Local Trollhattan newspaper, TTELA, published an article yesterday featuring the sometime complext thoughts of Bob Lutz, GM’s ‘Car Czar’.
ctm has been kind enough to provide a translation for us:
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GM Vice Chairman believes in Saab
“I really believe in Saab. The cars we develop at the moment are the most typical Saabs in the last 30-40 years.”
Those are the the words of Bob Lutz, GM Vice Chairman. But he doesn’t think Saab has to be built in Sweden any more.
- “Look at other manufacturers, nobody has production in their land of origin.”
What he obviously mean is *all* of their production. As we all know, Saab is heading the same way with the production of the 9-3 and 9-5 being moved to Rüsselsheim. Instead, Trollhättan will get to build the smaller car, which we see the first traces of in the new concept car here in Geneva.
- “The only important thing is that we maintain the connection to Sweden. We do that with the Saab Brand Center, where 120 people are working with safeguarding what’s typical for Saab.”
The GM Vice Chairman, Global Product Development, is optimistic about Saabs future. The model lineup will grow – first with the CUV 9-4X, and later on with a smaller car. This will raise the sales figures that has been hovering about 130.000 cars the last couple of years.
- “We want to sell 200.000 cars, but it’s going to be hard to do that in the near future….One problem is the weak Dollar and the strong Swedish currency. It makes it close to impossible to sell these cars with a profit in the US.
We will see more alternative fuels in future Saabs. The cars will also share lots of parts with other GM products. But Lutz avoids the question of how far the synergies will go between the new Saab 9-3 and the Opel Vectra. Instead, and once again, he tells the story of how Saab’s engineers did put their own technical solutions in the current 9-3 and thereby made it much more expensive.
When it comes to the Trollhättan-made Cadillac BLS, he is disappointed. Not at the car as such, but at the sales figures.
“I wish we had sold more of the BLS. It’s a good car, but it got a poor reception in the press.”
Will there be a successor?
“Today, we don’t know.”
He still think that Cadillac has a place in Europe. But it’s a slow process. Bob Lutz sighs.
“The image many Europeans have of the Cadillac hasn’t left the 1960s.”
ctm comment:
They also write about Opel Vectra, but I think they mean Opel Insigna, which is the new name.
He says that the BLS got bad press. Actually, it got loads of press in Sweden and it was not that bad. The problem is that buyers don’t see the point with the car – not with that price tag. 
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Swade comment:
Bob’s “30 to 40 years” quote at the top is saying either one of two things. That he believes that current Saabs are more Saaby than those made from 1968 to 1978, or that the ones in development are. At the very least that’s the Saab 95, 96, 99, 900 and 9000 he’s alluding to for a point of comparison.
Current Saabs are definitely very good. They can lay claim to being faster, more economical and reliable. But I don’t think they can lay claim to having the same character as those core models from Saab.
It’s quotes like this one that really cause you to worry sometimes. You wonder if the senior management really do “get it”. It’d be fair of Lutz to pay homage to those cars in the past and show some respect for what they did as small company, but that quote (along with the Cadillac one) make you wonder if GM will ever really understand Europe.
not liking how he says saabs will be sharing more parts with other gm vehicles. i think saab should be like caddy, give them their own parts bin and see what they can do before you punish them with the mundane gm parts bin.
Its fine if quality parts you would expect from Saab wind up in new saabs – just as long as you don’t see them and don’t have the opportunity to relate those parts to other GM makes downstream.
I think its very funny how Lutz is disappointed over the BLS. Lutz, as good as Caddy is right now, its going to take a LONG TIME for Europe to accept it, and apparently its going to take a long time for the hard head americans over at GM to understand that too
I doubt Americans will ever understand Europeans, too much thinking power needed for to little a reward…/jk
I hope they just trust GM Europe with the imporatant Europe related matters instead.
“The image most americans have of how a car should look and perform hasn’t left the 1960′s”
Cadillac doesn’t sell because our image of it hasn’t left the 60′s. That’s bad luck.
At the same time Saab has only survived because our image of it hasn’t left the 60′s. That’s good luck.
But modern car companies don’t rely on bad or good luck. They concentrate on making the cars people want to have.
The problem in Sweden with the BLS is not the car itself but who’s selling it. Most Swedish companys that allow for fleet cars say you can get a Volvo or Saab or a car that sold at those dealerships. The BLS is sold at the Mercedes dealerships and most company’s does not allow for Mercs as fleet cars, hence no BLS’s either…
If it had been sold at the Saab dealers i think it would have at least doubled the sales… My collegue chose a 9-5 BioPower but would have gotten a BLS instead if it had been available as a choice….
“The BLS is sold at the Mercedes dealerships”
What? Cadillac are mostley sold at Saab/Opel dealerships as far as I know.
Well here in Trollhättan you cant get a BLS at Saab-ANA, you have to go to the Mercedes dealership….
http://www.hedinbil.se/public/enter.php#
There always seems to a necessity to mention GM shared parts. I think the press are now fully aware that Saab is a GM brand. (they refer to the fact often enough). So the point is should it be talked about in the future.
It’s all GM whether Cadillac, Saab or Chevrolet.
Shared parts are totally irrelevant as long as the final product drives and feels like it should. This is what the Saab Brand Centre are doing. As we have read before, althought future products will share many components, what the consumer can see and touch will be unique to the Saab Brand. Or to out it another way, Do you really care if the gearbox is from OPEL if it is smoother, better and more reliable?
Maybe future statements can be re-arranged in order of Brand hierarchy.
So instead of hearing
‘We will see more GM shared parts in future Saabs’
we will hear
“This product incorporates mulit-link suspension with our industry leading XWD system. This will offer the driver a dynamic driving experience.” “Expect to see this technology to be filtered down in other GM brands, such as the up coming (insert model) for 2009.”
So we hear the shared parts reference without it sounding derogatory.
Mats,
Must be because it is “the Saab dealership” in Trollhättan.
I checked Cadillacs homepage for dealers in Skåne, Stockholm and other places, and only found normal Saab/Opel/Chevrolet dealers. Not that I understand why they want to sell them… In 2007, 326 Cadillacs in total (including the BLS) were sold in Sweden. That’s about as many as VW Eos or Dodge Caliber or Mercedes M-class. The sales figures were down 20% despite the BLS were up 50%. The brand is nothing here, and we are sometimes considered to be the 51st state of the US… I really don’t know how they will be able to compete with anything European over here.
Bob, the BLS is a design atrocity. I don’t blame the Europeans for not buying it. Stop trying to push shite uphill with a stick and put more resources into Saab!!!
I actually think GM understands Europe very well. Just look at Opel/Vauxhall/Chevrolet sales. GM Europe also makes a profit. I think the issue is how Saab and Cadillac complement or compete, against each other.
I agree that GM Europe understands Europe. They have been around for a long time, and know what it takes. My guess is that GM Europe has nothing to do with Cadillac, it’s product development and the marketing. The Cadillac brand is managed from the US.