Can GM, master of big iron, build a proper sports car? Not simply something that murders straights and grips like grim death– the Corvette's got that covered. Rather, a roadster that takes to the bends with the eager playfulness of an overstimulated puppy and the agility of an all-star point guard. Could the Saturn SKY be such a car? I know it sounds crazy: an honest-to-God sports car from GM's shiny happy plastic panel people. And the specs aren't promising: this parts-bin special out-girths the Mazda MX-5 by four inches and 400 pounds. Still, it sure looks promising…

I'll never forget the billboard looming over London's Hammersmith flyover. At the exact point where drivers suddenly confront the endless congestion ahead, a teleconferencing company asked 'Is this journey really necessary?' I'd like to put the same question to the harried hacks covering The New York International Automobile Show– at the exact moment they hear the stilted cadences of The VP of Marketing for Generic Sedans enter the twenty-third minute of his presentation. And what say you show goers, as those circulation-constricting swag bags help transform your "visit" into a Bataan Death March? Is your Odyssean journey really essential?

A certain Mr. E. Ferrari used to refer to Jeep as 'America's only real sports car.' I never fully understood the Italian automaker's claim until I handed the keys to my Cherokee to my SUV-hating girlfriend. As my liver busied itself processing bourbon, she kicked the Jeep's 4.0-liter straight-six into life. Carving through the Silver Lake hills, the Jeep's right-now acceleration, scrappy handling and elevated driving position pleased her almost as much as I did. Enzo was right: Jeeps are a buzz. When DCX lent me the new Jeep Liberty Renegade, I slipped on my steel-toed Wolverines and readied myself for a good 'ole thrash in America's redneck Ferrari.

The model replacing Jeep's venerable Cherokee exchanges the Cherokee's near-perfect two-box design for something that looks like a VW Bug after a visit to Barry Bonds' doctor. Macho dignity is upheld (literally) by the Renegade's seven slot grill and its over-sized, over-compensating wheel arches– attached by marble-sized bolts as garish as diamond teeth. Rock rails and fog lights (disguised to look like KC lamps) reinforce the strong man aesthetic. That said, as I admired the Renegade on my drive, a desperate homemaker walked up and commented, 'That's cute.' Yes, well, the Liberty's UniFrame construction makes it stiffer, lighter and more crashworthy than the body-on-frame construction used by truck-based competitors. So it's still as tough as nails (the metal kind).

I wonder what Billy Durant would have made of Rick Wagoner. GM's founder was a man of great honesty, intelligence and drive. He was also a high school drop out who started the company with a $1000 loan– and ended-up penniless. Twice. Perhaps that's why historians tend to credit General Motors' epic growth to the man appointed president in 1923; about whom an observer wrote, 'The manufacture of correct assessments, not physical products, is what most gratified Alfred Sloan.' Billy was the "car guy." Alfred was the "bean counter." The history of GM is the history of the struggle between these two opposing forces: passion and, um, accounting. Rick Wagoner is, of course, a Harvard MBA.

I suppose Durant would have liked Wagoner well enough, at least at first. Durant's legendary charm was based on a simple but effective strategy: "Assume that the man you are talking to knows more than you. Do not talk too much. Give the customer time to think. In other words, let the customer sell himself." Rabid Rick is pretty good at selling himself these days. With a new PR guy pushing the buttons, Wagoner's making the rounds, defending his chairmanship on CBS' 60 Minutes and Face the Nation, and in the pages of The Wall Street Journal and other carefully-selected publications. So if Rick and Billy were schmoozing about GM, Wagoner would have done the talking.

Porsche recently unleashed the Cayenne Turbo S, a 521-horse update on their 'regular' Cayenne Turbo. While I haven't had the pleasure of testing Porsche's latest, greatest off-roader, Porsche purists have used the model's debut as an excuse to, once again, make snide remarks about The Sultans of Stuttgart's SUV. Even though the truck has dumped a mountain of money into Porsche's corporate coffers– funding the development of the 911, Boxster, Caymen and forthcoming Panamera– a great many US Porschephiles still think of the Cayenne as Mrs. Porsche Driver's second-rate whip. While the general population of pistonheads won't even notice this ongoing slander campaign, I do and it pisses me off.

Apparently, the Cayenne is a rolling indictment of Stuttgart's brand management, a vehicle that betrays all that's holy in Porsche World. According to this theory's addled adherents, the Cayenne represents a dangerous diversion from Porsche's one true mission: producing 911's and, if it really must, other sports cars. By this strict standard, the faster the Cayenne, the more suitable it is for non-paved surfaces, the more of an abomination it becomes– like some kind of hideous tuner project gone out of control. The fact that the Porsche factory racing team jacked-up a couple 959s and won the Dakar Rally twice doesn't come into it. A Porsche is not a truck, and a truck is not a Porsche.

Honda launched the CR-V back in '97, when fossil-huffing Suburbans ruled the Earth. Most vehicles this far into their model cycle would be fading faster than red satin sheets on the heavy-duty whites cycle. But not the CR-V; the mini-SUV continues to earn its place on the showroom floor and in its owners' hearts. That said, the '06 CR-V is the last version of the SUV before Honda gives the model a long-overdue makeover. Is this, the current CR-V's last hurrah, worthy of a half-hearted muted cheer, or does the quintessential "cute ute" still possess enough charm to justify one more round of gushing applause?

I don't know about you, but I've been feeling sorry for Volkswagen for a while now. VW didn't so much lose their mojo as strap it to the nose of a Titan IVB and fire it into deep space. No disrespect to the world's fifth most populous country, but was anyone really surprised when a Brazilian Golf turned out like German bobo de camarao? Now that Vee Dub's got THAT out of their system, here comes the new, Wolfsburg-built Golf GTI. It's an Old School hot hatch with a Masters in Engineering. Viva VW!

For reasons best left to The International Museum of Marketing Doublespeak, Volkswagen decided to begin their mission-critical US Golf refresh with a two-door. More's the pity. The fifth-gen four-door is a far more handsome beast than the coupe– if only because the Golf's rear portals soften the enormous disparity between the front windscreen's bottom edge and the side windows' lower boundary. This bizarre asymmetry pisses on the Golf's 32-year history of two-box harmony. The resulting rear end trades brand recognition for something vaguely Japanese– as if the Golf suddenly decided to play the Accordian. And then there's the front end's unresolved echo of Audi's unconscionable house snout…

When things are going well, when the US economy's humming along and the right models await eager buyers on dealer lots, being the world's largest auto maker in the world's largest automobile market is a license to print money. When the stars are aligned, GM's economies of scale, eight brand range and vast dealer network make it an almost obscenely profitable enterprise. Lest we forget, The General earned tens of billions of dollars in the SUV-mad 80's and 90's. If you're wondering why GM's fortunes have reversed so quickly, dramatically and irrevocably, there's your answer: they're victims of their own success.

GM execs have two ways to stand out: make more sales (by striking out in new directions) or make more money (by doing more of the same). Since it's hard for GM NOT to make money in good times, GM managers invariably opt for the safer option. Sure, every now and then, someone sets a lofty new goal: selling Cadillacs in Europe, building fuel cell cars, reinvigorating a struggling brand, etc. And then the next group of suits comes along and ignores them. After all, THEY didn't come up with the idea. And big ideas take time. How could a highly-paid exec use a long-term project to score career-boosting credit? No wonder every new generation of vehicles has a new set of names; no one wants to share credit with an old project.

'You have the car everyone wants right now.' Souls are ice-skating in Hell. Pigs are airborne. The guy handing the Corvette Z06 the ultimate accolade wasn't a sixty-year-old Midwestern mid-life muscle car maniac. It was a BMW M3 owner fresh from the track at the Motorsport Ranch roadcourse in Houston. General Motors may be on […]

Chasing Robert Berry's Enzo up Equinox Mountain in a Lamborghini Murcielago, I remember thinking there's no way I'm going to keep up with this guy. As the Ferrari's exhaust note ripped through the Murcie's windscreen like a shotgun blast through fiberboard, I set my priorities: no dying, no crashing, no humiliation. The big bull proved equal to the task. Every time I over-cooked it, the Murcie's front tires juddered and… we're back! Every time Berry slowed for a turn, the V12 supercar closed the gap. The experience gave me a profound respect for Lamborghini. And then I drove a Gallardo.

As reported here, the Gallardo is as cohesive as a first grader's art collage. While the four-wheel drive supercar cuts corners like a bankrupt builder, the Gallardo's over-wrought sheetmetal, humdrum cabin, relatively feeble brakes, lack of low-end grunt, questionable high-speed stability and point and clunk paddle shift gearbox wouldn't pass muster in an entry level Porsche or, for that matter, a garden variety Audi. Well exactly. Audi has owned Lamborghini since 1988. The Gallardo (né '03) should have married German precision and Italian passion. Instead, it joined German flair with Italian fastidiousness.

E85 proponents tout "flex fuel" as a Bridge Over Troubled Waters. They believe that vehicles running on E85's mix of ethanol and gasoline will take us to America's "hydrogen future", where zero emission vehicles power up with super cooled fuel supplied by alt-powered micro-refineries. Meanwhile, less utopian thinkers see E85 as a hammer-simple solution to the fuel cell's (and hybrid's) Rube Goldbergian complexities. With a few minor changes to our modern gasoline engines– a corrosion-proof fuel system, new software and rejigged ignition– a nation of bio-powered vehicles could thumb its nose at OPEC crude dealers. If only.

Supporters point to Brazil. In less than two decades, the Brazilians have just about achieved energy independence. Now that they grow millions of acres of sugar cane for fuel production, and have converted the vast majority of their vehicles to ethanol-friendly propulsion, nothing can cut off Brazil's energy supply or screw up their economy– save a strike by the sugar cane farmers. Or a climactic catastrophe. Or a huge rise in labor costs. Or land values. Meanwhile, Brazilian retailers sell E85 for a buck-a-gallon less than gas. America seems ready, willing and able to follow suit: to make the jump from fossil to bio-fossil fuel. So what's the hold-up?