Bob Lutz doesn't mess around. He smokes cigars, and owns a Czechoslovakian Cold War fighter jet which he flies himself. He created the Dodge Viper, said that global warming is a total crock of manure, raced cars, and at 79 years old, still does the daily grind.
When he speaks you listen, the industry listens. His background is in marketing, but the man can do anything, and ultimately his job was always to simply sell cars. When he was with BMW in Europe, he came up with the renowned ‘The Ultimate Driving Machine' slogan we all knew and loved. It helped transform the company and imprint the brand into petrolheads' minds as pure driver's cars.
He had a long spell at Chrysler too, and was an executive vice president at Ford where he led development on the iconic Ford Sierra, one of the most advanced family cars of the day.
Lutz also famously said that the electrification of the automobile is inevitable, before leading the Chevrolet Volt project from conception to birth.
But his character shone brightest when Bob ‘Maximum Marketing' Lutz famously accepted a media racing challenge in America — the deal was that he gets to drive a Cadillac CTS-V against any comers. His challenger came in the form of a Mercedes-Benz AMG C63. Lutz, as usual, had an ace up his sleeve. Although a capable race car driver, he simply warned his rival, "You're running into a trap because if you beat me by a second on the lap time, we'll just advertise the price difference." Anyway, guess who won? Well, would you bet against a guy who flies a Czechoslovakian fighter jet for fun?
