Former General Motors product guru Bob Lutz will formally advise the automaker as a part-time consultant, GM said today.Lutz, 79, who retired in May 2010, already had been informally consulting with GM product chief Mary Barra since she took that job in January.

Funk Flex

Find Flex On Google+

“This formalizes a relationship that’s essentially continued since he left General Motors,” GM spokesman Jay Cooney said in an interview.

Cooney said Lutz now has a contract with GM that will pay him for his work with Barra and other GM executives. He couldn’t say whether Lutz has been paid for his informal work with the company since his retirement.

Lutz, who worked at Ford Motor Co., Chrysler and BMW during a storied 47-year career in the auto industry, returned to GM in 2001 as vice chairman in charge of product development. He’s credited with a revival in GM products that has been vital to the automaker’s emergence from its 2009 bankruptcy.

AutoNews