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

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.

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 great listen

This book is practical and interesting. There are some books I purchase that I have difficulty listening to because of the narrator. This book is not the case at all. The narrator fits the book and author. Overall a great book I will likely listen to again.

Enjoyable read..

I just like the way Bob puts thing, thats why I enjoyed this book so much. Truthful and strait to the point. He knows his stuff, so I think he can tell the story to everyone who thinks Honda and Toyota can do no wrong.

A must for car people and bean counters!

I couldn't agree more with Bob Lutz on 98% of this book. If you lived through the cars and times covered in this book you'll gain a new understanding of why they are the way there are.

Thank you Bob Lutz for writing this book and making it in Audible. Please add GUTS to the mix. I'll be among the first to pre-order.

Nice mix of anedotes, business and product focus

I don't usually write reviews but when I saw the previous two reviews were so negative, I had to chime in because I rather enjoyed the book. While it was a little self-absorbed at times, there were some interesting perspectives about the car business and American Business in general that I thought were well formed. I work in the aerospace industry and I can agree with Mr. Lutz that when the people with the passion for the product & customer are not the same people running the business, then business will soon dry up.


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Excellent book on GM and the auto-industry

I found this book extremely interesting and insightful but rather emotionally draining because I agreed so strongly with the many points that he made! The narrator was truly outstanding and knew when and how to apply emphasis, which amplified this effect.

Bob shares many of the frustrating practices when he joined GM and how they had come about. I suspect they were less obviously asinine when working on them day-to-day but he is able to convey his viewpoints in a very compelling way.

I really like how the later part of the book explains how things were turned around at GM and how their vehicles are significantly better than the imports. But, frustratingly, the media dismisses GM's successes and places unwarranted accolades on the imports.

But more than that, he explains how the media and our own government's love of imports is completely misplaced and is significantly damaging our economy. Everyone enjoys a good laugh at the British and their ineptness. Want to know why they are so inept and their economy is failing? They gave away their auto industry to the imports! Once a nation doesn't have confidence in its own manufacturing ability, it seriously undermines their confidence across the board, as well as their ability to generate wealth.

So championing imports only damages the American economy and ourselves. Final assembly is only a minor piece of the auto industry -- the high value jobs are in the engineering and development, which the imports do overseas. I never understand how people proudly fly the Stars and Stripes over an import in their driveway.

Other reviewers seem frustrated with Bob claiming to that he achieved so many things. I see him pushing for changes, but I don't see him claiming to have accomplished them on his own. Rather, I feel that he was saying how the culture at the company changed (at his urging) and then others made good decisions.

Anyway, I found this to be an insightful and entertaining review of GM and the auto-industry.