Robert Lutz

Robert Anthony "Bob" Lutz is a Swiss American automotive executive.

Lutz was born in Zurich, Switzerland, the son of Margaret and Robert Harry Lutz. His father was a Vice Chairman of Credit Suisse. Lutz left Switzerland at the age of seven and spent time in Scarsdale, New York, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1943, and returned to Switzerland in 1947 to attend school in Lausanne. He is fluent in English, Swiss German, German, French and has a modest fluency in Italian.

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Robert Anthony "Bob" Lutz is a Swiss American automotive executive.

Lutz was born in Zurich, Switzerland, the son of Margaret and Robert Harry Lutz. His father was a Vice Chairman of Credit Suisse. Lutz left Switzerland at the age of seven and spent time in Scarsdale, New York, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1943, and returned to Switzerland in 1947 to attend school in Lausanne. He is fluent in English, Swiss German, German, French and has a modest fluency in Italian.

Lutz was also an Executive Vice President at Ford Motor Company, where he led the creation of the Ford Sierra, initiated development of the original Ford Explorer, and was a Member of Ford's Board of Directors. He was a frequent internal political rival of eventual Ford CEO Red Poling.

Lutz became head of Chrysler Corporation's Global Product Development, including the very successful Dodge Viper and LH series cars. Former Chrysler Chairman and CEO Lee Iacocca, who helped steer the company back to profitability after receiving loans from private banks backed by the U.S. Government in 1979, said he should have picked Lutz as his successor rather than Bob Eaton upon Iacocca's retirement at the end of 1992, but at the time Iacocca and Lutz were not getting along. Eaton was responsible for the sale of Chrysler to Daimler-Benz in 1998 which Daimler ended up backing out of in 2007 when it sold Chrysler to Cerberus Capital Management. Referring to the job performance of Eaton, Iacocca claimed that Lutz "would eat him for lunch".

Subject ID: 33706

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