Interior center stack of the upcoming Tesla S:

Tesla is Elon Musk’s company that currently makes the little electric sports car. He also started/runs SpaceX. His company is the first private U.S. rocket company to send a payload into orbit. Their Dragon capsule can either deliver cargo or be outfitted to accomodate up to 7 astronauts and is scheduled to have a close rendezvous with the International Space Station before the end of this year.

All of the science fiction from my youth had space being conquered/developed by private enterprise. Governments militarize it — the private sector makes it pay.

Musk was the co-founder of PayPal and got his mega-hundred-millions when PP was sold to Ebay. He’s now a automotive manufacturer and a space pioneer . . . not a bad way to redistribute his own wealth by creating companies, creating high-tech jobs — paying it forward to better humanity, and I’m sure, hoping to make a few billion bucks in the process.

What is it about this that Progressives just can’t manage to understand?

Each AM my little schnoodle, Missy, and I go on at least a mile walk, 2-3 miles on the weekends. Every once in a while we run across something interesting, an old classic car from the 30′s say, or a rare exotic. Today we walked past a white vehicle and at first I thought it was a BMW X6, although that wasn’t right — almost as ugly and ill proportioned from the rear, though. Then it hit me — no emblems, none, nada — not even inside. Manufacturer plates even. Here was a new vehicle from who knows what maker. I don’t have a clue, maybe you do?

© 2009 OkieontheLam.com — Image usage OK with link back to this page.

© 2009 OkieontheLam.com — Image usage OK with link back to this page.

© 2009 OkieontheLam.com — Image usage OK with link back to this page.

What you see here is the 2009 model year Corvette ZR1, a monster of a supercar that will be the first $100,000 Chevy. However, from the specs and performance envelope, it will be well worth the bucks and undoubtedly will be the most performance for the dollar from anyone. It all came about due to the General’s CEO Rick Wagoner, upon seeing the current Z06 Vette, asking something like, “Gee, if you guys can do this for 60 grand, wonder what you could do for 100K? Asked and answered! Motor Trend reported that it would have 620 plus horsepower and at least 600 lb/ft of asphalt buckling torque.

Now, if you are a motor-head like yours truly, you’ve known about this amazing sports car for awhile. So, why the post ‘Okie’? Because I read something that Mark Tapscott wrote last Wednesday about a statement made by Marge Oge, director of the EPA’s office of transportation and air quality. She said the following: “We must bring about an end to the horsepower arms race among auto makers and replace it with another different kind of a race, a race to produce the most affordable and desirable, low carbon-vehicle each year.”

Mark makes a great case for ol’ Marge here being a royal example of an inside the beltway blithering idiot, and out of tough car-hating liberal, someone that has no idea whatsoever about how supply-and-demand controls markets and merchandise availability. Read the whole thing. I sure like his finishing statement, especially the last sentence in light of Super Tuesday being less than 48 hours away.

Maybe Oge is just jealous that other people are having so much fun driving their powerful cars (or watching them being raced at places like Daytona and Indy). It’s that same old familiar Puritan/liberal fear that somewhere, somehow, somebody might be enjoying themselves too much, so the government must step in and “fix the problem.”

Interesting, isn’t it, that we trust the wisdom of crowds when it is expressed politically via free elections, but not when it is expressed economically via free markets.

The Left hates free markets, come to think of it, they don’t much like real free speech either. But hey, back to the fun stuff! Fast Lane Daily caught this monster’s development mule out in the wild!

That’ll give those ol’ Puritan/liberals areason to be afeared! Sweet!

Enjoy.

Technorati Tags: Corvette ZR1, Marge Oge

Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time (thanks Glenn, Norma, ???) knows that this ol’ Okie might have finally been convinced our climate is warming — slightly — but I don’t believe for a second that it’s mankind-caused. I certainly can’t stomach ol’ Big Al Gore’s nightmare scenarios, although they did make a trippy Hollywood disaster flick. But I am afraid that the time for reason and common sense over Global Warming is “over” now that all the GOP primary candidates are giving it lip service, with McCain gobbling up Gore’s madness whole hog — not to even mention that industry is buying in big, not so much because they actually believe the B.S., but makin’ a buck is makin’ a buck. The visionaries are seeing the next great technology bubble here, and if it creates a lot of great-paying jobs and delivers a cleaner planet, more power to ‘em I say. But the downside is that Liberals, especially the far-Lefties, are always looking for more reasons to “tax & spend” the way they see fit, always looking for more and more ways to implement governmental-controls on both individuals and businesses. Which brings me to Bill Clinton’s comments while out on the stump for Hillary.

“We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.”

He may not have meant what he actually said, remember, this is the guy that parses the meaning of “is” when that’s convenient or necessary, so I could easily be convinced to give him the benefit of the doubt, ’cause that’s not a smart statement to make when one of the biggest campaign issues is the current (perceived) economic slowdown, with the White House and the Congress tripping over their own Johnsons to borrow funds and distribute them to the populace pronto. Bill then went on to say this:

If you want that in America, if you want the millions of jobs that will come from it, if you would like to see a new energy trust fund to finance solar energy and wind energy and biomass and responsible bio-fuels and electric hybrid plug-in vehicles that will soon get 100 miles a gallon, if you want every facility in this country to be made maximally energy efficient that will create millions and millions and millions of jobs, vote for her. She’ll give it to you. She’s got the right energy plan.”

Right, Bill — we gotta wait for a Billary White House before any of that is gonna happen. I don’t think so! And that brings me to the vehicle that you see here — the Chevrolet Volt concept which is going to be a true “plug-in” hybrid not from an Asian manufacturer, but from our very own domestic auto-making leader, General Motors.

The March ’08 issue of Motor Trend magazine says this:

Officially, the Volt isn’t yet approved for production, but the E-Flex platform now has its own studio, with 45 engineers, designers, and techs beavering away on this “concept”.
{…}
Work also is underway to develop future battery-electric and fuel-cell-hybrid variants of the E-Flex system, which — if approved for production — should arrive in early 2010.

If you care about the domestic automobile industry, that’s great news. If you don’t, you’re probably a Democrat. If you are far-Left you hate automobiles, period, as they grant to the common man far too much mobility for your comfort and mercy, “you might just get hurt in one, peace out, dude.”

Development of technologies like a plug-in hybrid is expensive, and a Chevy needs to be a Chevy priced like a Chevy, unless it’s a ‘Vette, so what’s the General to do to cover all that upfront cost? Pump up the volume with a hybrid Caddy, that’s what!

This is the Cadillac Provoq “concept” revealed at this year’s Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago and it’s a beaut! It’s “a 4 door crossover concept, which uses the E-Flex platform with a hydrogen fuel-cell range extender.” See all the specs at the link above, and realize that this is a glimpse at a very real Caddy coming to a dealer near you late in ’09 built on the “premium-Theta” platform and powered most likely by the 3.6 liter gas-direction-V6 until the hydrogen-fuel-cell drive train is ready.

That’s the difference between industry and politicians. Bill & Hillary bloviate about passing laws to “force” the automakers to make fuel-efficient, alternate-fuel vehicles sometime after she gets in the White House. GM, Toyota, BMW, Chrysler and others are making it happen already — ’cause Toyota has shown the world that a Prius is green in the way that really matters — sales dollars!

Still, creating entire industries based on a lot of imaginary “hot air” seems like a fool’s errand. Guess at this point in time we haven’t many options left except to wait it all out and see. All one can know for sure is that it’s gonna be EXPENSIVE! That you can take to the bank . . .

Technorati Tags: Global Warming, Chevrolet Volt, General Motors, Cadillac Provoq, Bill & Hillary, GM

All I can say about how I felt after leaving the 2007 Los Angeles Auto Show last night was, “At least I wasn’t as bummed as last year,” but let me tell ya, that don’t mean all that much. Perhaps it’s because it now comes too close on the heels of the SEMA show that we just got back from a couple of weeks ago, perhaps it’s because all the latest/greatest show cars go to Detroit in January, perhaps it’s because even though the LA auto market is the largest in the US, historically LA has always sucked hind tit, auto show wise. And perhaps, this year it has a lot to do with the automakers trying so very hard to prove how “GREEN” they are, with hybrids galore . . . yawn.

Not that this o’l Okie isn’t feelin’ the pain of mid-three-dollar-a-gallon gasoline coupled with a 9.5-in-town-mpg average for the Envoy — why???? (Must be that over-5,000 lb GVW, huh?) At least it holds a lot o’ stuff, when lots o’ stuff needs holdin’! I tell myself “I should have had a V8!”, with cylinder deactivation — but that model wasn’t available at the time. Ah, progress . . . cruelly throwing up in your face what you wish you could have had when you got what you got. That’s called capitalistic-consumerism, son — what makes the American economy grand. At least until we run out of credit, out of oil, or someone convinces us that we are going to suffer obliteration of life as we know it if we don’t all get together en mass and “GO GREEN!” — gotta save the planet Broh, ya know. For Chrissakes, Porsche had a hybrid Cayenne at the show — with a cute little “smiley face” front fascia they must have contracted out to the Toyota Prius designer. Sheesh! (No, I didn’t take a pic of that one, couldn’t bear it.)

When the five of us go to the show, it’s a dog pack mentality. Our alpha lead dog got a bit worked up and asked where do these wacko do-gooders think all the electricity is gonna come from if our Governator and his ilk finally force all of us into an Electric Car future? I said, the power grid, and we all laughed. Out here in good ol’ CA we have seasons when we face the specter of brown, or blackouts on a daily basis. Can’t imagine what it will be like with a few million plug-in-hybrids all pluggin’ in at once — just to top off the ol’ battery pack at work for the ride home, don’t ya know. I also wonder how much screaming and wailing over the monthly electric bill we’ll hear. All you need out here is a computer on most of the day and a big-screen TV on in the eve. to bump you way past the baseline allotment into the Oh-My-Gosh! over-baseline rates. Slammin’ a few more kWh per day into lil’ Sparky’s gonna turn some folks’ hair pure white, mark my word. Of course, if ol’ Hugo Chavez and ol’ Mahmoud have their way, the cost of gas will be so high, obscene electric bills will seem like a blessing in comparison.

You might think that I’m biased against electric cars, but that’s not the case. I get a little tingly when I see a Tesla, although for 100-large a lot of big luxury sedans begin singing out their siren song to me — can you say Audi S8? Sigh. GM’s The Electric Car was cute in its own way — I loved the commercials — but a ridiculous 20-30 mile range made it the toy of the likes of Ed Begley and Co. All those whiners and protesters when GM actually did what they said they would do, not renew the leases and destroyed the cars. That was a big development program, not a real production scenario, regardless of the Enviro-weenies’ protestations otherwise.

In our pack of five, I was the only one that spent a little quality time with the Chevy Volt show car. It debuted at the Detroit show last January and had a prominent display here in LA. Telling was the fact that I was the only one standing there looking at it — really, everyone was walking by without a cursory glance. Some “GREEN” crowd there last night, huh? It is neat. If they get the battery pack right, I’d consider one — as long as it “goes like stink!” That’s important. Just ask those Tesla folk about that.

Mazda Design Challenge Winning Sketch

One of the trippiest exhibits was Mazda’s. They held The Mazda Design Challenge as a way to showcase concepts for the 2018 version of the Mazda 3 with the winner being Mallory McMorrow from South Bend, IN, an industrial design student from the University of Notre Dame. The Mazda research CA group was turning Mallory’s design into a full size clay model at the show and it’s supposed to be finished by this coming Saturday. It’s a good thing for the average Joe and Jill to see what’s involved with bringing those masses of metal, rubber and glass they wash and polish on the weekends to life. What I never find less than flabbergasting is with all the time and trouble it takes to conceive, design & engineer a car or truck, why there are so many mediocre ones green-lighted for production.

I’m gonna take an ol’ ex-wife’s great-grandmothers advice now and “Quit my bitchin’!”

Here are a few more randomly sorted 2007 LA Auto Show pics for your enjoyment.

Scion Exhibit — Looks like a set of Matchbox cars, doesn’t it?

Honda’s new hydrogen fuel cell powered car — for a few lucky leasees at $600/month, ins. included!

One of a trio of mini-Chevys coming to a dealership near you . . .

Another mini-Chevy!

One last mini-Chevy!

The new Audi A5 coupe in gorgeous brilliant white!

The wheel for the A5 — one of the nicest wheels I’ve seen in years — on an Audi!!!???

The Aston Martin V8 Vantage convertible, just because it looks so darn good!

Ferrari Carrozzeria Scaglietti — what’s an auto show without a Ferrari?

Shoot, what’s an auto show without a million-dollar Lamborghini?

We’ll finish out the Italians with the new Maserati Coupé.

Hyundai shows that it’s deadly serious about future models with this concept Coupé.

New Nissan GT-R detail — that’s some interesting form development goin’ on there!

The view most will see of the new GT-R!

Chrysler Nassau showcar — a bit odd, but interesting nonetheless.

Most current Chrysler owners probably wish that their cars interiors were this nice.

Another view of the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid concept — supposedly in production by 2010-2012. We’ll see.

Some serious GoFast! from the Porsche folks! The GT2.

Once again, the most common view of this one!

Mitsubishi tries to prove that “It’s not dead, yet!”

That’s an aggressive maw for a little car — but it worked for me.

Gotta love the Dutch and their Spykers! These cars are proof of what can be accomplished in a county that has legalized pot.

Finally, I’ll end with this engine bay shot of the new Cadillac CTS. Inside & out & underneath the hood, probably the best American car in production at this time. Looks like the designers sure had fun in the engine bay! Dig that lovely brushed alloy shock-tower brace. It was made from a tapered extrusion and terminated on both ends with some beefy castings. Impressive!

There’s nothing like spending 5 days, 4 nights in Vegas, walking a couple of miles of trade show exhibits a day, waiting in cab lines, eating tons of food late, going to bed later and getting up early to bend your mind a bit. I guess a lot of the committed bloggers will be doing just that this coming weekend at BlogWorldExpo, but yours truly had his share starting last Sun. and going through the better part of this last week. Yep, Okie went to the 2007 SEMA Show — the premiere automotive aftermarket trade show. Boy, is it ever big! This year I was there representing an exhibitor as their exhibit designer, and also as a buyer for a couple of retail automotive websites.

Airforce One Performance at 2007 SEMA Show

The company exhibiting at the show is Airforce One Performance, an intake manufacturer out in Canyon Country. The fates were with us as the Santa Clarita fires came as close as a block to where their facilities are located and where the exhibit was being finished. Whew!

What’s crazy is how much the finished booth actually looked like the original sketch. The craftsmen at AF1 really stepped up to the plate and hit a home run with this! The framework was made of 3-inch stainless steel tubing, then highly polished. Black carpeted and blue filter-media panels allowed the polished stainless of the products to really shine, while an LCD monitor provided the main signage — a trick that caught the eye from many rows away.

While SEMA is supposed to be all about the aftermarket, when you’ve been going there since ’89 it starts to feel like when you’ve seen one new muffler, you’ve seen them all. So, I’ll post a few interesting pics of some upcoming vehicles for ya. Like this 2009 Camaro gallery. Can’t wait for this beauty to hit the streets!

GM also showed a customized 2008 Pontiac G8, the new rear-wheel-drive sedan coming out soon — based on the new Zeta platform from GM’s Holden division in Australia. Sweet!

The next series of shots is of a vehicle that I had never seen before, not even in pictures. It’s Pininfarina’s 1963 Corvette Concept. It caught my eye and I knew at once that it was a 60′s Italian job, but man, is that fine or is that fine? It will be sold at no reserve during the 37th Annual Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Event on Jan. 12-20, 2008, in Scottsdale, Ariz. so if that’s your thing, bring a Suburban load o’ cash to the auction and go get it!

And then, just to wrap up for now, you always stumble onto a really trick paint job or two, or three, or . . .

Enough of this already Okie! Enough! See, not everything that happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!

[An ongoing rant-series about those confusing science with religion, their methods & methodology as well as their "toys".]

“Hey, check it out. There’s one, on your right . . . another behind us . . . two parked on the opposite side of the street. Shoot! Now we’ve got gray ones on either side of us — We’re caught in a Prius sandwich!!!” Arrrrrgh!

“Enough already”, coming from the Amazing SoCal wife. “Give it a rest why don’t ya! Why do those cars bug you so much anyway?”

Good question. Must be something to do with seeing nearly a dozen and a half of the ugly little, er, ah, mis-proportioned smiley-faced pieces of, er, ah . . . actually, it’s not the vehicles so much (in a weird mongrel-pup sort of way, they’re kinda cute) so it must be the drivers. You see, every time I see a cadre of these hybridized paeans to “global climate awareness”, it’s a very real slap up the side of the head with a metaphorical tire tool that says, “Damn, ‘Okie’ — you be lammin’ it in the Land o’ the Lefty!”

Of course, I already knew that.

After my little bout of Prius overload, I dutifully accompanied Amazing SoCal wife to Chico’s where I sat and read whatever flotsam they have for men to digest while their significant others shop. Yesterday, said flotsam was The Argonaut, newspaper to the beach communities. What immediately caught my eye was this story, Venice ‘Virtual Town Hall’ joined 1,300 others in ‘Parties for the Planet’.

Venice, long known as a place where a good time is just around the corner, mixed a festive summertime atmosphere with political activism as local residents participated in a “Virtual Town Hall” on recent adverse changes to the environment Saturday, July 7th .

“Parties for the Planet,” sponsored by the political action group MoveOn.org, featured several of the 2008 Presidential candidates, who appeared via video to discuss their respective positions on climate change. Members of the political action group had previously provided each candidate with a list of questions asking them to explain their positions on global warming and, as President, what approach to this important topic they would consider implementing.

“We’re trying to organize our neighborhoods into political pockets so that people can get more involved in saving our planet,” said Heidi Mylo, a MoveOn.org member who hosted the Venice party at her home on Penmar Avenue in Venice. “It will also give us a chance to introduce ourselves to them.”

Maraya Cornell, a co-organizer of the Venice fest with Mylo, was attracted to the event because she believes that global warming is one of the most pressing social predicaments of the 21st century.

“The reason why I got involved now as opposed to earlier is that this town hall is about climate change, which is a big issue with me, the thing that I’m most passionate about,” Cornell explained. “For a long time, I’ve been very frustrated with the way that our government has been ignoring climate change, and I decided to do something about it instead of just complaining.”

As I’ve stated many times before, it looks like our climate may indeed be changing for the warmer, but the evidence that the actions of mankind has any significant effect on this change is, at best, weak to fallacious. As for the Global Warming Alarmist Dr. Jeremey Pal’s statements quoted in the Argonaut article, there appears to be a “theory” with a much tighter fit to the collected data than blaming temperature extremes on changes in greenhouse gases, (FYI — the predominant greenhouse gas being water vapor by a large margin, not CO2, which they are so fanatically worried about.) But, if one accepts the premise that our sun and its effect on Earth’s bombardment from cosmic rays is more likely the primary driver of climate change, you can’t play the Left’s hold card of tax, Tax, TAX — spend, Spend, SPEND in support of those “scientists” that tow the anthropogenic-climate-change-consensus standard line.

I’d loved to have been able to poke my head in Heidi Mylo’s front door and shout, “Hey, somebody’s jackin’ a Prius out here!” Bet that would have cleared the room.

Prius drivers, seemingly lost in their own little worlds of moral superiority (’cause, they ARE savin’ the planet you know) manifest those feelings via odd, if not erratic driving styles. Not quite as inebriated-like as someone driving while using a phone, but close. Maybe it has to do with the absolutely-silly state-of-California traffic code provision that allows these vehicles, if properly stickered, to travel with a solo driver in the car-pool lanes. Give someone the right to break, flaunt actually, a major traffic law, and they might just get the idea that traffic laws and driving etiquette are only for the rest of the unwashed-carbon-emitting fuel-wasters, not for them — those valiant knights & ladies of the Holy Order of the Global Warming Alarmists. And, it’s not just on this side of the pond. According to a March ’07 piece, ” Who are you kidding?” on the Telegraph.com.UK:

Uniquely for a mainstream motoring publication, Telegraph Motoring gives a lot of coverage to environmental issues and technology, which is one of the reasons I offered my May 26 list of green cars in the first place. Although we rightly review every car on sale we don’t applaud those that are excessively large or thirsty, and we certainly don’t criticise people for wanting to do their bit for the environment (indeed, when it comes to reader responses to Sir John Whitmore’s monthly columns, the boot is often on the other foot). Nevertheless, the unbearable smugness of some Toyota Prius owners presents a tempting target. Quick to point the finger at others, some use their Prius as public proof of a caring and moral “lifestyle” and put the moan into sanctimonious, as I have discovered in recent weeks.

The owners

However much fuel it does or doesn’t save, the Toyota Prius has become a byword for fatuous lip-service to environmentalism, be it from those seeking to profit from popular green credentials – preening celebrities waving their Prius ignition keys in front of the media, or the likes of David Cameron and Ken Livingstone giving another cynical photo opportunity to a car whose success has been virtually guaranteed with public money – or private individuals who simply hate anyone criticising their choice of car (especially if it cost them £18,000). Such attitudes are more about self-promotion than saving the planet and are echoed by Toyota and Lexus hybrid advertising, which in the past month has been found to be (respectively) “misleading” and “untruthful” by the Advertising Standards Authority.

We know the Prius is a pretty remarkable vehicle, but it doesn’t drive on water and it isn’t the complete answer to global CO2 emissions. If you’ve got a Prius, fine, but please spare the rest of us your pious condescension.

It’s not hybrid technology itself that irritates me so much, although I was concerned about the future-owners’ out-of-pocket costs for NiMH (nickel metal hydride) battery pack replacement and the ultimate inevitability of disposal. Toyota has been addressing this for quite a while, and claims that their hybrid batteries are designed to last the “lifetime” of the vehicles, citing lab tests of 180,000 miles with no deterioration of the battery evident. They also cite the rapidly falling costs of these batteries as more are made in ever larger quantities — about what would be expected as any new technology starts going mainstream. Funny, Toyota is strangely mum about the environmental impact of their manufacture . . . but goes out of its way to encourage recycling of these batteries with a $200 bounty on each one, claiming that their battery packs are 100% recyclable, which is a good thing. NiMH batteries aren’t even considered hazardous waste, like NiCads, and can be disposed of in the standard municipal waste systems, except for in CA, where recycling is strongly encouraged for all, mandatory for non-household enterprises.

And, I do have to admit — my automotive techno-slutometer gets pegged whenever I see an LS 600h!

The LS 600h L uses a 5.0-liter V8 mated to a hybrid drive system to deliver a total of 438 hp and mileage in the low 20s. Like the Prius, the longest Lexus can operate solely on electric power at low speeds for short periods of time. And, Lexus has developed a new hydrocarbon absorber to further decrease emissions. With or without the gas engine running, it’s eerily quiet and mightily comfortable, and it comes with advanced technologies, including LED headlights, pedestrian recognition warning and a driver facial monitoring system. The LS 600h L might just be the most advanced sedan in the world.

V-12 power with V-6 mileage — that’s what I’m talkin’ about! Not to mention, all the toys . . .

So, it just gets back to the drivers. It’ll be interesting to see how many of these little greeblies start sporting Hillary/Obama, Edwards/Obama, Obama/Kucinich bumper stickers, or whatever slate that MoveOn.org manages to squeeze out of the Democrats in this primary-election cycle. Suffice it to say, they’ll have a big surprise comin’ if they bring them in at end-of-lease with wall-to-wall nuttiness plastered all over their oddly-proportioned rumps. The Prius’ rumps, not the nutters — Heh!

The Toyota Prius is fast becoming the VW van, or ’60s Volvo wagon of the 21st Century. What I mean is that it’s the protest vehicle of choice for the “greenies” and “warmies” among us, and if my little outing this AM means anything — there’s a real load o’ them out there!

Consider this. I took the SoCal wife to the doc today and as we were leaving the parking structure I decided to play a little game — count the Priuses, (the prii?) Anyway, by the time we left the parking the count stood at four. I was guessing double figures before the trip was over. By the time I had dropped her off at her office and returned to the studio, a total trip of 16-18 blocks, I had counted sixteen (16!) of the weirdly proportioned little cars-from-Mars. Come to think of it, if you count the one we saw from the first version (really-really ugly!!!), it’s 17. These are on-the-street owned/leased vehicles, not a row of them on a dealer’s lot.

Nice to know that my neighbors are being so considerate and covering my ample carbon-footprint with their slavish environmentalism. It’ll make me feel better when I finally score a 6.2L GTO on Ebay! Let’s face it, 90% of these guys will never own/lease their Prius long enough for the mileage benefits to cover the extra cost of the vehicle’s hybrid components, let alone the wailing and pissing if they ever have to buy a replacement battery pack!

Of course the downside is all the Hillary/Obama stickers that are gonna appear like zits on a crack addict come this time next year. Guess I’ll have to take out an extra insurance rider for extreme vandalism and put that GOP sticker on my ride this time. If you think I’m kidding about the insurance, I’m not. Liberals out here in SoCal are very open minded, as long as you agree with them about — everything!

Shoot . . . wait, don’t — I’m a marked man.

Technorati Tags: Toyota Prius

See more photos at the BuriedCar.com photo gallery.Last October I wrote about the 1957 Tulsarama “buried car”, a new ’57 Plymouth Belvedere that was placed in a vault along with some leaded gas, oil, and memorabilia — which was to be exhumed exactly 50 years later and given away to the person, or their heirs, who had most accurately predicted the city’s population 50 years hence.

On June 15, 2007 (next summer) a “new” 1957 Plymouth Belvedere Sport Coupe will once again see the light of day. It has been buried in a time capsule since that very date in 1957. A friend of mine just sent me a link to this story.

They had actually expected the contest winner, or their heir(s) to put the key in the ignition, fire up the ol’ tank and drive it away. A good time was to be had by all.

Expectations — they’ll get ya every time.

Uggggh! What a difference 50-years makes, huh? ‘Course, 50 years ago I was a mere sprout of five and fifty years later I’m sure ‘nough a bit rusty on the outside — and inside as well. But really now, this much deterioration was not expected. As the LA Times reports:

Wide-eyed dreamers from throughout the world came here Friday to see the gleaming gold-and-white Plymouth Belvedere — buried decades ago in a time capsule as a publicity stunt.

What they saw was a waterlogged mass of metal with tailfins, shrouded in a patina of rust.

{…}

Alas, the concrete block was not so impregnable. When Hazmat crews cracked it open Wednesday, they discovered nearly 2,000 gallons of standing water. Devastated, Sharon King Davis, Tulsarama’s chief organizer, cried on the spot.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us,” Boyd Coddington, car builder and star of the “American Hot Rod” TV show, said Friday when prompted to grab a microphone and offer an assessment of the fabled “Ms. Belvedere.” “It don’t look good.”

See more photos at the BuriedCar.com photo gallery.No, Boyd, it sure don’t look good, not good at all! But honestly, that’s beside the point. What this stunt was all about 50 years ago was to promote the city of Tulsa during the state’s 50th anniversary, as Oklahoma City was getting all the attention. In Oct. I wrote:

The TulsaRama website describes the intent of this burial, which was a way for Tulsa to one-up Oklahoma City in their continuing feud to be Oklahoma’s best city. At the time, Tulsa had the highest car ownership per capita of any city in the U.S., except for Los Angeles, so they decided that a “car” event was a natural.

My adopted region, the Los Angeles basin, probably has good ol’ Tulsa beat for “highest car ownership per capita” by many times over — geez, there’s a lot of those 4-wheeled suckers out here, (and all of them seem to be on the 405 when I’m tryin’ to get somewhere!)

Not any words of wisdom comin’ to mind this AM — been a rough, stressful week here at Okie Manor. But here, like with the time capsule contents entombed with the Belvedere, not everything has gone completely to you-know-what. Be sure and check out the photo gallery at the Buried Car website, some are quite fun, all are interesting. And, don’t feel so bad for whoever finally is found to be the “winner” of the ’57 lump o’ rust. As the LA Times writes:

Despite its condition, the Belvedere is still worth a mint. Collectors eager to obtain a piece of Americana are rumored to be offering hundreds of thousands of dollars for it.

Gary Trent, 60, was 10 when he saw the grown-ups burying the Belvedere. He wanted a part of history too, so he picked up a shell casing and threw it into the tomb when no one was looking.

He was hoping to find that casing Friday. But the dig was never about any artifact, he pointed out, not even the Belvedere. The real star was supposed to be Tulsa.

“I know it sounds a little corny, but Oklahoma is going to be just fine,” Trent said, laughing. “This is a great state, and thanks to this little car, a whole lot of people have just seen it.”

The only thing I know for sure is that if they dig me up after I’ve been buried for 50 years, I won’t be lookin’ anywhere near this good!

See more photos at the
BuriedCar.com photo gallery.

Technorati Tags: BuriedCar.com, ’57 Plymouth Belvedere, Boyd Coddington, TulsaRama, Tulsa

Mega-performance is about to hit the Cadillac brand — and I’m talkin’ MEGA as in all caps! But first . . .

Jump with me into the wayback machine alllllllll the way back to 1970 or so. Although we didn’t know it at the time, it was the end of an era — the Muscle Car Era. You could go down to you local big-three dealer and pick from a plethora of mega-motored beasts of machines like a Chevy SS 454 Malibu or El Camino, a Pontiac GTO Judge with Ram-Air IV, or an Olds 442 HO or a Buick Stage-1 GS, all with mid-400 cubic inch displacements, not to mention the Dodge/Plymouth Chargers, Challengers, Road Runners and Cudas with 440 Six Packs or even the awesome 426 Hemis. Even little old American Motors had its biggest motors stuffed in the Rambler American model called the SCrambler and a mid-sized one called the Rebel Machine. Ford had its Boss 429 Mustangs and Cobra Jet Torinos. Good times could be had by all!

What was supposed to come next made these pale in comparison. In a long-ago-forgotten 1970 car mag, or maybe Popular Science or Popular Mechanics(I Googled around a bit this AM but couldn’t find anything) I remember reading about the next generation of mega-motors that GM had planned for its upcoming generation of mid-sizers, (now come to think of it I believe it was a Hot Rod issue), all with aluminum blocks, humongous displacements and dual-overhead cams! It looked like GM was gonna slaughter ‘em all in the horse-power war, and then — it happened. The muscle cars died out almost without a whimper.

What caused their demise is well documented as stated in this article in Wikipedia:

The muscle cars’ performance soon became a liability during this period. The automotive safety lobby, which had been spearheaded by Ralph Nader, decried the irresponsibility of offering such powerful cars for public sale, particularly targeted to young buyers. The high power of the muscle cars also underlined the marginal handling and braking capacity of many contemporary cars, as well as the severe limitations of their tires. In response, the automobile insurance industry began levying punitive surcharges on all high-powered models, soon pushing many muscle cars out of the price range of their intended buyers. Simultaneously, efforts to combat air pollution led to a shift in Detroit’s attention from power to emissions control, a problem that grew more complicated in 1973 when the OPEC oil embargo led to price controls and gasoline rationing.

With all these forces against it, the market for muscle cars rapidly evaporated. Power began to drop in 1971 as engine compression ratios were reduced, high-performance engines like Chrysler’s 426 Hemi were discontinued, and all but a handful of performance models were discontinued or transformed into soft personal luxury cars.

OK Okie, that was then and this is now — what’s up with that Caddy you mentioned at the beginning?

Well, since you asked nice and all . . . the next generation Cadillac CTS is gonna be a beaut, which I’ve written about before: Caddy Hammers a Homer for ‘08. That’s a pic of the standard model CTS. In this month’s Motor Trend they break the news that the ’09 CTS-V, see pic here, will have 600-supercharged horsepower! 600! That’s off the charts more than the Germans’ BMW M5, Audi S models and even a good bit higher than the Merc’s AMG V-8 models. Talk about another horsepower war. The even more radical news is that this Caddy’s 6.2 liter motor is a detuned version of the mill going into the next Z07 Corvette, which will have 700+ hp. That one should be a snake killer!

But, once again the writings are appearing on the walls of reason, good sense, whatever. As we seem to be hitting another performance zenith, made possible by sophisticated computer engine management and the migration of exotic materials like carbon-fiber, magnesium and multi-material composites into our daily drivers, the forces of government and buzz-killers everywhere are lining up to once again force us into bland, pathetic little commuting boxes with nary a fun, smoky burnout in sight. The global warming hysterics are blaming cars for their nightmare scenario of planetary destruction, the safety-advocates have never really gone away and are looking forward to a Clinton White House where they can run amok in their attempts to destroy one of the last U.S. manufacturing entities via oppressive regulation. We’ve been down that road before, too.

So Okie, who really needs a 600-hp Caddy? Uh, no one? Actually, maybe we all do. For an American automotive company to devote the engineering resources necessary to put that mill in a Cadillac that will come with a 10-year, 100,000-mile power train warranty speaks mightily of the turnaround happening at General Motors. Their vehicles’ quality is going up dramatically as shown by the consumer ratings increases, they used to be at the bottom of the barrel, not competing with Audi, Acura and BMW. But, they still have a ways to go to be in the Lexus/Toyota/Honda league. Exercises like the V-series Caddys can help with that. A body structure that can handle those power numbers should be golden with the 300-hp V-6, which is a super-sweet little motor in its own right.

Now, if 35 mpg CAFE can be thwarted, we might get to enjoy these super-toys for a bit longer. However, those corporate-fuel-economy mandates and 600+ horsepower are pretty much mutually exclusive. Gotta sell a boatload of Cobalts or Saturn Green line hybrids to counter one ’09 CTS-V, that’s for sure.

It really does matter who you vote for — on a whole lot o’ levels!

[Cross-posted at Hot Wheels Blog]

Technorati Tags: Cadillac, Muscle Car Era, CTS-V, Z07 Corvette

Deep from the fever swamp of the Holy Order of Global Warming Hysterics comes the following proposed legislation from the California State Assembly — Hey, let’s TAX the buyers of SUVs and pickup trucks up to $2,500, and then let’s play Robin Hood and give that booty to the buyers of Prius hybrids and other high-mileage vehicles.

Yup! You read that one right, or should I say “left”. This little ditty was introduced last week by Assemblyman Ira Ruskin (D-Redwood City — that’s up north, natch.) According to the LA Times this AM:

The proposed “clean-car discount” — which would be the first law of its kind in the nation — would enlist car buyers in the fight against global warming by offering them a one-time bonus on cars the state identifies as environmentally friendly.

“It makes sense to give a financial incentive since most people just respond to their wallet,” said shopkeeper Mary Ann McDonald in Sacramento. “If you make a practical vehicle more available, people will buy it.”
(…)
Giving rebates to clean-car buyers would be an easy way to fight global warming, contends the Cambridge, Mass.-based Union of Concerned Scientists, the principal backer of Ruskin’s bill.

Great, now we’ve got Lefties from Massachusetts tryin’ to out lefty our own home grown CA Lefties! Of course, if you sat through that almost terminally-boring Academy Awards show last night and saw the look of beatification on the faces of way too many in that Hollyweird crowd when Al Gore got up on stage for the Oscar given to his “inconvenient” little flick, you know that we got uber-Lefties out here in droves — and everyone of them is almost as terrified of the Global Warming monster as they are of someone standing 100 ft. away from them puffin’ on a fag . . . almost!

As proposed, the discount would take effect with new cars in the 2011 model year. Ruskin’s bill specifies that the program would be “self-financing” with no outlays required by the state.

The level of rebates and surcharges would be based on state calculations of carbon emissions, and the amount of surcharges and rebates would range from $100 to $2,500.

Based on current emissions, the concerned scientists’ group estimates, about 50% of new vehicles would receive a rebate of some kind, about 30% would face a surcharge and the rest would get neither.

Our hybird drivers out here are already a vindictive little lot, and conduct themselves with an air of moral superiority that is frightening — not to mention that they get the right to drive in the carpool lanes with only a single driver on board. That really does a lot of good — cause those “cars-from-Mars” as I call the ugly buggers are not operating at their peak efficiencies at freeway speeds — they only get that fantastic mileage in stop-n-go situations where regenerative braking in involved. A hyper-efficient diesel is a much better highway vehicle, but the CA Air Resources Board has a beef with those as Dan Neil recounts in his weekly column last Wed.

[W]e have the California Air Resources Board, a bunch of bureaucratic do-gooders who actually do good when they’re not screwing up royally. Thanks to the air board, California (and four Northeastern states that just have to copy the cool kids, shuh) have adopted the EPA’s super-strict Tier II, Bin 5 emission standard two years before the rest of the country, which just adopted the less strict though still formidable Bin 8 standard. California has Bin there, done that.

Consequently, Californians will not be able to buy our test car, the 2007 Mercedes-Benz E320 Bluetec, the only legal diesel passenger car sold in the United States this model year, despite the fact that:

A) A Bin-8 compliant diesel is clean enough to eat (check out my bagel-in-the-tailpipe video on latimes.com/lawheels);

B) The Bluetec E-class gets 26 miles per gallon city/37 mpg highway, an astonishing 45% better fuel economy than the gas-powered E350, with commensurate reduction in greenhouse-gas emission; and

C) Affluent SoCal liberals would love to buy a fine German automobile that didn’t make them feel like a fine German war criminal.

So, let’s review. Out here in La La Land a sedan that gets “37 mpg highway, an astonishing 45% better fuel economy than the gas-powered” version, with all the reduction in carbon dioxide that accompanies such a mileage increase, and with exhaust that is “clean enough to eat” can’t be sold here because it’s still not clean enough for CARB. However, some of our lawmakers want to add extra fees on top of insanely high CA gasoline prices and the existing Federal gas-guzzler tax, and give those $$$ to those that are dabbling in the hybrid buying frenzy — a market that is already heavily subsidized with our tax dollars in the form of federal tax incentives.

Yep, just another Lefty redistribute the wealth scheme — plus your very own chance to save the planet . . . Ahem. Just not one that is gonna take from the rich and give to the poor — possibly a lot more the other way around on this one. Don’t ya just love granola? It’ll make such a great snack for that lounging on the tropical beaches of Anchorage, AK. (db)

Technorati Tags: California State Assembly, CA Assemblyman Ira Ruskin, Global Warming, Union of Concerned Scientists, Clean Car Discount

OK, a quick break from politics and cultural degradation for a minute, ’cause the production debut of Cadillac’s next generation CTS will be on display at the Chicago Auto Show starting this Friday. This vehicle, in my opinion, is one lean-mean-exciting machine! And yeah, it’s a Cadillac! Motor Trend has a particularly nice photo gallery showing all the unique design details that make this new Caddy extra special, from the new grille inspired by the Cadillac Sixteen show car from a few years back to panel stamping difficulty and precision never before attempted by the General — and they not only did it, they did it real-good!

A wider track, with wheels pushed out flush with the tautly-bulging wheelwells, positive/negative sculpting on the hood that would do a Bangle-Bimmer proud, plus a new direct-injection version of the corporate hi-feature V6 that pumps out 300 naturally-aspirated horsepower and once again, suspension development at the awesome Nrburgring Nordschliefe, all show that Caddy is truly in the hunt for the Germans.

Better yet, this time the CTS doesn’t leave all the good stuff behind when you climb behind the wheel. The current model is highly sculpted inside and a bit too avant garde with a confusing selection of material textures that don’t feel right, but this new CTS looks luscious. Cadillac is using a new manufacturing technique that utilizes hand-crafted components which have a distinctive custom look and that allow for much tighter tolerances, giving the ambiance of a “master-crafted”, instead of manufactured, interior.

There’s much to like, even love, here in this new CTS. The fact that the next CTS-V, with 500 to 600 small-block ponies under the hood, is due in about 12 months is just more icing on this satisfying cake. I’ve managed to own at least one new vehicle from all the divisions that made up GM in the ’60s & ’70s, except for Cadillac. This one just might be worth tryin’ to make the stretch.

For all you guys and gals out there that are lookin’ for a luxury-performance sedan and can wait until this fall — there’s no reason to buy that 3-series, C-class, A-4 or IS anymore, unless you just love givin’ your hard earned dough to the Germans and the Japanese. Come on . . . they’ve got enough already — support the home team! I think that you can do that with this new CTS and be proud and satisfied at the same time. Now there’s a win-win for ya! (db)

Technorati Tags: 2008 Cadillac CTS, Chicago Auto Show

. . . Toyota plans ultra-inexpensive car.

He [Toyota president Katsuaki Watanabe] declined to set a price for a low-cost car but said it would be “at least” less than the Logan.

Renault has started production of the Logan, which will cost from 5,000 euros (6,200 dollars) on up, touted as a budget model for consumers in emerging economies such as China and Russia that conforms to European standards.

Well, Ford might not be quite as worried as GM. Yipes!

Technorati Tags: Toyota, Inexpensive Car, GM, Ford

On June 15, 2007 (next summer) a “new” 1957 Plymouth Belvedere Sport Coupe will once again see the light of day. It has been buried in a time capsule since that very date in 1957. A friend of mine just sent me a link to this story. I lived in the Tulsa area for the first 31 years of my life and this is the first I’ve ever heard about this.

The TulsaRama website describes the intent of this burial, which was a way for Tulsa to one-up Oklahoma City in their continuing feud to be Oklahoma’s best city. At the time, Tulsa had the highest car ownership per capita of any city in the U.S., except for Los Angeles, so they decided that a “car” event was a natural.

The car was seen as a method of acquainting twenty-first century citizens with a suitable representation of 1957 civilization. According to event chairman Lewis Roberts Jr., the Plymouth was chosen because it was “an advanced product of American industrial ingenuity with the kind of lasting appeal that will still be in style 50 years from now.”

The contents of a women’s purse, including bobby pins, a bottle of tranquilizers, cigarettes and an unpaid parking ticket, were added to the glove compartment of the car shortly before burial.

Well, there are still cigarettes, tranquilizers and unpaid parking tickets aplenty in the 21st Century, but ironically, just like bobby pins, Plymouths are no longer popular — shoot, Plymouth is just no longer, period. At the site there is a short film that describes the 1957 event and burial, and looks forward to next year’s disinterment of what is hoped to be a pristinely-preserved 50-year-old car. They even buried gas and oil with it just in case those items wouldn’t exist in the year 2007. Remember, ten years or so later 2001 was envisioned with our having massive space stations, moon colonies and maned-expeditions to Jupiter. It’s half-a-decade past that 2001 milestone now and my, my — how we’ve failed to realize our most magnificently-imagined future.

I can’t remember ever seeing a ’57 Plymouth in good shape. I just may have to go back for this one! (db)

Technorati Tags: Tulsarama, 1957 Plymouth Belvedere Sport Coupe, Buried Car

Flopping Aces (h/t: Anchoress) presents material from this site that outlines Democrat positions from 1864 — when they were tired of the slog of war, and looking for a way out. Civil War cut-&-runners, so to speak.

Hmmm, kinda sounds eerily familiar, doesn’t it? Maybe Chuck, Joe, Nancy and Babs are channeling their 142 year-old counterparts. Here’s a few items from a discussion of the 1864 campaign and the Democratic Party platform:

By 1864, the Country had grown weary of the long and bloody Civil War. Hundreds of thousands of the countries’ best and bravest young men had fallen on the fields of Bull Run, Antietam, Shiloh, and countless more. Many began to think that the war was not worth it, and the price of freedom too great. The Republican Presidential Candidate Abraham Lincoln thought no price was too great for the abolition of slavery and the creation of a society in which a man was not judged by the color of his skin. Unfortunately, after four long years of war, Lincoln’s support was dropping fast, and people were looking for a way out of the war.

Both then, and now — a President with strong values, that actually believes in something and that this something was/is worth sending young men into battle to die for, that there are worse things on this earth than an individual’s loss of his own life, that those lost lives are not “wasted” on the fields of battle, but that their shed blood is the horrible price to be paid in a war against evil — in Lincoln’s time it was the evils of slavery, today it is the evil of radical Islamofascism.

Don’t miss the next part, where the Democrats were willing to let slavery continue, as long as the fighting would just stop already, and the south would bring their football back and play nice — Makes me think of Iraq. They’d sell out the Iraqis today — hoping that the Shias and the Jihadis would consider Iraq a great gift, and would then leave us alone. Wrong then — wrong now!

Resolved, that this convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the American people, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under the pretence of military necessity, or war power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of the States or other peaceable means, to the end that at the earliest practicable moment peace may be restored on the basis of the federal Union of the States.

Resolved, that the direct interference of the military authorities of the United States in the recent elections held in Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware, was a shameful violation of the Constitution, and a repetition of such acts in the approaching election will be held as revolutionary, and resisted with all the means and power under our control.

Resolved, that the aim and object of the Democratic party are to preserve the federal Union and the rights of the States unimpaired and they hereby declare that they consider the administrative usurpation of extraordinary and dangerous powers not granted by the Constitution; the subversion of the civil by the military laws in States not in insurrection; the arbitrary military arrest, imprisonment, trial, and sentence of American citizens in States where civil law exists in full force; the suppression of freedom of speech and of the press; the denial of the right of asylum; the open and avowed disregard of State rights; the employment of unusual test oaths, and the interference with and denial of the right of the people to bear arms in their defense, as calculated to prevent a restoration of the Union and the perpetuation of a government deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed.

Wow — they sure don’t change their playbook much, huh? Curt at FA wraps it up thusly:

Amazing what a difference 142 years makes huh? Or not. Imagine the slogans back then:

Lincoln = Satan

Not In My Name

No Blood For Slaves

Lincoln lied, People Died

We live among those with a bumper-sticker mindset. Scary! And, I keep asking myself — every time I see a Democrat talking head — why do they want a return to power? What will they do if they get control of the Congress? How would cut-&-run leadership bent upon appeasement help win the War on Terror?

What if ALL they want to do is Get. George. Bush? The only “plan” that I have heard from the Dems is a plan to “investigate”, a plan to “obstruct”, a plan to “impeach”. Iran? Hey, let’s talk to that nut — he’ll listen to reason won’t he? Israel? Screw ‘em! Let the Arabs take care of ‘em — it was their land first, right? Islamofascism? Caused by poverty. Give ‘em some moolah and they’ll be blingin’ out their Benzes and ‘Sclades, not flyin’ planes into buildings — haven’t you been payin’ attention to what we accomplished here in the ’60s & ’70s?

Yeah, right — Even more of the same. I’ve always thought that no matter which party was in power, this country was big enough, strong enough and great enough to withstand anything for eight years. Now, I’ve got my doubts . . . (db)

Technorati Tags: Democratic Party, Flopping Aces Blog, Son Of The South

BTW — Curt is putting together a super sweet 1969 Dodge Charger R/T! Be sure and check that out, too . . .

[Welcome Google searchers! You might want to check out all my other automotive musings if you have the time. From 600-hp Caddies to building MGs in Oklahoma, there's plenty to think about! -- 'Okie']

Over at GM’s FastLane blog, they have a special treat!

If you’re a Camaro enthusiast, you’re going to love this video. A couple of months ago, the blog team was able to get Tom Peters, lead designer of the Camaro, on video driving it for the first time.

The video is at YouTube — No smoky burnouts with this bazillion dollar show car/prototype, but the sound of that exhaust sure is sweet! Tom Peter’s commentary on the design and process of creating the new Camaro is not to be missed. Also, this week GM made it official — Camaro is a go for 2009!

Way to go, guys! Mustang needs a playmate!

[Cross posted at Hot Wheels Blog]

Technorati Tags: Camaro, GM, Chevrolet, Tom Peters, Fastlane Blog

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Airforce One Performance Stainless Steel Intakes

Wow! Take one abandoned British automotive icon, mix in a huge chunk of Chinese money and manufacturing expertise and shake, not stir, in an Oklahoma Indian tribe and what’ve you got? Well, maybe the next entry-level European-designed sports car assembled (from Chinese-made parts) in Ardmore, Oklahoma! From the Business section of today’s LA Times:

A struggling Chinese manufacturer, the remnants of a failed British automaker and an ambitious American Indian tribe plan to pool their resources to rescue the iconic MG sports car from the automotive junkyard.

A consortium led by Nanjing Automobile Group announced a $2-billion plan Wednesday to construct a state-of-the art production facility in China, reopen a shuttered MG factory in England and open an assembly plant and a distribution center in the small town of Ardmore, Okla.

If the Nanjing-led group succeeds in rolling out the MG TF coupe by the middle of 2008, it could enter the U.S. market ahead of larger Chinese rivals Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. and Chery Automobile Co.

So, what will OK get out of it?

The Chinese-led group also will create 500 jobs in a state that has been hit hard by restructuring in the auto industry. This year General Motors Corp. closed a plant in Oklahoma City that employed 2,400 people.
(…)
Amy Polonchek, executive director of the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, said the project was expected to deliver about $69 million in direct investment and generate $189 million in new economic activity.

And, why the Indian connection? What do the Chickasaws bring to the party?

The new MG team also is counting on additional help from the Chickasaws, a 38,000-member tribe based in Ada, Okla. Under federal law, Indian tribes are considered sovereign nations and are exempt from paying taxes. Hale said his group was researching ways that the MG operation could benefit financially from a partnership with the tribe.

“I can tell you, there may be some unique tax advantages there,” he said.

Some ol’ song — Money, money, money!

I always hated that the British car industry gave up and died. The cars weren’t very good, especially compared to the Japanese clones of the day, but they had something that car manufacturers are only recently understanding again — character.

They better imbibe this newest MG with tons of that — otherwise it’s just another Asian clone of something that wasn’t exactly great, but was unique and entertaining. (db)

[Cross posted at Hot Wheels Blog]

Technorati Tags: MG, Nanjing Automobile Group, Chickasaw Tribe, Ardmore, Oklahoma

In a move that is confounding auto-industry analysts all over the place, the GM Board decided today to direct CEO Rick Wagner to take the next step and meet with Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Renault and Nissan, to discuss the Kirk Kirkorian proposal for the three companies to link-up into an alliance that would make the combination the world’s largest automotive-manufacturing/marketing presence. From Bloomberg:

General Motors Corp.’s board of directors authorized Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner to study an alliance with Nissan Motor Co. and Renault SA.

The GM board today agreed to review the June 30 proposal from billionaire Kirk Kerkorian’s Tracinda Corp., GM’s fourth- largest investor, according to a statement. The boards of Renault and Nissan said earlier this week that CEO Carlos Ghosn could begin talks if GM agreed.

The talks could lead to Nissan and Renault buying as much as a combined 20 percent stake in GM, according to people familiar with the matter.

So, what is this all about, really? Looks to me like two words say it all.

Cash Gain

GM would gain about $3 billion in cash from a Nissan-Renault investment, and the combined automakers would be able to share future savings in areas such as purchasing and research, Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst Stephen Reitman wrote in a July 3 report.

GM could sure use a bunch of that, especially to accelerate product development programs that were either put on hold or are being bean-counted to death. That they know how to do all too well . . . (db)

Technorati Tags: GM, Renault, Nissan

As per Reuters:

Renault and Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn is set to meet his General Motors Corp. counterpart Rick Wagoner later this month in Detroit, the Financial Times newspaper said on Wednesday.

The paper added that GM’s chief financial officer, Fritz Henderson, was leading a project to examine the existing Renault-Nissan alliance to assess the potential benefits for GM if it joined.

A spokeswoman for Renault had no comment on the report.

The Nihon Keizai business daily said Nissan Motor Co. and Renault SA were looking at three main areas of potential cooperation with GM — parts procurement, and environmental and safety technology.

The Nihon Keizai said Nissan and Renault would form a team to discuss specific tie-up plans if the U.S. automaker’s board gave the green light for partnership talks to proceed.

My buddy Mark Tapscott of Tapscott’s Copy Desk and Tapscott Behind the Wheel and I traded emails last week, bagging on the idea of the deal and coming up with silly names for GM/Renault/Nissan models, like a “Cutlass Sushi Happy” or per his suggestion, a “French Foreign Legion Special Edition Ciera Bravada, powered by a Maxima V-6, of course.”

All of a sudden, it doesn’t look so funny. If Carlos Ghosn and Rick Wagoner are going to sit down together and chew the fat on this, might be worth taking some time to analyze the possibilities. (Ghosn was schooled by Jesuits in Beirut, Lebanon — that had to be interesting!) If it goes down, sure hope this deal works out better for the home team than that last one they did with Fiat . . . (db)

Technorati Tags: GM, Renault, Nissan, Carlos Ghosn, Rick Wagoner

I’m tired today of writing about newspapers — so it’s great to have some automotive news. And here’s a good one — Chrysler is green lighting the Dodge Challenger.

Chrysler to announce plans for new Challenger

The Chrysler division of DaimlerChrysler AG is expected to announce on Friday a new Dodge Challenger coupe styled and named after the automaker’s 1970s muscle car, The Wall Street Journal said.

The V8-powered Challenger won’t be sold until next year, but Chrysler will promote the car this summer to try to pull customers into showrooms, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the company’s plans.

Chrysler’s announcement of the new Challenger tomorrow at a NASCAR race in Daytona Beach, Florida, was moved forward by several months in hopes it will create some buzz for the automaker, the newspaper’s sources said.

Just don’t try to drive one between two road-blocking bulldozers! (db)

[Chrysler, Dodge Challenger, Vanishing Point[/tags]