Bob Lutz isn’t only a “Automobile Man.” He’s the Automobile Man—the sort of government whose choices left tire marks on the asphalt of automotive historical past. Throughout his quick however potent tenure as BMW’s board member for gross sales, Lutz delivered on his status, steering the corporate towards enthusiast-driven icons just like the 2002 Turbo and the three.0 CSL. He additionally planted the seeds of BMW Motorsport, the division that may develop right into a motorsports powerhouse.
However Lutz wasn’t nearly horsepower and dealing with. Born in Switzerland and raised in America, his résumé reads like a cross between a spy novel and a company playbook. Whereas incomes an MBA at Berkeley, he flew jets with the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. After leaving army service in 1964, he joined Opel in Germany, climbing the ranks till BMW lured him to Munich in 1972. At simply 39 years outdated, Lutz turned the board member for gross sales and advertising, reporting to the equally younger and visionary CEO, Eberhard von Kuenheim.
It didn’t take Lutz lengthy to roll up his sleeves and dig into BMW’s gross sales technique—or lack thereof. He shortly uncovered an alarming imbalance: impartial distributors throughout Europe had been reaping huge income, dwarfing BMW’s personal margins regardless of promoting far fewer vehicles. In France, Italy, and past, these middlemen operated like mini-fiefdoms, their contracts relics of a bygone period when BMW was struggling to search out its footing.
Lutz, by no means one to shrink back from a problem, labored with von Kuenheim to upend this technique. Inside two years, BMW had established its personal wholly-owned subsidiaries in France, Belgium, and Italy, reclaiming management over its future. But when Europe was difficult, the US was a full-blown disaster.
The offender? Max Hoffman, the Viennese-born importer who’d been instrumental in introducing BMW to America within the Nineteen Fifties however had since change into extra legal responsibility than asset. Hoffman had unique U.S. distribution rights, due to contracts renewed below doubtful circumstances by Paul Hahnemann, BMW’s former gross sales director. Hahnemann, it turned out, was not simply corrupt—he’d additionally left BMW entangled in an internet of dangerous offers. By the point Lutz arrived, Hoffman’s outdated practices had been stifling BMW’s potential within the booming U.S. market.
Lutz smelled hassle instantly. Hoffman, dealing with strain from Munich, tried to sweeten the pot, providing Lutz a suspiciously profitable association to maintain issues as they had been. Lutz, in his no-nonsense type, shut it down. “Imagine me, Maxie, I’m very glad with my monetary preparations,” he quipped, later recounting Hoffman’s more and more determined techniques, which bordered on mafioso melodrama. At one level, Hoffman even hinted at “unlucky accidents” ought to Lutz persist in difficult his empire.
In the meantime, BMW’s U.S. operations had been floundering below Hoffman’s mismanagement. The corporate projected gross sales of 40,000-50,000 vehicles yearly, however Hoffman delivered lower than half that. He refused to import sure fashions, just like the 1602 and the Touring, dismissing them outright. Spare elements? Hoffman thought of them a nuisance. Clients confronted lengthy waits for the vehicles they needed, and BMW’s hard-earned status for engineering excellence was taking successful.
By 1974, the state of affairs had change into untenable. Hoffman’s erratic ordering left BMW’s factories in Munich scrambling, forcing layoffs and sparking discontent amongst staff. The corporate’s majority shareholder, Herbert Quandt, urged von Kuenheim to place an finish to the chaos. On July 9, BMW terminated its settlement with Hoffman, citing “critical business causes.” However Hoffman, true to kind, didn’t go quietly, dragging the battle out for almost a yr earlier than BMW of North America formally took over U.S. operations.
Lutz’s time at BMW was transient however transformative. He didn’t simply promote vehicles; he reshaped the corporate’s international technique, laying the groundwork for its eventual rise to dominance. And whereas his clashes with Hoffman learn like a Hollywood script, they underscored a deeper reality about Lutz: he was a person who didn’t simply discuss excellence—he demanded it, from everybody round him, and particularly from himself.
