In 2001, General Motors needed a revival and Bob Lutz was anointed The One. It was widely accepted that if anyone could breathe life into a struggling car company, it was him.

Fast-forward seven years, and GM is in the midst of a possible government bailout while its stock price sinks faster than a HUMMER's gas gauge on the freeway. It would seem that Maximum Bob's legendary straight-talking reputation for taking no prisoners and slicing through corporate red tape hasn't produced the results his supporters expected.

Click above for high-res gallery of the 2008 Saturn Astra XR

Click the image above for a high-res view.

General Motor's car czar, Bob Lutz, sat down with the little people of the blogosphere after GM's announcement that it would be reducing white collar expenditures by 20-percent, cutting truck production and eliminating retired health care for salaried workers over 65, all in an effort to boost its liquidity by $15 billion by the end of 2009.

Maximum Bob addressed questions about GM's entire brand portfolio, saying, "Pontiac will be nourished with products" and confirming that GM is in talks with financial institutions about HUMMER, and that, "If we could sell the brand, we'd be interested in doing that."

Bob Lutz has come out and said it again: "I would say there's almost no reasonable doubt in our minds anymore that this is going to work." And that isn't just that the Chevy Volt will work -- it's that it will work on time and as promised. In spite of the difficulties GM has had getting Volt technology up-to-speed within its timeframes, the man upstairs is apparently as confident as ever.