If you are a car lover, then you've heard of Bob Lutz.

Bob Lutz is retiring.

Here’s video of some of his sports cars:

http://www.autonews.com/article/20100426/V.../304239946/1151

Here’s some excerpts on his thoughts about GM, Ford, etc:

http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti.../304269960/1179

Legal Bill, in an earlier thread you asked about the car of the future. According to Bob,it's the beginning of the end:

Lutz has a vision for the future of transportation, and it's not necessarily a car guy's dream.

I say this without a great deal of joy, OK, but it's going to be individual transportation pods that are charging in your garage. You hit one of your normal programs, like your "go to work" program. And the thing goes out into the street -- GPS-guided or wire-guided -- blends into traffic, consolidates, goes to some sort of mass-transit station, converges onto a train and parks itself along with all the other little modules. At some station, your module gets off. There will be no driver involvement.

The automobile is a transient stage in the evolution of mankind's ability to transport oneself to any other place rapidly. And, ultimately, as we evolve, I think physical travel will become less and less important. Because if you can bring 95 percent of the experience in virtually -- in, let's say, a 360-degree, full-screen, three-dimensional environment -- you get 95 percent of the experience instantaneously. The need to travel goes down drastically. And ultimately I don't think humanity is going to be able to afford a situation where every citizen of the Earth has a car and is zooming around all over the place on concrete highways. It's just not going to work, and at some point it's going to stop.

 

Nice collection. I dont go to work anymore and plan to go to play in a real vehicle not a pod.

 

I think the jet ski and the motor cycle and the adult bicycle provide evidence that there will be a place for the driver controlled automobile for many decades to come. It may play a much smaller part in the human transportation game as time goes on and it may look very different in both engineering and styling.

 

This thread pits the "what I wants" against the "what you cans." Sure, we may all want to drive our own cars for years to come. Lutz is suggesting an alternative and you may not have a choice in the matter. But I think this is still a long ways off.

 

Nice garage, no Jay Leno mind you, but very nice.

 

No Leno, for sure. But that was just "one" of his garages. I know he owns an MG from the 30s, that I've seen before.

 

When he speaks of all of the things that you don't need in a car, he and I are in complete agreement. Just build lightweight cars that are fun to drive.

Not to worry, there will always be cars that are fun to drive.