Car Guys vs. Bean Counters

The Battle for the Soul of American Business

By: Bob Lutz

Narrated by: Norman Dietz

Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

In 2001, General Motors hired Bob Lutz out of retirement with a mandate to save the company by making great cars again. He launched a war against penny pinching, office politics, turf wars, and risk avoidance. After declaring bankruptcy during the recession of 2008, GM is back on track thanks to its embrace of Lutz's philosophy. When Lutz got into the auto business in the early sixties, CEOs knew that if you captured the public's imagination with great cars, the money would follow. The car guys held sway, and GM dominated with bold, creative leadership and iconic brands like Cadillac, Buick, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, GMC, and Chevrolet. But then GM's leadership began to put their faith in analysis, determined to eliminate the "waste" and "personality worship" of the bygone creative leaders. Management got too smart for its own good. With the bean counters firmly in charge, carmakers (and much of American industry) lost their single-minded focus on product excellence. Decline followed. Lutz's commonsense lessons (with a generous helping of fascinating anecdotes) will inspire readers at any company facing the bean counter analysis-paralysis menace.

©2011 Bob Lutz (P)2011 Tantor

Enjoyable!

This book provides an excellent insight into the world of GM in the pre-bailout years. Sprinkled about with cantankerous-old-man-isms and shots from the hip at the media, big pharma, climate change, and unions, there were a lot of extra opinions to be found! rather than hurt the book, they added a layer of charm. Even the opinions which go against my own. I bought it in hard cover for easy reference, and I know several people for whom it would make a great gift!

I've read it at least 5 times

and it never gets old. There's a lot of history told in this book, and Mr. Lutz really tells it like it is. If you work in the auto industry, this book is for you.

Everybody: heed these words

Lutz certainly had the advantage of hindsight when he wrote this book. That said, it’s incredible to hear these words, all these years later. Lutz is a genius.

Intersting insight into the car business

Would you consider the audio edition of Car Guys vs. Bean Counters to be better than the print version?

It was interesting to learn about how the car business works and get a peek behind closed doors at GM. I didn't really like how he said the failure was due to the credit crisis and I found his arguments that they deserved to be bailed out duplicitous for a free market guy.

What does Norman Dietz bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He has a great voice and I enjoyed listening to him immensley.

I started to like gm

There is a certain propagandistic aspect to the book, but Lutz has great insight into making a business great. It is the mix of marketing and product that wins

Awesome

I'm ready to go run a car company. What an eye opener. I have a completely different view of GM

Great book!

This book was informative and entertaining. Love the history and inside look Bob Lutz provides of the auto industry. Considering the amount of technical information it’s amazing how entertaining it is. Highly recommend!

Somewhat disappointing

I think Bob Lutz is the absolute best car gar guy on the planet with product development and making car companies great through the product they produce. He is in many ways a hero, and I remember being thrilled when I heard GM had him on board - I still hold a high opinion of the man - just not as a writer.

This is a decent account of Bob Lutz's GM experience leading up to the Gov't bailout/takeover, but it seemed more like the focus was on Bob Lutz padding his resume more than story telling. A guy at his level has a right to be arrogant, but it ruins the story and gets in the way. It also does not get into the level of detail or talk much about other key players in the company like I had hoped.

If you are interested in this story, a much better book around similar subject matter is "American Icon". The two stories are incredibly similar with two different outcomes. the Ford book is a third person story telling and much more thorough than Bob Lutz's first person account here. Although I am a "GM guy" the book about about Ford is a much better read. I was disappointed that a book about and from one of my heroes did not measure up to my expectations.

Too negative and angry

I felt like the whole book was a long excuse for why "they" made it impossible for gm to succeed. Exhausting.

Didn't expect the whine with my book.

What did you like best about Car Guys vs. Bean Counters? What did you like least?

There is good insight into the demise and rebirth of GM that the media either didn't report or got totally wrong, both of which I had completely anticipated and was why I bought the book. However, there was too much whining about Toyota, the press, and left wing lunatics making it difficult for GM to compete. Come on - did you really need a crystal ball to see higher gas prices coming? Was Ford's smart management really dumb luck? Is climate change really a figment of Al Gore's imagination? Is Fox News the only news outlet to get it right? Tolerate the politically partisan BS and it's a pretty good listen.

Would you be willing to try another book from Bob Lutz? Why or why not?

Maybe.

Which scene was your favorite?

The Chevy Volt info was pretty interesting.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No