As I write, a group of Wall Street analysts are bunkering in GM's corporate HQ for an update on The General's recovery plans. The morning session will feature a PowerPoint pummeling entitled 'The Solstice Will Come out Tomorrow'. The post-prandial spin session will address the big issue: how GM plans to stem the torrent of red ink spewing from every corporate vein, artery and orifice. As TTAC was denied admission to the confab, we thought we'd Blackberry a few questions to our secret admirers…

1. When is GM going to cut UAW benefits?

You may have noticed that TTAC hasn't been maintaining its usual fecundity. That's 'cause we're busy hanging with the homies during the challenging camp – school hiatus, and trying to earn a crust. (If you're suffering sarcasm withdrawl, please note that Robert Farago's reviews now appear on a weekly basis on www.jalopnik.com and in the ghetto known as 'User Reviews' on www.automotive.com. Same cars, different jokes.) Meanwhile…

TTAC has recently been voted 'Best of the Web' by Forbes magazine (official watermark to follow). We've also crested the 3k per day visitor ratio, and have a stunning four minute per visitor hang time. We'd love to expand our coverage in all directions, but we need cash money to do so. We're looking for a single advertiser to help us grow. Someone with vision, money, respect for our editorial independence, money, a cool-looking ad and money. Interested parties please apply by email to robertfarago@hotmail.com. Thanks.

An electrical relay sitting in the front windscreen's rain gutter. Headliner that looks like mouse fur. Soft touch plastics that aren't. If you look closely at the new BMW 3-Series you'll see considerable evidence that Mercedes isn't the only German brand cutting corners at the low end of their lineup. But there's a difference: BMW says they let the whole obsessive compulsive construction thing slide so they could enlarge the 3-Series' performance envelope whilst holding the line on postage. In other words, they amped-up the driving dynamics rather than sweating the small stuff.

The new 3's helm justifies the justification. For far too long, BMW has pandered to America's [alleged] predilection for steering with all the feel and feedback of a Novocained bicuspid. Now, finally, The Boys from Bavaria have installed a rack-and-pinion tiller that rewards elbow grease with information. Whether you're giving it some mid-corner or jinking around a Volvo, the wheel tells you where you are in the pivoting process and what's happening underfoot. It makes driving, wait for it, fun. (Anyone who opts for Bimmer's anesthetic– I mean, active steering system loses all pistonhead privileges.)

Joint ventures are nothing new in the car business. Toyota makes cars for GM in California, Ford makes trucks and SUVs for Mazda, Subaru and Mitsubishi used to share an assembly plant and Mercedes sends over the underpinnings for the new Chrysler 300. So how about Lincoln and Acura? Despite Ford's recent problems, their legendary luxury division has a lot to offer Honda's underperforming luxury brand. By the same token, Acura has a few tricks up its sleeve that could help Lincoln regain much of its lost luster.

First and foremost, Lincoln has a V8. While Honda's free-revving six-cylinder engines have earned them justifiable respect and popular success in the American market, the lack of a suitable eight has hamstrung its luxury division since it invaded US shores in March of '86. Despite Acuras' undeniable quality, refinement and relative value-for-money, there's simply no getting around the fact that US consumers view a V8 engine as a luxury car basic. The latest RL is a perfect example: a superb vehicle with a 300hp, 3.6-liter V6 that's two cylinders short of a full order book.

Without any prompting whatsoever, my 11-year-old daughter took one look at the new Subaru B9 Tribeca and said 'ew'. And there you have it. Scooby's first-ever SUV is an irredeemably gruesome beast whose design should have been aborted a femtosecond after conception. While Subaru would like to convince us that "ugly ass" and "dynamic styling" are synonymous, even a pre-teen knows that repulsive is not, and never will be, the new cool. In the race for SUV buyers' affections, the horrific B9 sets off a mile behind the starting line.

Not to belabor the point, but who in their right mind would put a vagina on the nose of an SUV, and then accentuate the effect with wings and hood strakes AND make the shape stand proud of the grill? Yes, I know: the design reflects Fuji Heavy Industries' past as an airplane manufacturer. But they don't make airplanes anymore, and the ones they DID make attacked Pearl Harbor. While we're at it, the B9's rear resembles the face of a gigantic alien– which is only fitting. Other than its side profile, the B9's best viewing angle is high Earth orbit.

It may not have escaped GM watchers' notice that The General has just announced that it's selling 60% of the General Motors Acceptance Corporation's (GMAC) commercial mortgage division. This after agreeing to sell $55b worth of GMAC car loans to Bank of America. The bottom line is clear: The General is hawking the family silver. The only solidly profitable part of the entire corporation is being sold off piecemeal to increase GM's liquidity. It's the long-predicted beginning of the end.

Before we explore GM's rationale for the sale, it's critical to note the commercial division's new owners: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR). This hugely profitable investment firm practically invented the leveraged buyout. KKR's MO: raise money through junk bonds (ironically enough), buy a large company, sell off underperforming assets, restructure the core business, cut costs and, eventually, re-sell the new, leaner company at a huge profit. KKR has sliced and diced Texaco, Gillette, Playtex, Beatrice, Safeway, Borden, Samsonite and Toys 'R' Us.

I should have seen it coming. How could GM flog its remaining '05 cars, trucks and SUV's at anything other than the Employee Discount for Everyone (EDFE) price? As we've said here before, you can't very well raise the price on an old product when its replacement is heading down the pike. Besides, Ford and Chrysler are continuing their Grab Your Checkbook and Work for Us programs through the summer. So the extension of GM's EDFE program until September 6th makes perfect sense. My bad for believing GM's public promises.

Speaking of which, The General is revving-up its "Total Value Promise" program. That's right, GM's post-fire sale 'Value Pricing' program has evolved. Originally, The General was simply going to lower '06 sticker prices to reflect the products' actual purchase price after [what would have been] incentives. Now, the automaker is saying they've "lowered prices, added features or redesigned over 50 GM models" so "you get more without paying more on the cars and trucks you really want."

That my trusty sidekick decided to pack it in just days before this WRX STi arrived can hardly be viewed as coincidence. Rather than face the license and physics compromising surety of Subaru's turbocharged, all-wheel-drive juggernaut, my radar detector committed suicide. In the dead of night, leaping from her once-cozy, hardwired and suction-cupped perch, Michelle (my BEL) fatally dashed upon the rocky shoals of my daily driver's center console. It wasn't a cry for help, as nary an ear was around to hear her final (undoubtedly false) bleating. Tragic, yes… but completely understandable given the circumstances.

For as you can plainly see, Subaru hasn't exactly wrought a Q-ship here. The STi is utterly infested with attention-grabbing aerodynamic addenda: skirts, scoops, vents, canards, EVERYTHING. Factor-in the gaping mesh grille inserts, look-at-me STi stickery, 17" 12-spoke BBS alloys, and it's a miracle owners ever make it out of their driveways without police choppers whirring overhead. And then there's the small matter of the rump, where some Suba-guru epoxied a park bench to the decklid, screwing a Dutch Boy finial to the pipework as some sort of perverse coup de grâce.