Ford and GM are launching summer sales.  The development reveals an open secret: the automakers are selling vehicles at a loss.  There are plenty of reasons for this.  The need to maintain cash flow, pay the Union, generate business for their finance arms and protect market share.  But this trend can’t continue indefinitely.  At some point, both of these companies need to produce profitable vehicles, and lots of ‘em.  But what kind?

Let’s get this out of the way: the Jaguar XK8 is a grill-challenged automobile.  It's as if Ford sent all their leftover Taurus grills to the UK and then leaned on Jaguar engineers to find them a home.  Or maybe the XK8’s grill was intended as a comeuppance; a punishment to the brand’s designers for daring to create a “new” car that borrows so heavily from their up-market British cousin’s two-door. Or maybe the wide mouth bass grill is all about brand differentiation; a stylistic non-flourish designed to ensure that no potential buyer confuses the Jaguar XK8 and the Aston Martin DB9.  Now if someone had grafted the front end of a BMW 650i to the XK, we might have had something…

In my last post, we examined your basic alpha nature, your need to dominate other people.  Did you read the comments after the post?  Wow.  Not very happy are they?  No surprise there.  As you know, most people think car salesmen are the scum of the earth: cheating, lying, arrogant, ignorant, over-aggressive sumbitches with their own circle in Hell (where they try to sell each other five-year warrantees for all eternity).  Are consumers wrong to hate you so?  Nope.  But don’t worry about that.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with your innate desire for interpersonal dominance.  It’s what you do with it that matters.

It’s been said that prison is years of mind-numbing boredom punctuated by sudden moments of extreme terror.  I feel that way about commuting.  Despite driving’s many pleasures, the daily commute gradually erodes all sense of joy.  All those repetitive miles, one barely distinguishable from the next.  The same old CD’s in the changer, the same dumb ‘morning zoo’ antics on the radio, same streets, same turns, same times.  You eventually lapse into semi-consciousness; unaware, unable to recall the last five, ten, maybe fifteen miles. Until your autopilot slumber is rudely interrupted by, say, an oncoming tractor-trailer drifting over the center line.

This weekend, a conspiracy of  VeeDub owners will assemble in Roswell, New Mexico for the seventh annual New Beetle “2K Car Show Weekend."  According to VW PR flack Clark Campbell, this bizarre intersection of dead aliens and live Bug owners began with a VW ad claiming that the new Beetle was reverse-engineered from an alien spaceship.  Needless to say, TTAC has uncovered previously classified government documents that prove that the commercial was created by an ad exec who'd been kidnapped by aliens, given the usual complimentary colonoscopy and returned to earth to spread disinformation: an ad that claimed that the new Beetle was reverse-engineered from alien craft to make people think it wasn't reverse engineered from alien craft, when, of course, it was. You know, this stuff practically writes itself. How spooky is that? 

Last Wednesday, Mark Fields spoke at a Competitiveness Forum sponsored by the United States Chamber of Commerce.  Fields has an impressive title: “President, The Americas, Ford Motor Company.”  He also has an impressive international resume: Managing Director, Ford of Argentina; CEO of Mazda; Executive Vice President of Ford of Europe, and Chairman and Chief Executive of Ford’s Premier Automotive Group.  The auto exec’s speech touched all the usual bases: ethanol, currency manipulation, health care, tax credits, etc.  When Fields turned his attention to issues of national pride and policy, his remarks were measured and concise — and made about as much sense as a Ford GT entering the Baja 500.   

First, relax. You hate your job because you don’t know what you’re doing.  Face it.  You, a car salesman, have no quantifiable methodology for selling a car.  At best, you think customer "conversion" depends on your personality, product knowledge, perseverance and luck.  At worst, you think it’s a simply a matter of bullying the customer into buying a car.  You want to hear something funny?  Bullying IS the most effective sales technique.  I’m not recommending it, but if you really want to master car sales, you’ve got to understand the non-PC realities of human nature.

Electra Waggoner Biggs was born a Texas cattle and oil man’s daughter, but left the Lone Star State for Bryn Mawr, Columbia and the Sorbonne.  Upon her return she became a revered sculptress, best known for her work “Into the Sunset,” memorializing cowboy actor Will Rogers.  In 1959, the President of Buick (and Electra’s husband’s brother-in-law) named a flagship sedan after the middle aged Texan.  Today's Buick Lucerne is named after a quaint Swiss tourist trap, with only a failed peasant’s revolt to its name.  And there you have it: Buick has tossed away decades of brash Americana for subdued Euro-style.  That's beyond stupid.  

I’ve just returned from a four day round trip to Florida after having endured a seriously annoying vibration from the front end of my award-winning minivan.  This after arranging a pre-trip rotation/balance/alignment at my award-winning dealership.  As I hover over the manufacturer’s service-visit survey (which was waiting for me upon my return), my pen hand freezes over the checkboxes.  One little tick might just result in the castration of the technician responsible for my tingling hands and inflamed attitude.  I can foretell the reaction from survey central.  Oh….My…Heavens!  A survey rating of LTP [Less than perfect] has been submitted!  Activate the GO TEAM!

Jonny Lieberman thinks SUV's should look like they're ready to win World War II or go to the moon.  Shrugging off that da-da-esque assertion, we schmooze about great car names of the past and JL's recent experiences with the Ford Focus (reviewed below). As a certain automotive website recently asserted that minivan ownership disqualifies TTAC's Editor from assessing automotive cool, I ask Jonny for his choice for coolest car under $18k.  Wouldn't you know: it's a BMW. 

There I was, stuck in traffic on the 710, just north of Compton.  The 95-degree California sun bearing down on the Ford Focus had completely overwhelmed the chiller.  I phoned TTAC HQ. “I’m ready to start a Ford Death Watch.  This car is a disgrace!  It’s… un-American!”  Calm down, RF told me.  Never mind the heat, feel the handling.  Thrash it a bit and see what you think.  Think?  How can you think when there’s a brain-splitting noise coming from the engine bay that sounds like a small washer inside a metal band-aid tin wrapped in paper bags shaken by a cruel, malicious gremlin?  At that point, even F1 handling wouldn’t have saved the Focus’ bacon.   

When people say a car has “character,” they mean one of two things.  First and foremost, the word is deployed to praise gross ergonomic errors.  We’re not talking about minor design quirks: Saab ignitions on the floor, CR-V shifters high on the dash, horns on the wheel spokes.  Pistonheads trot out the “C” word to heap praise upon those interior peculiarities that stand up and demand you notice them when you should be doing something else, like driving.  While enthusiasts have been praising these automotive “eccentricities” for years, it’s time for carmakers to write this character out of the program.  

GM swears up, down and sideways that they will not stage a repeat of last summer’s Fire Sale for Everyone discount program. And yet inventories are up, sales are down and if they look sideways they can see their competitors printing up blowout banners. “Value Pricing” be damned. The General knows that every sale surrendered to Ford, Chrysler and Toyota eats into its already dwindling market share, rendering GM’s production cuts less and less effective. Besides, the cuts are expensive. GM needs dealer cash now. So it’s not a question of “if.” It’s a question of “what then?”

The United States has pledged to kick the oil habit before. But this time we mean it. Better yet, we have a solution that doesn’t require any of that furrin’ hybrid and diesel technology: E85. Produced from corn and other products grown in good old American soil, this 85 percent ethanol blend enables American-as-apple-pie small block V8s to burn less gasoline than a Prius. If every car, truck, and SUV were E85 now, why we could tell the Arabs to shove it! So all good Americans should buy an E85-capable full-sized SUV TODAY! Actually, on second thought, maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to “go yellow.”

Remember Joe Isuzu?  In the late 80’s, the brand’s spokesman was an actor (David Leisure) playing a pathological liar who’d say anything to sell an Isuzu.  He claimed the Trooper could carry “a symphony orchestra” or “hold every book in the Library of Congress.”  The Impulse was “faster than a [catches a speeding bullet in his teeth]… well, you know.”  While Joe’s commercials-– and for that matter, the Isuzu brand– are busy fading from the American automotive landscape, his spirit lives on.  The main difference between Joe and no-Joe car ads: today's disclaimers are smaller.  You have my word on it.