“LUTZ” MORE FOR FORD TO WORRY ABOUT

[Get the latest “Truth With Speedzzter” here]

Now that the government takeover and “for show” Section 363 sale of General Motors' "good stuff" is complete, the handwringing begins.

Idealistic pollyannas (sadly including “Truth With Speedzzter”) expect that political backlash will hold back “Government Motors” as many formerly loyal “buy American” customers punish the Democrats and the U.A.W. for destroying another pillar of the not-so-free market. These Ford-o-philes even dream of FoMoCo assuming the dominant position among the domestics in the U.S. light vehicle market.

On the other hand, Ford skeptics are crowing that Ford’s self-help restructuring and mortgaging for the “Way Forward” will get steamrolled by the bankruptcy-slimmed GM. They say that FoMoCo’s now at a material structural disadvantage to “Obama-U.A.W. Motors” because they didn’t join the deadbeats’ parade to bankruptcy. They also claim that GM has a better product mix coming on-line and will exploit their natural market share hegemony. They assert, however, that nothing is going to stand in the way of the “Asian Invasion” and that once the hyper-predatory Communist Chinese get their act together, it’s going to be “game over.”

Time will tell which of these predictions prove correct.

However, Obama Motors’ hand-picked beancounter-in-chief, Fritz Henderson, has thrown another wrinkle into the mix: “Maximum Bob” Lutz.

Lutz, one of the last of the “Car Guys” to make any impact in Detroit, is foregoing retirement to wrestle GM’s tattered, government-stained image out of the ditch as the New GM’s communications chief.

Few Detroiters can talk “car” with more heart and soul than Lutz.

You can bet that “Maximum Bob” won’t be jabbering on about “Zen” anything. Instead, he’ll probably make even the most pedestrian electric-vacuum-cleaner microcar sound like the Second Coming.

While those of us GM skeptics deep-down want to believe that nothing can rescue GM’s hapless “Roger Smithian” image, we know that if anyone can do it, “Maximum Bob” can.

Sure, he’s a wild card that will often make the “true belivers” in the Green movement and the GM boardroom squirm at times. But when Bob is allowed to be Bob, nearly magic things have often happened. In fact, nearly anything in the GM product line that’s not wholly forgettable has Lutz’s imprimatur on it.

Now the Glass House Gang has “Lutz” to worry about.