A Dashing High-Speed U-Turn

In a country where businessmen dress discreetly, speak circumspectly and plod patiently up the executive ladder, Robert A. Lutz, the president of German Ford, cuts a rather exotic figure. He wears elegant London-made suits and colorful shirts, rides motorcycles, collects and personally restores old cars, and speaks provocatively enough to have rated a full-length interview in the May German edition of Playboy (sample quote: "There is nothing rational about the automobile industry. There is no other aspect of business that depends so much on psychology, prejudice and image"). Now the 44-year-old Lutz is moving into a new job: last week, he was appointed corporate vice president in charge of Ford's European truck operations. His assignment: to increase Ford's lagging share of the market.

That is exactly the kind of challenge that Lutz met and mastered when in 1974 German Ford lured him away from Bayerische Motoren Werke (BMW), where he had been sales vice president. It scarcely seemed a good time to make the move, since German Ford in 1974 lost $69 million--while its chief rival, General Motors' Adam Opel subsidiary, squeezed out a $2.4 million profit--and saw its share of the nation's auto market fall to 10%, from 14.7% in 1970.

Studies showed that many potential buyers thought Ford's cars were no longer authentically German, but were dominated by American designs and British Ford standards of quality--a disastrous combination.

Says Lutz: "Those views were always wrong, but to alter them we had to make some minor design changes and a major effort to improve our reputation." The worst problem was with the top-of-the-line Granada: sales fell from 110,677 in 1972 to 40,786 in 1974. At Lutz's insistence, the ride was hardened (Europeans like "the feel of the road"), the power steering was made less sensitive and minor external styling changes eliminated the American look.

Such Germanization succeeded brilliantly. Granada sales in the first four months of 1976 ran at an annual rate of 111,000, and sales of other Ford cars are climbing too. In one of his last acts as president, Lutz announced that German Ford had earned a record $111 million profit in 1975. Ford's share of the German market is up to 14.9% (v. Opel's 17.9%), and it should rise further in the fall with introduction of the Fiesta, a minicar that will be made in Germany, Spain and Britain to compete with Volkswagen's Rabbit and similar cars (TIME, July 12). Though planning for the Fiesta was well advanced when Lutz joined Ford, the design incorporates some of his ideas.

Despite his successes, the Swiss-born, American-educated Lutz (he spent five years as a U.S. Marine jet pilot) has always attracted as many critics as admirers. A polished multinational manager who converses with equal ease in German, French or English, he makes many colleagues feel drab and parochial. He also angers some executives by breaking ranks with the rest of the industry, as when he doubled the warranty period on German Fords to a full year with unlimited mileage. Critics cannot deny the remarkable U-turn he brought off at German Ford, but some prophesy that he will have trouble in his new truck job. "It could be his death chair," says one colleague at German Ford almost wistfully. But that seems most unlikely; Lutz's admirers are forecasting that he will become head of all Ford operations in Europe within two years.

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