Performance lives!; GM plans to bring back the `go' with its version of a special vehicles team.(Brief Article)

Corvette aside, it's been some years since performance products offered by General Motors stirred the blood of the average car enthusiast. Mark Reuss, whose dad was the GM exec who saw the turbocharged 300-horsepower Buick GNX through to production back in 1987, plans to change all that.

Reuss, (below right, with a Buick GNX) a 14-year GM veteran whose most recent assignment involved getting the Pontiac Aztek and Buick Rendezvous crossovers to market, was tabbed June 1 to head something he's calling the ``specialty vehicle and brand-driven concept group.'' His official title is ``Executive Director-Operations, Engineering & Specialty Vehicles.''

Forget the names and titles. Think Ford Special Vehicle Team and you're on the right track.

``What we'd like to do now is try to do more performance packages-not just appearance packages,'' says specialty truck engineer Philip Jingozian, one of the players now on Reuss' team. ``We want to get away from `show and no go.' We're going to add the `go.' ''

Specialty vehicles are nothing new at GM-note the upcoming Chevrolet SSR-but the way their creators have interacted with the rest of the giant corporation hasn't always been clear. Too often, designers penned vehicles that couldn't be engineered, while engineers built vehicles that couldn't be marketed, while marketers demanded cars and trucks that couldn't be designed or engineered, let alone produced. Lack of communication and leadership too often led to flashy graphics and badging packages touting performance images that weren't backed up by hardware.

Since January, when GM brought together its far-flung North American Car and Truck engineering groups, the chasms between design, engineering, marketing and production have been closing.

``This is the first time we've really linked production, design and engineering together,'' says Reuss. ``We'll be taking what GM's specialty vehicles group creates-and taking it to market.''