You don't think you took that a little too seriously, do you?

Bob Lutz (although NOT Camaro's daddy) had nothing to do with the death of Camaro (he was busy approving the PT Cruiser and attempting to bring back RWD cars at Chrysler at the time), but he's THE guy who's making the new Camaro possible.

The SSR was also given the goahead and was already approved for production when Lutz was pulled into GM as product chairman.

As for Solstice, the production of Solstice had zilch to do with Camaro. Totally different issues here. Solstice was developed as a combination "Management tool", "flexible chassis idea", and rolling "Pontiac advertisement". Camaro's prospects would NOThave changed one iota (and in retrospect would have been worse off) if Solstice hadn't seen the light of day.

There are people inside who complained about money going to Solstice instead of Camaro, but I'd bet you a MGD, they aren't complaining about it now.

The issues behind Camaro's demise were far an away more than simply available cash for development. There is ALOT that I didn't write in my article on this, and I can't say because of promises (sure it will be in someone else's book in the future ). All I'll say is that from a business standpoint, Camaro HAD to go, and there is a "iron solid" reason why no one at GM would even mention the name "Camaro" until now (ironic that Camaro seems to be the only thing GM will talk about now, and you see Camaro had alot of friends in high places afterall ).

Bob Lutz is in an extremely harsh position, 2nd only to CEO Wagoner. Both have to use limited resources in ways they personally would rather use doing other things. But both serve the Board of Directors, and both have a top responsibility to the thousands and thousands of workers, contractors, OEM guys, as well as stockholders and pensioners 1st. This means keeping the money flowing... and the money flows elsewhere 1st.

SSR and Solstice were both small beans operations, and both cost alot less than a decent advertising campaign... or SRT's annual budget. Yet both are profitable (SSR made GM money even though there's still a year's supply laying around.... and I was against the SSR as much as anyone when it came out!). Camaro is a bigger ticket item.

Slaming Bob Lutz on anything regarding Camaro (espiecially that 30 year comment) is like slamming your dad for telling you "maybe in 5 years" when you asked for a new bike, while he was always planning to get you one for your birthday after he got his raise.

 

Not a chance.

No way.

Nope.

 

I think the GTO came up during the conversation in which Lutz made the comment. I took it as a sarcastic response and definitely not seriously. Besides, at the time they were trying to keep silent any mention of a Camaro for reasons to which Guy aluded to. While he could've chosen his words better, I wouldn't hold it against him in the least.

 

Pace -

get into the cat nip again?

-Jason

 

Agreed... as long as we can agree he didn't bring it back either.

Agreed.

And that guy is selling something more akin to his skill level now... like toilet paper or tampons.

Wrong.

The central issue, particularly through the late 1980's, 1990's and early 2000's was enough money to develop and produce the car, WHERE to produce happened later.

Ask yourself this question Guy:

IF GM had St. Therese at top output, and sold EVERY ONE OF THOSE CARS for a big profit, would St. Therese still have closed?

NO. Businesses don't close plants that make money. They close losers, and a large part of the reason St. Therese was a loser was a pair of F-cars that went NO LESS THAN TWENTY YEARS before being completely re-done.

Please, do not insult my intelligence by saying in a TWENTY YEAR PERIOD there was NO WAY money for a new F-car could have been found. I can rattle off TWO DECADES of losers that say otherwise.

So, St. Therese gets a bullet and Camaro dies.

Money for engineering and process development was out there. GM, unfortunately, decided it was worth more to the company to engineer and produce the: Solstice, Aztek and Rendezvous, Alero, Aurora, Riviera, SSR, Reatta, Dustbuster vans, Allante etc... than it was to redo Camaro, and more damningly, decided it wasn't worth it way back in the 1995 time frame to go ahead with a Camaro when it was right at the cusp of doing so.

An honest, unbiased observer seeing the unveil - knowing that the buzz from it was bigger than even Corvette's introduction - could be left with NO conclusion other than:

"Wow. GM really blew it when they let this car languish and die."

And they did.

The excuses no longer matter. Now is the time to look up, look back and say:

"NEVER again. We are NEVER blowing it by killing a car with a following like that again."

Simple rule of business:

On a fixed investment, take the choice that gives you the highest return. Engineering a car is a similar investment in total dollars for engineering if you build 20,000 or 100,000. Camaro will easily bury the Solstice on a return basis. It was a mistake to go ahead on Solstice before re-doing Camaro.

And there is a critical mistake.

There SHOULD be recriminations. That entire decision making process should be revisited...

"Did we REALLY put all that effort into a 20,000 car per year Solstice and let a 80,000 car per year Camaro languish???"

Yes, dear General, you did.

And you built the SSR too...

Not in the time frame for a 2001-2003 launch they weren't. That's engineering in the 1996-1999 time frame, and the issue then was the lack of the engineering resources necessary to make a produceable product.

Simply put, GM punted.

And the choices of where it flowed first... SSR, Aztek/Rendezvous, Solstice, Sky etc... were in my opinion terrible mistakes.


SSR is most assuredly NOT profitable. If you question that, ask ASC... as they swirl their way to oblivion.

Yep.

Hope that sinks in this time. More money out... but a whole lot more money in.

I hope the powers that be realize that 5 years is the top end of a product cycle for a car like Camaro.

5 years, complete re-tool.

5 years, complete re-tool.

5 years, complete re-tool.

My Dad would never have made the comment in the first place.


***DAMMIT, this isn' the typical Aztek slam either, I OWN AN AZTEK. And while it's certainly done well for me, GM's money was much more smartly spent on a Camaro for 2001 than an Aztek.***

 

No, it didn't HAVE to go. GM created "iron solid" reasons to not build the car by making several mistakes of extraordinary boneheadedness. Even at 50,000 units a year, most other auto companies would kill for that kind of volume out of an "image" car. Only GM would "kill it".

When you figure how many sales they could have had if they debuted a redesigned Camaro with a modern chassis in 2002, you're talking real revenue...and we haven't even considered the impact to Chevy's and GM's image.

 

I'm adding this thought in another post because it is critical:

GM must produce a flawless car with the new Camaro.

MUST.

And after they do that, they're going to get a maximum of 5 years out of this body style before it becomes old and flat. It is absolutely beautiful. World class. It's got Toyota owners drooling for it, but IT IS polarizing and IT DOES date itself, much like the PT Cruiser.

At the end of that 5 years, GM will either have learned it's lesson and brought out an all-new car... or load up the chamber again because it's going to need to be put out of it's misery.





****

 

Damn straight.

 

Absolutely! GM blew it, pure and simple. All this other skulduggery with the CAW and Canadian government was merely a peripheral issue. Had the car been updated, so it could sell in the right numbers....none of this other crap would have made one bit of difference.

 

Can I get an AMEN!?!?!








*****

 

alrighty then! PacerX......wow.....you sure are wound up.......but I also understand it's the passion you have for the Camaro.....and for the industry at large.

A couple of thoughts.

Yup.....I yelled and screamed and put books and pictures and piles (huge piles) of letters on desks and on conference room tables.....and I would not let the name escape anyone within a quarter mile. That said, I can't take credit for the concept....as much as I'd like to, I can't. But I'm proud as hell of it! And it makes me grin just watching people walk up to it the first time and the looks on their faces.........from 5 to 95 years of age........it strikes a chord with so many people. It's even more fun to stand off to the side and listen to the comments. (words of a sexual nature are used a lot.....)

Bob will be the guy that gets it done in terms of making the funds available....and getting the other resources lined up. No, he will not do it himself...but as vice-chairman, he's got the stripes to remove roadblocks...and he has and he will.

There are a few people I personally blame for the demise of the 4th gen.
Ron Zarella
Don Hackworth

....just to name two.

Don't be so hard on Bob........you may recall that a couple of weeks, as I recall, before he made the 30 year nap comment, he also said that Camaro was one of our top priorities.......so did Kurt Ritter......Jon Moss......and a few others at the top of the heap.....but they were suddenly silenced.......when a certain person whose last name starts with a 'C' quietly let them in on several details they didn't know about. (read it in my book....)

So.........Bob being Bob.....who can never be scripted....(and makes our communications people have ulcers and sleepless nights) .....said something off the cuff.......which I think he'd have liked to have taken back.
(You may notice that very creative people -- like myself all too often -- sometimes speak without engaging the brain.....)...and in this day and age with the internet, it's unforgiving.

So......call off the Black Suburbans on Bob......he's one of the good guys.

Believe me!

Again........I thank you for the kind letter you wrote on another site....and I'm grateful, but I cannot take credit for what you see on that turntable other than to scream and shout that 'we need a new Camaro....and here's the recipe!!'

 

Actually, PacerX I made the comment (which mysteriously vanished ) calling GM the Camaro's Daddy. I think I even referred to GM as pappa de la hottie.

Such a shame for Bob to do that to us loyal fans of the Camaro. I think he's was just blowing smoke, especially since someone's dad's friend was at a photo shoot the other day and recognized a man matching the description of Lutz who said a Firebird was in the works.

No worries.

 

Well said guys, I really enjoyed reading this thread

 

although i understand a lot of what your saying PacerX you have to put some things into hindsight...

the 30 year nap comment? do you remember where he said that?

The GTO introduction. It was almost insulting to ask Lutz about the Camaro/Firebird that day. Imagine your Bob yourself. You are introducing a brand new (for america) car (that when u put it all together is similar to an fbody in what the car is) then someone says to you, "OK so you got this GTO its nice and all.. but frankly i could care less.Wheres the Camaro? Why did u waste your time on this? you fool." How would you react? just say oh... i dont know im sorry im a failure or fight fire with fire?

also about the aztec, for example, and your comment money would have been better spent elsewhere. First, you must remember every product is somewhat of a gamble. you dont know if its going to be a huge success or a complete flop. You want to think you made the right decisions and itll be huge but u never know until it hits the showroom floors. Also, the aztec concept (if i remember correctly) was fairly well recieved. I remember i thought it was pretty cool looking and i still remember my first time seeing them on the roads. 2 yellow ones that were driving around before i thought they were out (could have been mule). I thought it looked really cool and futuristic. You say it yourself yours has treated you well. You obviously thought it was a good car and thats you u spent the money on one. When it comes down to it i think the only reason the aztec wasnt huge was becuase its styling (which i do somewhat like) was fairly polarizing with more to the negative reactions.

how do u know money would have been better spent on a Camaro? Dont get me wrong. I would have much rather had a Camaro than the SSR (another concept i and MANY other people loved that was barely changed) or an aztec. But really we dont know if the 5th gen that would have been (if it had continued) would have looked anything like the current concept and probably would have gone another way and who knows? that could have turned out horrible and flopped worse than the VW phaeton. (I would like to think it wouldnt have and im pretty sure it wouldnt have) but the point is, looking back it is easier to make judgement calls and say that shouldnt have been done or it should have been done this way but u have to understand automakers have to take a stab at what the future will be like and hope they get it right... not what the past was like.

 

Pacer, with all the positive changes Bob has brought to GM I'm pretty sure he's a good guy. GM management of the 4th gen era are the ones to blame here really. Yes, GM should have never killed the Camaro in the first place, but put yourself in Bob's shoes. Here you come, AFTER the final call has been made. What would you do? How could you possibly be blamed for something that was done well before you had any power to stop it? I can agree with you on being upset at GM as an organization. DAMNIT, we ALL are! But skewering Lutz can only serve to hurt things, not help. You like shooting yourself in the foot??

By the time Lutz got inside GM only thing that COULD be done was make the best of the situation. That's exactly what has happened! The plant closing and such was a way to take advantage of an opportunity to make a bad deal go away. That's all! In the end it delayed the Camaro by a wopping 2 years. Sure, it hurts us in the short run (isn't looking toward the short term gain what everyone here is crowing is a bad thing?) but in the LONG run, our likelyhood of getting a PROPER Camaro only went up.

Anyway, I'm not apologizing for Bob, simply because I don't think he's done anything worth apologizing for. 30 year nap comment and all... Quite the opposite!