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Bob Lutz's Nine Greatest Hits
by
Justin Berkowitz
(IC: employee)
Published: October 29th, 2008
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Being Bob Lutz has a fantastic job. He’s rich as sin (thank you, Daimler, for buying Chrysler), and he has Czar in his unofficial title with GM. He can say whatever he feels like, whether it’s about global warming (“a crock of shit,” in his words) or random price projections for meeting the next round of EPA standards. During Maximum Bob’s epic career, he’s “championed” some very interesting though chronically unsuccessful products. Some of these were on sale twenty years ago, others are on sale today. And still others will likely never see the light of day. While so many cars have been touched by Lutz’s magic hands, we present to you his big nine.
Published October 29th, 2008 12:23 PM
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- Duke Woolworth Weight 4800# as I recall.
- Kwik_Shift_Pro4X '19 Nissan Frontier @78000 miles has been oil changes ( eng/ diffs/ tranny/ transfer). Still on original brakes and second set of tires.
- ChristianWimmer I have a 2018 Mercedes A250 with almost 80,000 km on the clock and a vintage ‘89 Mercedes 500SL R129 with almost 300,000 km.The A250 has had zero issues but the yearly servicing costs are typically expensive from this brand - as expected. Basic yearly service costs around 400 Euros whereas a more comprehensive servicing with new brake pads, spark plugs plus TÜV etc. is in the 1000+ Euro region.The 500SL servicing costs were expensive when it was serviced at a Benz dealer, but they won’t touch this classic anymore. I have it serviced by a mechanic from another Benz dealership who also owns an R129 300SL-24 and he’ll do basic maintenance on it for a mere 150 Euros. I only drive the 500SL about 2000 km a year so running costs are low although the fuel costs are insane here. The 500SL has had two previous owners with full service history. It’s been a reliable car according to the records. The roof folding mechanism needs so adjusting and oiling from time to time but that’s normal.
- Theflyersfan I wonder how many people recalled these after watching EuroCrash. There's someone one street over that has a similar yellow one of these, and you can tell he loves that car. It was just a tough sell - too expensive, way too heavy, zero passenger space, limited cargo bed, but for a chunk of the population, looked awesome. This was always meant to be a one and done car. Hopefully some are still running 20 years from now so we have a "remember when?" moment with them.
- Lorenzo A friend bought one of these new. Six months later he traded it in for a Chrysler PT Cruiser. He already had a 1998 Corvette, so I thought he just wanted more passenger space. It turned out someone broke into the SSR and stole $1500 of tools, without even breaking the lock. He figured nobody breaks into a PT Cruiser, but he had a custom trunk lock installed.
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I'm surprised that folks are calling the Viper a success. Certainly it can't be called a commercial success, because sales have been small even by niche standards. I wonder whether the Viper has any hope of ever generating a profit for Chrysler. So what then did it accomplish? The Corvette has been good for GM because it displays the corporation's ability to compete with the best sports cars in the word. The Viper, in contrast, is iconic only because it is so excessive and crass. It's the kind of car a 13-year-old would design. How does that help Chrysler's branding, particularly given the rest of its product line? A modern Jeepster would have been a more useful halo car than the Viper. But because Lutz has such a small one, he had to insist on the ultimate compensation car.