General Motors today announced it's bringing back former Vice Chairman Bob Lutz to provide counsel to the senior leadership team of the company. Although Lutz has been providing advice to GM executives informally since retiring from the company in 2010, we think maybe they realized just how much they needed a, you know, actual car guy.
Although how awkward must that conversation with General Motors CEO Dan Akerson have been?
This is sort of how we picture the phone call went for whoever else was in the room with Akerson:
"Hey Bob, its Dan. How the missus? And the other skirts? Good. Golf swing coming along? Great. Hey, remember how I said I was going to tear the place up and put people in charge who knew how to get things done and build cars that don't suck? Well, that's going great, but I could use a hand on the not sucking part."
We're also wondering what the deal is with his consulting with Lotus. Is that still something he'll be allowed to continue doing? We put in an ask to GM PR on that and have yet to hear back.
All we know is we're now disappointed he won't be taking us up on our employment offer.
UPDATE: Dee Allen, Bob Lutz's consigliere (for lack of a better term, I guess), tells us "The consulting agreement with GM does not preclude other, non-competing activities like the advisory board of Lotus where [Bob] will continue his position." So there you go — GM's gain is not necessarily Lotus' loss.