My name is Frank and I’m a NASCAR fan. There. It’s out in the open. I admit that I enjoy watching a race series based on what Jackie Stewart called "one big bloody left hand turn.” If I’m at home on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon the TV is always tuned to the pre-race shows on Speed or the race on whichever network crossed the France family’s palms with the most silver for the broadcast rights. Some people get addicted to soap operas. I’m hooked on NASCAR. To some motorsports fans that makes me a lost cause. 

Six years ago, social commentator David Brooks published his book Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There. Brooks’ explained how the countercultural values of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s were adopted by the mainstream by the mid-‘90’s. Marketers devoured Brooks’ book like it was crab legs on a Chinese buffet. Ever since, we’ve seen an explosion of style in every aspect of our lives and every room of our homes– except, of course, the garage.  If Wal-Mart (of all places) sells dinner plates suitable for the Museum of Modern Art, why are today’s cars so dull?  My theory: car designers are still in the thrall of the 1984 Audi 5000.

If any mainstream brand can build an SUV that handles like a sports car, it’s Mazda. The Japanese automaker has a proven track record of developing vehicles with superior agility and dynamic appeal. Little wonder that ads for Mazda’s new CX-7 imply that it drives like a sports car, and that most junket-based reviews of the new “crossover” verify the claim. Well, I’ve driven the CX-7 and I’ve driven sports cars and the CX-7 is no sports car.

When I was seventeen, a neighbor invited me to drive his metallic black 1982 Porsche 911 SC. I stalled the engine twice before leaving the driveway.  Then the owner slid behind the wheel. Within seconds we were ripping through the Texas hill country at 140 mph. Since that fateful day, my tastes have broadened to include off-roading, mountain biking, backpacking and skiing. But I’m still a bonafied pistonhead, and I’m disgusted by the hypocritical anti-SUV remarks I’ve read in the automotive press and right here on TTAC.

Although GM’s woes are increasingly well known, the House of Ford is also in dire straits. The Blue Oval’s credit has been downgraded almost as often and deeply as The General’s. FoMoCo’s products– a truck-heavy mix in a time of fuel conscious fervor– languish on dealers’ lots with equal abandon[ment]. Both companies have too many lackluster products, confused brands and mainline dealers. In fact, other than the size of their relative problems, the chief difference between GM and Ford has been the Blue Oval’s bluster, bold moves and all.

During a business trip to Canada, my manager and I watched a Swedish colleague use his cell phone to hold a three-way conference call with Tel Aviv and Hong Kong. The boss was infuriated; his US cell couldn’t even reach Toronto from Toronto. He called Sprint on a land line. "This is unacceptable,” he screamed. “It’s un-American to sell technology that’s seven years behind the Europeans!" The exact same thing’s been said about Detroit’s inability to counter fuel-sipping low-emission hybrids.  Enter, finally, the Mercury Mariner Hybrid. Ah, but is the gas/electric Merc ready for prime time or is it just a Johnny-come-lately phoning it in?

A recent TTAC post asked for nominations for the car most likely to get you “a date” (as mywife puts it).  Our well-informed readers made all the obvious suggestions: studly Italian V12’s, check-out-my-package Teutons, midlife-crisis American roadsters, horny-royal Astons and phallic-as-you-wanna-be XKE’s. Yet nobody mentioned the absolute sure thing getluckymobile: the Amphicar. Yes, we’re talking about that 1960’s-era wackiness that answered the question nobody asked:  “Wouldn’t it be cool to have a car that floats?” Schwing!

Speaking of sports utility vehicles, consider the philosophy developed by Jeremy Bentham. Utilitarianism identified pain and pleasure as the only absolutes and declared that “whatever brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people” is, well, great (even if it isn’t so great for the people who don’t make the cut). By this standard, America’s gas-guzzling SUV’s were once a very good thing; the lumbering behemoths brought the majority of American motorists tremendous, not-to-say guilt free pleasure. And then, they didn’t. And now Detroit’s feeling the pain.

We have a rule in my house: no sugar cereal until you eat your "good" cereal.  By the time the girls have inhaled a bowl of non-sweetened Cheerios, Weetabix or Rice Krispies, their appetite for kiddy crack is destroyed or diminished.  Of course, that doesn't stop the bun fight over any promotional toy that dares hide at the bottom of the box. I reckon a Ford marketing maven saw his kids ripping apart a box of Sky High Blood Sugar Flakes to get at a wind-up plastic spaceship and thought "Why can't adults display the same animal enthusiasm for a Ford Fusion?"  A promotion was born.  On Sunday, parents who buy their Fruit Loops, Apple Jacks, Frosted Flakes or Cocoa Krispies from Target will find a free Ford Fusion Hot Wheels model inside.  I rang up FoMoCo's point man Monte Doran to get the skinny on childhood obesity– I mean whether Ford will slap cash on the hood if the models don't move by September.  No seriously, I wanted to know if this was the beginning of a shift away from traditional marketing.  Hey, if you don't ask…

The Mercedes E550 is like one of those gently aging character actors that everyone recognizes but no one can name.  I guess the fact that Mercedes put over a million of E-Class sedans on the road in the past four years may have a little something to do with it.  Either that or the brand’s reacting to Bimmer’s Bangling and their own S-Class blingery by maintaining the E’s arch conservatism.  While understandable, I’m not so sure that the mid-sized Merc's generic good looks and mild-mannered charisma are such a good thing…