1961 Buick Lesabre 2 Door Flat Top Billet Wheels Air Ride 39k Actual Miles on 2040-cars

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Lutz dishes dirt on GM in latest Autoline Detroit

Bob Lutz sits down for Autoline Detroit - Click above to watch video after the jump
Autoline Detroit recently played host to Bob Lutz, and, as is always the case, the former General Motors vice chairman dished out some great commentary. Lutz was promoting his new book Car Guys vs. Bean Counters: The Battle for the Soul of American Business, and talk quickly turned to his role as it related to product development and high-level decision making at GM. While on the topic of brand management, Lutz revealed a few rather interesting tidbits about his former employer:
All Chevrolet vehicles were required to have five-spoke aluminum wheels and a chrome band up front, as part of the Bowtie brand's overall image.

Buick Electra-X EV caught testing on U.S. roads in new spy photos

Spies captured what they say are the first shots of the production-bound Buick Electra-X electric crossover. Bound exclusively for China (last we heard, anyway), the Electra-X is underpinned by GM's new Ultium EV platform, meaning it's fundamentally related to all of the American automaker's next-gen electric models even if we won't get one exactly like this.  If you're a fan of GM's swoopy utility concept, we've got great news for you: it appears as though Buick's designers are bringing its design to production pretty much as we saw it originally. Our spies weren't able to get close enough to snag any shots of the interior, where we expect things to be a bit more toned down relative to the futuristic renderings offered of the concept, but we're prepared to be pleasantly surprised.  We've already seen some evidence of Buick layering elements of this new look (as inspired by the Wildcat EV concept) onto its existing models. Earlier in December, the Encore GX was spotted in the wild wearing the new front-end look. Both the Wildcat and the original Electra concept were stunners, so we're excited to see what Buick's designers can do with this language going forward. Sadly, we've yet to see anything as low-slung and sexy as those original concepts, but we can always hope.  Related Video 

Buick, Lexus top J.D. Power survey, as vehicle service improves overall

Buick and Lexus returned to their customary place atop J.D. Power's scorecard of satisfaction with dealership service departments. In the Customer Service Index Study, out Thursday, Buick scored 860 on a 1,000-point scale for mass-market brands and has topped this ranking in three of the past four years. Lexus topped the list of luxury brands with a score of 874. Fiat and Land Rover were the bottom-dwellers in the two categories. Buick and Lexus also ranked highly in the research company's overall Vehicle Dependability Study rankings out recently. The customer experience at car dealerships has improved steadily, with the overall industry score rising in seven of the past eight years. And one statistic is particularly remarkable: 94 percent of customers say their car was fixed right the first time. The dominant area of difficulty in repairs seems to be infotainment systems. Only 80 percent of respondents said their stereo was fixed right the first time. And in last month's Vehicle Dependability Study, J.D. Power reported that infotainment systems were the most commonly reported vehicle issue, accounting for 22 percent of all problems reported, up 2 percent from the previous year. J.D. Power surveyed 70,000 customers for the Customer Service Index Study. For the Vehicle Dependability Study, it surveyed 35,186 first owners of 2014 model-year vehicles after three years of ownership. Below are charts for both the current study and the complementary overall brand dependability survey. Related video: