General Motors will use the same rear-wheel-drive platform used for the new Chevrolet Camaro to built a new rear-wheel-drive and/or all-wheel-drive ultra-luxury Cadillac.

Lutz said that as part of global product strategy the new Camaro platform could be used for other vehicles. Also he said that the delay for Camaro's launch (now set for 2009) has been the need to extend the utility of the fundamental architecture so it could serve as the platform for other vehicles as well.

"What you've got to understand is that we've got this modular product architecture kit where we have two different lengths of center underbodies, two different lengths of front rails and two different lengths of rear overhang. So we can modify those elements any way we want. In the case of the Camaro, it's long short, short. If, for instance, we wanted to do a very large rear-wheel-drive Cadillac with more than eight cylinders you could do long, long, long," Lutz said.

GM hasn't said publicly it plans to go ahead with an ultra-luxury Cadillac. But Mark LaNeve, GM vice president of sales, service and marketing have said they would like to move forward with an upscale Cadillac that could compete with cars such as the BMW 7-Series or the new Lexus LS460.

"One of the answers, which is being increasingly adopted in Europe and we plan to use it too, is to use engines in cars that are fundamentally way too small and then turbocharge them. You could envision (the Pontiac G8) with a four-cylinder Cobalt engine but turbocharged to 270 to 280 horsepower. That's a formula that works great for fuel economy because when you're not in the acceleration game you're cruising along on a tiny, little engine," Lutz said. "Trouble is that costs about $1400. Nothing is for free."