General Motors has taken the steps that will foster its recovery, says Bob Lutz, vice chairman of marketing and communications for the company.
Lutz is a longtime car executive, having held leading positions at all three big U.S. automakers in a career dating back to the early 1960s. With the departure of former GM CEO Rick Wagoner, many have looked to Lutz to help new CEO Fritz Henderson rebuild and reorient the flagging U.S. auto giant.
“In September (GM) sales were pretty much back to the previous numbers,” he told Dan Mangru of Moneynews.com.
“For fast-moving models that are in very high demand, we have no inventory.”
That includes the GMC Terrain, the Buick LaCrosse and the Cadillac SRX. Those cars are selling well, he says.
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“The sad thing is we don’t have enough of those to take advantage of the demand. . . We’re going to have to build inventory up again.”
GM has no problem with product quality Lutz says.
“We have the product now undeniably, whether you look at the Chevy Malibu, which was car of the year; the Silverado, which was truck of the year; the Silverado Hybrid, which was declared dream car of the year; or the Cadillac CTS, which was Motor Trend car of the year.”
Everyone agrees that GM has the best products in its history now and “arguably the best overall product line of anybody in the business,” Lutz says.
“My problem is that thanks to a lot of negative representations by the general media and now entrenched belief, there are large parts of the American public that don’t have any notion of what today’s product line is. That’s what we have to overcome.”
For the last five years, particularly the last 18 months, GM has been under-advertised and under-marketed, Lutz says.
“There are Americans who, when you say ‘Are you familiar with Buick?’ there are people on the West coast who say “Do they still make those?’”
The new GM is bulking up marketing, he says.
“We’re going to spend the money that it takes to get the word out.”
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