General Motors - The future is now

It's a reflection of the importance General Motors places on the media, and every motoring journalist's dream assignment. Talk Vauxhall at breakfast with its boss and ex-pat Aussie Kevin Wale, Cadillac with Bob Lutz over lunch and the China syndrome with Rick Wagoner over dinner. Share a drive with Holden's Denny Mooney and talk Toranas; share a beer with drivetrain boss Tom Stephens and chat about Corvettes. Catch GM design chief Ed Wellburn in the pits and ask him to explain the Pontiac Aztec's styling.

No topic is off limits, no question too curly and no answer too curt. The only restriction is time. Is three days enough to find out everything you've ever wanted to know about General Motors?

General Motors' chief executive officer Rick Wagoner kicks off proceedings with a formal welcome, recapping GM's position in the world, and providing details of how such a massive company hopes to successfully juggle more than 10 brands across hundreds of countries.

There's no apologies for past failures, but plenty of talk about the future. Wagoner believes GM must make its size work for the companies it owns.

"We have increased market share in three of the four regions around the world, but that's not enough. We're intensely focused on improving our quality and productivity. We're raising the bar. Being the best globally in quality and productivity has to be our objective, and it is.

"Leveraging our best ideas, products and learnings from all around the GM globe, and embracing these ideas to do the best that we can in each of our global markets. We're getting more target products to the right markets, faster. This is what we mean when we say we're making our size work for us.

"[We're building] cars and trucks tailored for regional and local markets. Built on common architectures, with common processes and common components and systems. So, what's the result of all this? Our regions and our brands are able to grow and refine our product portfolios by taking advantage of our global product portfolio."

He details the brand-hierarchy plan within GM. Naturally enough Cadillac sits at the top of the GM tree. Chevrolet is to play an important role as GM's 'foundation' brand in all markets except Australia, where Holden fills that requirement. GM's other brands -- typically market-specific like Vauxhall in the UK, Opel in Europe, Pontiac and Saturn in the US, and Holden in Australia -- will bridge the middle ground between the two.

Wagoner admits that this plan is not 'the right way' but rather the GM way.

"There's really no one single correct evolutionary path. In short what we're trying to do is play our own game here. GM has traditionally done a good job of appealing to local tastes, but we haven't taken full advantage of our global scale or expertise.

"To win in this global auto business, you've got to have the best cars and trucks. GM remains number one as it has been for the last 73 years in a row. But we do not have a birthright to lead: we've got to earn it every day.

"Our goal is to be among the best in every segment where we compete, and to out-set the standard in many of them."

After an early breakfast journalists grid up for the two-hour drive through southern France to the Paul Ricard race circuit, owned by Bernie Ecclestone and once home to the French Grand Prix. Every car of note from every corner of the GM globe is available to drive: from North American Corvettes to Brazilian Montana utes to British Vauxhall Lightnings and even Australian Commodores, Monaros and HSVs.

The drive takes a different course every day, and very little of it is AutoRoute, allowing you to test the backroad mettle of your chosen steed. Arrival at the circuit is accompanied by a welcome speech from Bob Lutz, and an invitation to take advantage of the track to push the car's limits even further.

Lutz builds on Wagoner's remarks from the night before, elaborating on how GM will revitalise itself through products. He singles out seven vehicles to make 'examples' of, including the Opel Astra, Pontiac G6, Daewoo Lacetti, Chevrolet Montana, Buick LaCrosse, Cadillac STS and HSV Coupe4. An eclectic mix: some are performance focused, some are practical, others shoot for prestige, but in Lutz's opinion all share one thing.

"We know that great products are the only possible building blocks to build great brands. It cannot work the other way."

Lutz reveals a fundamental shift in how General Motors plans new products.

"We will benchmark the best in the world in that category and go for the competition, but of course we can't control what the competition does in that three years during which we develop the product. Sometimes we plan to be at the top, and when the vehicle comes out we are among the best. But we have learned that if we shoot to be competitive when we first conceive the vehicle and don't shoot to be best in class then by the time the vehicle comes out we're not where we need to be.

"The resulting products are going to be tailored to satisfy the needs and the tastes of local markets. We will differentiate them with completely different, emotionally-compelling designs. We will differentiate them with unique interior executions reflective of the heritage and the values and maybe the national origin of each brand. We will differentiate them with powertrain applications which are appropriate for the character of the vehicle and its market segment."

In between-times GM heavyweights will be holding court inside the pit garages. Jim Queen talks about global architectures, Tom Stephen reveals GM's hybrid drivetrain plan, and Gary Cowger takes you on a virtual tour of GM's state-of-the-art manufacturing process.

Pages fly, notepads are filled and tape recorder batteries run dry like the Todd River in summer. Respect is shown by the media to men whose decisions can, and do, close plants, invest millions and change lives. Not so much a presentation, rather a structured open forum, the discussion is lively.

Each intimate half-hour presentation is met with dozens of insightful and incisive questions from the dozen-or-so media in attendance. Every answer is carefully weighed and concisely given. Any answer not readily available is followed up later by the omnipresent public relations minder.

Time really does fly, and it's barely a moment more before the day has gone and we're piling into different cars to drive back to the hotel in Fayence. Showered and jacketed, a pre-dinner presentation awaits us at the end of a golf buggy drive.

More than 30 covered vehicles dot the 14th fairway like carelessly discarded toys. The shapes are familiar, some are immediately identifiable from press pictures revealed just days before, like the Chevrolet S3X. Others resist identification until the covers are withdrawn in a carefully choreographed presentation only slightly less complex than Andrew Lloyd Webber's last production.

Embargoes descend and we are sworn to secrecy. Rick Wagoner re-hashes the old saying about "If I tell you I'd have to kill you". Instead this time it's: "We've told you, and if you tell anyone else, we will kill you." He laughs. He's only kidding, right?

So, what did we see and learn?