I get kinda touchy when people start kicking the boots into Saab, especially when they're basing their opinion on mistaken information. As Saab is a GM brand, and Mr. Farago is the author of an ongoing series called "GM Death Watch", it's understandable that the author was black about the brand's future.  But the "seasoning" enhancing his main points is pure theatre and his conclusions overly pessimistic. Let's examine his argument point by point:

'Saab's Aero-X, a Corvette-based concept car…'

The Range Rover Sport arrived just as Britain's Parliament banned fox hunting. Call it fortuitous happenstance. At the precise moment Britain's shotgun-wielding aristocrats lost their main motivation for chasing each other over hill and dale, the Ford subsidiary came plying more on-road aggression. If these frustrated followers of British blood sports looked upon the new Landie Sport as an opportunity to blow off a little steam in less mucky surrounds, it's a goal they share with America's wealthier PTA MILFs. So, does the Sport have what it takes to get the blood pumping for aristocrats on both sides of the Pond?

The Land Rover Sport HSE looks like a top-shelf Range Rover with its hair slicked back. The Sport shares the exact same two-box profile with its big brother– complete with Rover's trademark 'floating' cantilevered roof. The more rakish Sport's canted greenhouse (both fore and aft) is the model's main distinguishing feature, and its only real attempt at a skosh of street cred. In the name of differentiation, Gaydon's designers replaced the Rangie's classy aluminum front-fender vent slat with a more traditional aperture, and substituted some overly ornate taillights in place of the bigger Rover's refined rounds. Details aside, the Sport remains the very picture of 21st-century shooting brakedom, albeit one rockin' a set of air suspenders.

It's official: bankruptcy is good for GM. In their recent ass-covering exercise for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), The Ford Motor Company listed 'adverse effects from the bankruptcy or insolvency of a major competitor' as a significant risk to its financial future. Translation: if GM goes bankrupt, The General will slough off its excessive labor costs and become… wait for it… competitive. So competitive, in fact, that Ford reckons GM's products would gain an important price advantage. Well how about that?

Obviously, there's more to it than that. Ford's SEC filing also alerts investors that GM's Chapter 11 could destroy The Blue Oval's supply chain. Both automakers share a large number of mission critical parts suppliers; if GM's submersion sucks vital parts makers into bankruptcy– which it most assuredly would– Ford will lose access to the bits and pieces it needs to build Fords. In fact, it's hard to see how Ford could survive a GM bankruptcy. Or why it would want to. The automotive community is slowly (and quietly) beginning to conclude that bankruptcy is both the only thing and the BEST thing that can happen to GM, and, by extension, Ford.

Automotive pundits in these parts have lauded the new Audi DSG (Direct Shift Gearbox) as if it was the Second Coming of Dr. Ferry Porsche himself. In reality, the "dual clutch" design has long been discredited amongst most modern automobile engineers. Don't get me wrong. BorgWarner and The Volkswagen Group have created a truly impressive version of a 50-year-old concept. But the dual clutch transmission is still nothing more than a wonderful toy, a mechanically elaborate dead end.

The power of love is a curious thing. It makes one brand weep, another brand sing. Change a bug into a little white Dub. More than a feeling; that's the power of love. Yes, I know it's old News, but Volkswagen's Beetle still gets a lot of love. You would've thought a retro reissue of Hitler's people's car would've fallen down the same rat hole that swallowed-up the mustachioed Plymouth Prowler, Chevrolet's WTF SSR and Ford's turkey T-bird. But no. Eight years after its re-introduction into the US market, VW's self-titled "New Beetle" is still here, people still adore it, and I still don't get it.

Admittedly, I'm not gay. While I do enjoy a well-formed six-pack, and consider myself a far better interior decorator than that stuck-up Connecticut con artist, I can't understand how anyone could find VeeDub's Bauhaus Bug "cute." I reckon J Mays drew the St. Louis arch over a Kohler bathtub and called it good. All the superb detailing that gave the 60's version its cutesy-tootsie cartoon character has been replaced with generic post-modern jewelery. To my eyes, the slab-sided minimalist Beetle is about as emotionally engaging as a Braun razor. The '06 facelift offers rounder headlights, more tapered wrap-around air dams and flat-edged wheel arches. It looks like… a slightly newer Braun razor.