Many observers were puzzled when General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson decided to make 77-year old company veteran Bob Lutz the company's chief of marketing.

A septuagenarian who was with the company from 1963-1971 and then from 2002 on would hardly seem like the fresh face to lead GM in the new millennium. The fact that he's a global warming denier also doesn't help his case.

BusinessWeek takes an interesting look at Lutz and what he does bring to the table: "Lutz has a way of filling up any room he is in. His power at GM has been that no one else in any room he was in had better judgment on how a car should look or feel when you drive it. And everyone else in the company knew it. Lutz is not trained in marketing. But he has gravitas and a way of pushing stupidity down the hole from whence it came."

In a heartfelt press release, General Motors (NYSE: GM) announced that vice chairman Robert Lutz will be retiring at the end of 2009.

CEO Richard Wagoner said that "h is 46 years of experience in the global automotive business have been invaluable to us. I've personally learned a great deal from Bob and have very much enjoyed the time we've worked together."

If GM's performance over the past few years is indicative of invaluable contributions, I shudder to think what might have happened without Mr. Lutz.

You might think that Lutz is sad about the decline and fall of GM. And maybe to some extent he is. But it hasn't hit him in the pocketbook, that's for sure. Lutz owned a total of just 75,603 shares of the company's stock -- a pittance given that he "earns" a salary of more than $1 million per year.

General Motors Corporation (NYSE: GM) investors, as well as auto industry trackers, will want to read Jonathan Rauch's "Electro-Shock Therapy" in the July 2008 issue of Atlantic Magazine. Mr. Rauch was given unprecedented access to all personnel involved in GM's company-wide commitment to have a market-ready electric car by late 2010. GM personnel note the Chevy VOLT, as the car is named, will not be a hybrid per se, but will be the first mass market electric car with a range of 40 miles per charge, enough to cover the daily commute of 75% of American workers. The car's small gasoline engine will be used to recharge the battery, while only electricity will be used to power the wheels. GM is trying to wow consumers by manufacturing an affordable electric car that will sever the connection between driving and the gas pump.

GM lost the engineering and publicity wars on electric cars to Toyota's Prius years ago. Toyota has been eating GM's lunch ever sense. According to GM's VP Bob Lutz, it's payback time. Using the same rhetoric President Kennedy used to launch the Apollo space program and race to land on the moon, GM has sectioned off the Volt division and given it complete decision-making and spending authority to reinvent not only the electric automobile, but also the company itself. In one Volt engineer's words: "Go big or go home."

Yes, there are problems with the weight to power ratio in the battery. And yes, production of both the battery and the car body are being rushed towards production without the normal period of evaluation. But GM has staked its future on the Volt, and unlike my colleague Michael Rainey who isn't that positive on the Volt, there's reason for at least cautious optimism, a quality currently in short supply coming out of Detroit.

Sometimes executives can put their foot in their mouths, but calling global warming "a crock of s**t," goes beyond that. GM (NYSE: GM)'s Vice Chairman Bob Lutz recently expressed that opinion on his own (not reflective of GM), but it's still being hailed as idiotic on plenty of forums and blog posts from around the world this week.

Lutz had to fire off a blog post of his own to defend his words, but it doesn't matter. He said what he said, and to the ever-growing ecologically astute crowd that's running from GM's gas-hogging SUVs into Toyotas and Hondas, his comments only strengthen what many think of GM: a major contributor to global warming through its huge vehicles for all those Suburban soccer moms and masculine Hummer men.

Now, Lutz did repair his words as best he could in his defense, saying that: "General Motors is dedicated to the removal of cars and trucks from the environmental equation, period. And, believe it or don't: So am I! It's the right thing to do, for us, for you and, yes, for the planet. My goal is to take the automotive industry out of the debate entirely."

It's true that GM has made great strides in trying to revolve its product portfolio around more eco-friendly vehicles, but it still has a long way to go. If it can really make a concept like the Volt work on a mass scale, the recognition GM will receive will go a long way, regardless of lessening dependence on foreign oil or helping curb global warming. Customers will take notice.

General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM), after seeing sales plummet for larger cars and SUVs over the past 18 months because of higher energy prices, is now doing a major about-face. It's no secret that a large part of GM's future strategy is tied up in alternative fuels and electric vehicles for the consumer market. Translation: inflation and energy prices are changing consumer gas price attitudes.

Robert Lutz, GM's product design expert extraordinaire (oh, and Vice Chairman), is placing a large bet on the Chevrolet Volt, a 100% electric vehicle that GM hopes will capture the imaginations -- and wallets -- of energy-conscious consumers. Lutz even calls the Volt GM's "moon shot" in a reference to a once-in-a-lifetime NASA goal to place a man on the moon in the 1960s. GM has a once-in-a-product-cycle chance to get a mass-produced, well-liked electric vehicle into dealer showrooms before any other global auto manufacturer.

Lutz, who speaks the best geek-speak there is concerning vehicle dynamics and drag coefficients, seems certain that GM can outfox Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) by getting a popular, 100% electric vehicle into mass production first. Toyota's existing Prius is a hybrid (gas and electric), and the race is on to get a completely electric car onto the showroom floor. Since there is no gas engine, which provides power for air conditioners and many other components, all systems from entertainment to windshield wipers had to be created from the ground up for the new Volt. From reading this Lutz interview, the Volt has the potential to place GM on top of the auto world again. That is, if done right and before the competition beats it to the electric vehicle game.

In flying, going into a flat spin is about the worst thing that can happen to a pilot. As the aviation spec books say: "It is very difficult to recover from a flat spin because there is little or no smooth airflow over the control surfaces."

Well, the Big Three are just about there. Experts predict that December will be another tough month [subscription] for the domestics in their home market. Sales should be particularly rough for Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F). General Motors Corporation (NYSE:GM) and DaimlerChrysler (NYSE:DCX) are expected to be little better than flat compared to December of last year. Toyota and Honda may well have more market share gains.

According to the conventional wisdom in the Motor City, part of the solution to the problem is cutting back on fleet sales and large incentives. This may drive down unit volume but each car sold should yield a better margin. The US car companies may end up being smaller but at least modestly profitable. Or so the theory goes.

The real question for Wall Street is whether any of the three firms can surprise the markets by getting its share and operating margins move. Ford and GM stocks probably have a poor 2007 factored in, with dropping market share and large cost cuts.

But if everything happened as forecast, no one would ever make any money in the market. There would be no surprises. The market would be omniscient and completely efficient.

The only company that would seem to have the management to pull off real product and sales improvement is GM. Self-proclaimed car wizard Bob Lutz has been the company's Vice Chairman. He is the "car man" at GM, and designing new, successful cars falls on him.

Lutz is engineering the launch of new SUVs and cars for brands like Chevy. If he works some magic, GM could be the car company surprise of 2007. If not, he's 74 and can retire and fly his collection of airplanes.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.