It’s been while since I’ve written about The Truth About Cars (TTAC).  As you may recall, we were preparing to turn TTAC into a subscription site when we re-launched.  When I discovered that our payment software wasn’t ready for prime time, and the site design needed tweaking, I put the move on hold.  I’ve used the interregnum to ramp up our content, familiarize myself with the new site’s back end, commission a few improvements and… think.  I’ve re-read all your emails, sent out a survey, talked to a bunch of financial folks and come up with a new plan.  Here’s how I see it…

The prairie town where I grew up offered exactly one wholesome diversion for teenagers: an eight-block stretch of Central Avenue known as The Drag.  On Friday and Saturday nights, you'd “shag The Drag.” You’d drive from 12th Street down to the city square, then back up to 12th Street, shouting at people you knew or people you wanted to know.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  Your goal: make time with a girl from school or, even better, entrance an out-of-towner who had no idea of your previous track record (or lack thereof).  Of course, you had to come to The Drag in a cool car.  In the late eighties, one car bestrode our teenage world like a colossus…

I’ve seen the car of the future.  It's not a diesel.  It’s not a hybrid.  It doesn’t run on electricity or natural gas or elastometric energy storage units recharged by rodents operating exercise wheels, supervised by domesticated felines. The future is sitting in a corner of your local Ford dealer's showroom gathering dust: a Ford Focus with the optional 2.0 E engine. This little runner is what’s called a PZEV (Practically Zero Emissions Vehicle).  That's a cut better than a ULEV (Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle) but not quite as good as a ZEV (Zero Emissions Vehicle).  Ah, but the Focus E is still the best a tree hugger can get.

“Small is Beautiful” was released immediately after the ’73 energy crisis.  German economist E. F. Schumaker’s collection of essays tapped into the prevailing gestalt: a growing fear that the institutions that defined capitalism’s success had become economically and environmentally unsustainable.  Contrary to popular belief (i.e. the people who used the book’s title as a mantra without reading it), Schumaker wasn’t predicting or recommending the end of big business.  He simply believed that large organizations work best as small, independent groups acting in harmony.  Someone ought to tell Dieter Zetsche.

I write driving articles for an international travel magazine.  Despite my editorial obligation to report on landscapes, history, culture and food; much of what I see passes in a blur.  I’ve driven obscenely fast through Europe, South Africa, Australia, Japan, Norway, Brazil and everywhere else they send me.  The only place I ever worry about speeding tickets is the United States.  Oh sure, I’ve had run-ins with local law enforcement all over the world. But I deserved to be pulled over, and the experience was more like a cultural exchange than a legal colonoscopy.

Once upon a time there was an automobile company that was so big that it looked like it was about to drive all the other car companies out of business.  This behemoth made every kind of car, from sports cars to limos, and every kind of truck, from the smallest to the largest. They made almost all of the busses that took people to work, and most of the locomotives that pulled trains across the county. Their diesel engines powered most of the construction equipment, ran the pumps that pulled oil out of the ground and moved ships on the seas.  There was only one cloud on the horizon: they were too successful. 

PSST… Hey you!  Yeah, you over there with the shiny new Corvette…  I have something to tell you…  C’mon over…  Now stand close so I can whisper something in your ear.  No, really… it’s a good thing.    Be sure to listen carefully.  I don’t want you to miss this.  It’s something you really need to hear about your baby.  Ready?  OK, here it is… HEY BONEHEAD!  THAT CORVETTE IS A CAR!!  TAKE IT OUT AND DRIVE THE HELL OUT OF IT!

It's hard to believe that The Morgan Motor Company is the last great– great?– English automobile maker.  Here we have a company that still builds its cars out of wood, whose 19th century business practices were famously and shamelessly lampooned by an English TV business doctor (and peer), that makes roadsters that look genetically predisposed to leak, fall apart and short-out.  And yet, while Rolls Royce, Jaguar, Aston Martin and Bentley all follow marching orders from foreign lands, there's still a British gentleman named Morgan running Morgan.  What's more, their throughly modern motor car, the Aero 8, has been firing on all cylinders for six years, and you can buy one in the colonies.  So, what say we take the old girl out for a spin…

For decades, Consumer Reports has been the American automobile buyer’s primary source for vehicle reliability information.  Tens of millions of highly-educated, independent-minded people have made their car purchase based on a brace of red dots.  While I don’t care for the dots– they’re a blunt instrument that can hide as much information as they convey– I’ve always assumed that Consumer Reports’ (CR) underlying data was solid.  And then I took their survey…

I drive an iconic, high-performance European luxury car.  Well, let me modify that a bit.  I drive an iconic, high-performance European luxury car made in 1983.  And so could you, for the cost of a new Kia.  It’s a Porsche 911SC coupe— a car that’s no longer rare, collectible, fast, luxurious or particularly desirable.  But it is revealing.  A hundred and eighty horsepower!  A  pair of 225/50-16 tires in the rear!  A top speed of 135 mph!  Look out Kia, here I come!  My 25-year-old Porker highlights just how far automobiles have advanced since the time when Koreans were best known for their canine cuisine.       

Ron Tadross.  Say it softly and it’s almost like crying.  If you’re GM that is.  The Banc of America Securities analyst isn’t exactly what you’d call bullish on GM.  Unlike his evil twin, analyst John Murphy, Tadross sees GM heading for a cash burn flame-out.  "We believe GM management is glossing over the current and future cost of rightsizing the business," Tadross declared.  More to the point, he recommended that investors sell their GM stock, with a target that’s literally half of its current price.  In other words, when Merrill Lynch talks, nobody should listen.

With all the talk in these parts about what it means to be an American automobile manufacturer, I couldn't resist Chrysler's press release about arranging some 200 employees to spell out the words "O Say, can you see" (complete with human punctuation).  Chrysler Group Spokesperson Jodi Tinson stepped into the podcasting breach, challenging my de-PR-speak abilities and facing the inevitable questions about Francis Scott Key's magnum opus (set to a bawdy English drinking song) and Chrysler's Americanosity.  The two-legged vowels and consonants will assemble on the front lawn of DaimlerChrysler's Auburn Hills Headquarters on Friday, July 7 during morning drive time.  According to the press release, the employees will sing the national anthem loud enough to be heard across I-75.  Here's hoping the DUB car show isn't rolling into town at the exact same moment the crooning begins. 

For a second consecutive year, GM’s Oshawa production facilities have received J.D. Power and Associates’ “Gold Plant Quality Award.”  The award is given to the production facility with the fewest number of defects per vehicle, as measured by J.D.’s famous “Initial Quality Study.”  Oshawa created cars with just 43 defects per 100 vehicles.  The industry average was 124.  So what do you do if you have the second most productive assembly plant on the continent?  If you’re GM, you do the only logical thing possible: you close it.  

If the first step on the road to recovery is admitting you have a problem, congratulations Ford, you’re on your way.  The Blue Oval Crew recently admitted that their overly-long product cycles were partly to blame for their current financial queasiness.  As the surprisingly satisfied owner of a 2000 Focus, I’ve earned the right to say: ‘bout time.  I was worried that the marketers’ standard question “Would you buy this car again?” had become strictly hypothetical.

Dear Mr. Nasscar,

How the hell y’all doin’?  I was down to the barber shop the other day when me and the boys got to talkin’ ‘bout cars an racing an stuff.  Clarence sed how he’d red that NASCAR was fixin’ to change all the cars all over again.  He said y’all was fixin’ to make all the cars the same, and the engines the same, and on top of that, they’s ugly.  He said they’s all gonna be slower too.  Then Earl piped-up and said that meant there weren’t gonna be no more good crashes no more.  Why them crashes is the only reason Ida Mae goes to the races in the first place!  Jake sed y’all gonna kill the sport ded.