Bob Lutz, General Motors

Bob Lutz has served in top jobs at BMW, Ford, and Chrysler. A car guy's car guy born in Switzerland, he's best known as the impetus behind the Dodge Viper. Lutz was at General Motors from 1963 to 1971, a stint that overlapped with his 11 years in the U.S. Marines. Rick Wagoner hired him back in 2001, and now the first all-Lutz project--the Pontiac Solstice--has just launched.

Solstice will draw enthusiasts to other Pontiacs
I have e-mails saying, "I thought I'd never see the day I'd set foot in a Pontiac showroom, but this is going to make me do it." We experienced the same thing with the Dodge Viper. The Viper buyers, less than 10 percent had some sort of other Chrysler vehicle. After three years, it was something like 35 percent.

We'll attract Miata buyers
But I think it's going to sort of be a Chevy versus Ford pickup thing. We hope we won't see any Calvin and Hobbes stickers. I just know we'll get some import buyers, not necessarily out of Miatas, but all import cars.

We're dialing back on clinics when styling is a home run
The only time we're going to do clinics is when we do something far-out. We want to make sure we're not talking to ourselves. We're not going to clinic the next-generation Saturn Ion because everybody comes into the studio and says, "Holy mackerel!"

This is where Pontiac has wanted to go for a long time, but lacked the necessary architecture

If you could wave a magic wand and have a four-door version, then maybe stretch the architecture and have sort of a BMW 3 Series, that's what the Pontiac guys want. We have to pick our investments and allocate our engineering assets carefully, but that's their desire.

The Saturn Sky will be more luxurious, more refined than the Solstice
Its character will be different. It's not quite as sharp and dedicated pure 100-percent sports as the Solstice. It'll have a gran turismo character to it. The Saturn is sporty, but with more sophistication.