Robert A. "Bob" Lutz wasted no time when he took over as head of General Motors' product development in September. One of his first moves was to challenge his new design team to come up with a hot-looking two-seater for the Detroit car show in January. The studios in Detroit and Los Angeles competed to come up with the best design for a small, affordable sports car for the Pontiac division.
Presto. In just five months, GM's designers and engineers had a car -- the Pontiac Solstice -- to roll out at the North American International Auto Show, which opened Jan. 6. And the car runs, too. Even Lutz was surprised at how fast his staff got the project done. Says Lutz: "I would have been happy with a fake car that we would drive with a battery."
"AFFORDABLE BMW." This car is real. Even better, the Solstice -- which Lutz says is far from getting the green light -- shows what future Pontiacs will look like. If so, that look could help fix the division, which is known more for tacky styling than cool cars. Sales have fallen off 13% last year, and right now the unit may be best known for the dismal failure of the Pontiac Aztek SUV.
"Lutz wants to turn Pontiac into an affordable BMW," says John Wolkonowicz, a principle with Detroit auto-consulting firm Bulin Group. "If that's the goal, the Solstice is the right vehicle to start out with."
Lutz says he wants to give Pontiac a more sophisticated, European look -- and get "away from the Blade Runner design" of its current lineup, a reference to the 1982 cult science-fiction film. And the Solstice, which takes a few cues from Jaguar convertibles and Corvettes circa the '50s, definitely fits his plan.
When he was president of the former Chrysler Corp. in the 1990s, Lutz not only knew how to pick good-looking cars out of the design studio sketches but he could also get them to market cheaply by building them from components already in the company's parts bin. He has employed that same skill with the Solstice. It sports an existing GM four-cylinder engine and includes many parts lifted from the company's compact cars.
FAST AND FURIOUS. If GM wanted to build a vehicle like this, using existing parts is the way to do it. Lutz says GM could sell a Solstice-type car for less than $25,000 -- just $3,000 more than today's average sticker price. That could open a market of up to 100,000 vehicles, he reckons.
Says Lutz: "If we could keep this car simple enough, the market could be substantial." It would also be a nearly miraculous accomplishment. The industry's best-known small convertibles -- the Mazda Miata and BMW Z3 -- each sell only about 16,000 cars a year.
Even if GM doesn't build the car, the Solstice may be early proof that Lutz has energized carmaker's once demoralized design staff. After asking for design proposals in September, Lutz quickly picked concept drawings done by designers in GM's California studio and the stylists cobbled out clay models of the car in seven weeks. The operational show car was done 15 weeks later.
Usually it takes car companies all year to develop concept cars. Lutz "gave us the confidence and ability to do it," says Frank Saucedo, chief of the Los Angeles design shop. Now GM just needs to get cool cars to market with such speed.
