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Clarke: Higher sales, prices suggest GM progress.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Richard Johnson, Jamie LaReau, Dave Guilford

Troy Clarke became president of General Motors North America on July 1, 2006, plunging into the troubled region's turnaround.

But he's no stranger to GM's Detroit headquarters. Clarke was group vice president of manufacturing and labor relations from 2002 through 2004, when he became president of GM's Asia Pacific operations.

Clarke spoke with Managing Editor Richard Johnson, Staff Reporter Jamie LaReau and News Editor Dave Guilford.

Can you sum up where you think GM North America is in its turnaround?

I think there's ample evidence to suggest that the kind of things we're working on are generating real and very tangible results. But we're not prepared to say that we're done.

What might we see in the year to come that would be a sign of progress?

We think we're continuing to make progress on our retail sales, and that's the measure that we put up in front of us that we think is important in the immediate term. We've been able to do that while average transaction prices have been going up, so we've been, we think, putting better cars out there with better contents and the right kind of features and refinements that customers want.

We asked a little bit more money for those, and by and large they've been willing to pay us for that. And then we've...