Tesla's Harshest Critic Thinks Model 3 Excels In One Area

Somewhere during the course of automotive history, someone decided to give Bob Lutz an outlet with which to voice his opinions on the state of the auto industry. Maybe it's because Lutz, who has held leadership positions at each of America's Big Three automakers, has built a reputation for making controversial statements that make for good headline material, or maybe it's because he has legitimately valuable input on the inner workings of the car world. But in either case, when Lutz wants to talk, the car world tends to listen.

More recently, the 87-year-old retired executive has made a name for himself by verbally bashing Tesla with every chance he gets, once predicting that the company would be out of business by 2019 and saving his harshest criticisms for the management style of Tesla's CEO Elon Musk. So it was a surprise when his most recent column, written for Road and Track, heaped praise on the electric automaker and signaled a change in his attitude.

In his column, Lutz talks about a Tesla Model 3 he saw parked in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was one of his first encounters with the car, a phenomenon he attributes to the fact Tesla cannot sell cars in Michigan given the state's moratorium on factory-owned dealerships.

He ended up walking up to the Tesla and inspecting its panel gaps, typically a good way to gauge a car's production quality, and was surprised to see that the Model 3 had what Lutz considered to be "world class" panel gaps. "But, when next to the car, I was stunned," reads Lutz's column. "Not only was the paint without any discernible flaw, but the various panels formed a body of precision that was beyond reproach. Gaps from hood to fenders, doors to frame, and all the others appeared to be perfectly even, equal side-to-side, and completely parallel. Gaps of 3.5 to 4.5mm are considered world-class. This Model 3 measured up."