Car Guys vs. Bean Counters

The Battle for the Soul of American Business

By: Bob Lutz

Narrated by: Norman Dietz

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

Clearly mistitled book

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

I liked understanding the car industry over time and how it evolved and changed. However, Lutz was clearly talking about his own career and the title should have been something like "My life in the car industry" so you understood that it was his personal experience (and opinion).
His rants about "the liberal media" the "misdirected right" was too much opinion for the book the way it was represented.
He clearly was jealous of how the Japanese (and their car companies) were "idols" and later how Ford was the "darling" of the media.

he claims to have predicted most things correctly and makes himself to be a hero in this story--again, mistitled story

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

change the title to be more representative of what it is and delete the ending chapter where he writes about how he would have done things differently

Do you think Car Guys vs. Bean Counters needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

NO--at least not by this egomaniac

If They Would Have Listened to Me

A lot of good points but there’s a lot of hindsight 20/20. And if you lean left this is probably not the book for you. But an informative listen otherwise.

I found this book boring and hard to get through.

I try to find golden nuggets in every book. This book however I found to be boring and hard to listen to.

A general bore

Bob Lutz jerks himself off for 9 Hours and 36 Minutes while giving a lacking highlight reel of the automotive scene circa 2000:The audiobook. Narrator does great work, though, and somehow makes alot of Bobs self-promotion bearable.

I found myself drawn in...

Ok, it's a book written by a businessman, about GM. Sounds about as much fun as reviewing spreadsheets of quarterly earnings, subdivided by sales region... Right?

Actually this book was fascinating. Bob tells us why the biggest car company in the world, that used to create glorious things like the '57 Chevy, declined to the point where in the 90s it was producing the Cavalier and Pontiac Aztek, instead. He offers a very good lesson in common sense, which anyone can apply. Focus on the goal, in the real world. Don't paralyze yourself into mediocrity with statistical navel-gazing.