mpg in the city, but a combined 22 or 23 mpg for a car with that much oomph is impressive. You can get a V8 in the SS version, but it starts at $31,000. The V6 models start at $23,000

Then take a look at the car. Love the design or hate it, you have to say that it’s not just reproduced retro. Chrysler simply knocked off a 1970 Challenger. The Camaro looks like a new-era interpretation of the old pony car. If GM never killed it, the Camaro may have just evolved into this design today. It’s fresh. The Camaro really handles quite well, too. At 3,700 pounds it doesn’t feel as heavy as other big sporty cars.

The cabin is decidedly retro and not the car’s best feature. GM took many cues from the early ‘70s cars. And while the plastics inside don’t feel top grade, they’re good enough for a car that starts at $23,000 and offers as much as it does in terms of performance and style. My test car, by the way, was about $30,000 loaded up with satellite radio, blue tooth, stability control and a nine-speaker Boston Acoustics sound system.

Still, the new Camaro is a very impressive car. I was surprised by how much I liked it. I’ve never been a Camaro guy. But I was also suspect of how GM would execute it. When Pontiac brought back the GTO in 2004, GM was content to take a ‘90s jelly bean body style from its Australian unit, shove a big engine under the hood and call it reborn muscle. It didn’t last. This is a purpose-built muscle car for a new age, and quite a good way to usher in the New GM assuming the company emerges from bankruptcy in a couple of months as planned.

Chrysler is not publicly listed, so Marchionne says he doesn’t have to get into specifics.

Chrysler went through $9.6 billion in cash in 2008. The automaker reorganized around what it considered its best assets in Chapter 11 and $6 billion in fresh financing from the U.S. and Canadian governments.

"We are still burning cash, but it's slowed down by far," the news agency quoted Marchionne.

That said, it is not lost on the CEO, who is also head of Fiat’s auto group in Italy, that the American public has a vested interest in knowing some of Chrysler’s specifics.

He says he is discussing with the U.S. Treasury auto task force how much information will be disclosed and how often going forward.

Fiat owns 20% of Chrysler and is managing the company now after the Federal government lent the automaker billions to stay in business.

Today is the day that monthly sales are reported by the automakers. Chrysler, reporters were told yesterday, would issue a press release with sales information. But the automaker plans to discontinue the traditional monthly sales call with reporters to discuss the sales figures in more detail, and offer media outlets an opportunity to ask a few other questions.

GM, Ford, Chrysler and Toyota have long held conference calls with reporters to discuss their company and industry trends. Right out of the box, though, Fiat is pulling back access by the media too its executives.

Let’s see…a foreign owned company takes over an American icon with the aid of U.S. taxpayer money and then gets, some might say, uppity about disclosing information as a first impression.

Hardly seems sociable.

It's seems an unlikely combination, but is the deal between Toyota and Aston Martin, announced yesterday, such a bad idea? Under the plan, Aston Martin will sell a version of the tiny Toyota iQ (pictured above) called the Cygnet to existing clients. The price is likely to be around $30,000. "Small is beautiful these days,” Ulrich Bez, Aston Martin’s chief executive said yesterday reports the Times of London. “We have to move on from the preconceived ideas regarding what Aston Martin is about.”

Predictably, most comments on car blogs have been pretty harsh, ranging from outright rage to disbelief. But why not? The iQ, while not exactly a popular sight on Japan's roads--I think I've seen four since it was released late last year--is a fun, innovative car. In Cygnet form, may be useful for Aston Martin when fuel economy regulations get stricter in the years ahead. Aston Martin when fuel economy regulations get stricter in the years ahead. It may also help Aston Martin enthusiasts assuage concerns, assuming they have any, about the environmental damage caused by their 4.8 liter V8 or 6.0 liter V12 Vantages. And as it's only going to be sold to Aston Martin owners, it's not as if the hoi polloi will be able to get their hands on one easily.

From Toyota's point of view, even a small association with a brand like Aston Martin, won't do any harm. New president Akio Toyoda insisted on June 25, at his first press conference as Toyota chief, that cars must be more than just appliances for getting from A to B.

Interestingly, the move seems to have stemmed from a racing friendship built up between Toyoda and Bez. At the June 25 press conference, the Japanese exec name-checked Bez when asked about his love of racing. Under the pseudonym Morizo, Toyoda has been known (most recently in May) to drive a Lexus LF-A in races at Germany's Nürburgring circuit. Bez, a fellow racer, got in touch with Toyoda after seeing an iQ on show at the track. When asked if he would quit racing now he is boss of the world's biggest carmaker, Toyoda admitted his colleagues were urging him to hang up his racing overalls but (somewhat unconvincingly) said that driving around the 'Ring was a good way to test new cars. If the Aston Martin deal works out, perhaps he can use that as an additional argument if he wants to keep racing.