For all the effort that's gone into saving GM, its long-term viability comes down to one word, says CEO Fritz Henderson: "Chevrolet."

For all the financial wizardry, and the $50 billion in federal aid, that helped pull General Motors through bankruptcy, the company’s long-term success could come down to one word, “Chevrolet.”

You can’t cost-cut your way to prosperity, GM CEO Fritz Henderson made quite clear during a meeting with a handful of reporters, including TheDetroitBureau.com.  “Fantastic products” that can win back buyers “will drive everything,” the CEO stressed repeatedly.

As it filed for Chapter 11 protection, on June 1st, the troubled automaker held a market share of just over 20%.  But that included all eight North American divisions, four of which — Hummer, Saab, Saturn and Pontiac — will either be dropped or sold off.  Yet the automaker’s reorganization plan projects it will be able to maintain a share of somewhere between 18 and 18.5%, numbers that have raised concerns among many industry observers.

Henderson defended that optimistic forecast, noting that Hummer and Saab have contributed little to GM’s overall volume, in recent years, though the demise of Saturn will have a modest but measurable impact on the automaker’s sales.  And as for Pontiac, a major portion of its sales went to daily rental and other fleets, “and we feel with our other brands we have the possibility of picking up a large portion” of that volume.

But, “from our perspective, preserving volume and share, Chevrolet is our main dog,” Henderson contended. Thus and age old rivalry – Chevy vs Ford is about to heat up.

Having less mouths to feed should help here, the CEO — and other GM officials — have been saying, of late.  Trying to fill eight brands with all the necessary cars, trucks and crossovers was simply unfeasible considering the required resources.  Trimming down to 34 product lines from last year’s 48, the argument goes, should result in both better products and less duplication from one brand to another.

Considering recent, independent studies, such as the latest Initial Quality Survey, from J.D. Power and Associates, GM officials have reason to feel optimistic about quality.  And the fact that General Motors products have taken top honors in the North American Car of the Year awards twice over the last three years is another positive sign.  But Henderson candidly admitted that there’s a sizable portion of the American population that simply won’t even consider a GM vehicle, no matter the accolades, especially in coastal markets like California and New York.

“We need to do a better job (marketing) our passenger cars and crossovers in the coastal markets and urban markets,” acknowledged the CEO, “or we aren’t going to win.”

Noting his personal interest in “experimentation,” Henderson pointed to a project GM is getting ready to roll out in partnership with the online auction site, eBay.  Its eBay Motors is currently the largest digital venue for used cars and, later this year, GM will begin letting buyers in California go online to bid for its new vehicles – or accept a set “Buy it Now” price.

This isn’t the first time General Motors — or its various competitors — have tried to use the Internet to connect with digitally-savvy buyers.  Past experiments have generally failed, or degenerated to providing shoppers with online brochures and then connecting them with local dealers.

The new program has the advantage of launching after GM has completely rewritten its dealer franchise agreement, giving it more flexibility to experiment.  But even then, noted Henderson, the eBay project is being done “with dealers, not around them.  The cars get delivered through (GM) dealers.”

The GM chief executive, who was promoted to his new job when predecessor and mentor Rick Wagoner was ousted by the Obama Administration’s Auto Task Force, tackled an array of topics during the wide-ranging discussion.  Henderson stressed that the company is now “right-sized,” which means “I don’t foresee further announcements,” in terms of job cuts or plant closings.

But there will be more news to come, he promised, noting that the incredible speed of the GM bankruptcy proceedings — which took just 6 weeks, rather than the seemingly optimistic two to three months first anticipated — has made it difficult to complete everything needed.  There are a number of jobs to fill, and quite a few that can or will be eliminated, notably including the post of president of GM’s North American operations.

The CEO hinted there could be some surprise promotions from within, but he warned that because of the restrictions put in place by the auto task force on executive pay, it’s now difficult to recruit from outside.  “I’m not opposed to hiring outside,” he explained, “but until we know how we can pay people, we can’t hire anyone.”

Many of the key moves, Henderson suggested, should be completed within the next two to three weeks.

Shortly after entering Chapter 11, last month, a senior GM executive suggested the company might not provide the level of financial guidance it was required to release as a publicly-traded enterprise.  The company quickly “corrected” itself, and Henderson again promised to make the new GM “the world’s most public private company,” releasing pretty much all the data analysts, investors, regulators and journalists were used to perusing.

The test of that will come in late July or early August when, Henderson said, the newly-restructured company will issue its second-quarter results.  It might not have all the footnotes and other minutiae of a traditional 10Q report, the executive concluded, but he promised, “it will be enough for people to understand how we performed.”