General Motors on Wednesday announced that its vice chairman will retire on May 1.

Bob Lutz will step down in two months, ending a 47-year career in the auto industry that included tours of duty at BMW, Chrysler and Ford. He began his career at GM, working there from 1963 to 1971, then rejoined the company in 2001.

For most of the past nine years, the 78-year old was GM’s head of product development, with a brief detour into helming the Detroit giant’s marketing. As the company’s product visionary, Lutz helped create successful new vehicles such as the Chevrolet Malibu, Buick Enclave, Cadillac CTS and the Chevrolet Equinox. He also at spearheaded development of the Chevrolet Volt electric car.

“I can confidently say that the job I came here to do more than nine years ago is now complete,” Lutz said in a prepared statement. “Our product lineup is as strong as it has been in GM’s history.”

While at Chrysler, Lutz led the development of products like the PT Cruiser and the Dodge Viper performance car. He has been a longtime proponent of the idea that cars must be, first and foremost, emotionally appealing.

Lutz tried once before to retire from GM (GM, Fortune 500). Shortly before the government took control of the company last year, he made plans to depart, but reversed his stance a few months later.

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General Motors’ new CEO Ed Whitacre said he believes the company will return to profitability in 2010.

Speaking to reporters on a conference call, Whitacre, who assumed the top job on Dec. 1, gave the most bullish forecast yet for a turnaround in the company’s financial performance. The company has lost money every year since 2005 and was forced by the government to file for bankruptcy last year.

Asked if GM would be profitable this year, Whitacre said, “I’m hoping so. My prediction is we will be.”

Still, Whitacre cited uncertainty about the strength of the economic recovery and the battle to lure back customers who have soured on GM. “Do we have obstacles in our way? Of course we do,” he said.

While rivals Ford Motor Co (F, Fortune 500). and Toyota Motor (TM) posted a profit in the third quarter of 2009, GM lost $1.2 billion.

But GM has said its financial conditions have improved enough in the past few months that it has already started to pay back the $6.7 billion loan it received from the Treasury Department as it exited bankruptcy. GM expects to complete payments by June. That loan is only a fraction of the $50 billion in help the company received from Treasury, however.

Whitacre added that GM hoped to return to profitability by focusing on sales growth as opposed to just slashing expenses.

“You can always take out more cost, but we are focused on the revenue side if you want to prioritize it,” Whitacre said.

He said the company is projecting an end to its long string of market share losses in the U.S. this year. GM has not had an increase in market share since 2002 and its market share has plunged from 44% in 1980 to under 20% last year.

Whitacre would not divulge the company’s market share target in 2010 will be but when asked if it was higher, he responded “Of course.”

GM is now privately held, with the Treasury Department holding 61% of shares and the United Auto Workers union and the company’s former bondholders holding most of the remaining shares. The company will need to go public again before taxpayers can start getting most of the money back.

Whitacre said he doesn’t think that it is necessary for GM to be profitable again before an initial public offering, although he acknowledged it would be helpful. He repeated earlier statements that the company will not be ready to go public until the second half of this year at the earliest, and added he feels no pressure to do so this year.

“We have to show our financial viability first. We have to get everything pretty well set up. People have to see us perform,” he said.

In other news, Whitacre said he anticipates “hundreds” of GM dealers who the company had planned to shed in the coming year would be retained by GM as part of a review process mandated by recently passed legislation.

During its bankruptcy, GM identified more than 1,000 U.S. dealers out of its base of 6,000 that it wanted to terminate, along with hundreds of other dealers who will be cut lose as the company discontinues its Saturn and Pontiac brands and sells or closes Saab and Hummer. To top of page

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Reuters reported that a US bankruptcy judge gave General Motors Corp (GM) permission on Monday to buy several assets of another bankrupt company, Dephi Corp, an auto parts supplier as part of a deal with a private equity firm that could take Delphi out of bankruptcy. How ironic. A bankrupt helping a bankrupt to get out of bankruptcy.

Judge Robert Gerber of US Bankruptcy Court in Manhanttan gave “Old GM”, now known as Motors Liquidation Corp, permission to buy Delphi’s steering business and a number of its plants, deemed essential to GM’s ability to build cars.

Delphi is by far GM’s largest supplier, accounting for about 11.3 % of its purchases in 2008.

If GM’s partner in the bid for Delphi, private equity firm Platinum Equity, won the auction for Delphi that is set for later this week, “New GM” or General Motors Co – which emerged from bankruptcy last Friday after the carmaker sold the bulk of its best assets to a US government-led group, paid by taxpayer money – would reimburse Old GM and receive the Delphi assets.

Old GM, which now consists of the remainder of the automaker’s assets, remains in bankruptcy court. Delphi, which was spun off from GM in 1999 (parents helping its kid?), filed for bankruptcy in 2005, said last month that it had reached a deal to sell most of its global operations to Platinum, in a plan that with the participation of GM would allow Delphi to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

In a court document, GM had said it expected the transaction to cost US$3.9 billion, including a payment of US$1.1 billion to Delphi’s creditors (probably the same creditors for GM?) and a US$2 billion equity stake in Parnassus, a unit of Platinum, which has submitted the only bid so far to take Delphi out of bankruptcy.

Platinum would invest US$250 million in Delphi under terms of the plan. But the deal still has to get approval from the judge overseeing Delphi’s bankruptcy.

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