The Saturn Sky has been a tremendous success. Not because it’s a great car; the lack of any appreciable trunk space and the model’s less than intoxicating driving dynamics make it a toy with limited play value. But the Sky knocks the ball out of the park in the style department. In fact, the Sky is the most physically appealing GM car has produced since Harley Earl last prowled the halls of The General’s design department. With the advent of the Saturn Sky Red Line, GM’s different kind of sports car gets a chance to redeem itself amongst die-hard pistonheads, to whom the drop-dead gorgeous base model failed to provide the necessary automotive intercourse. Unfortunately…

The media’s failure to get ahead of The Big Two Point Five’s swan dive from grace is a source of constant amusement. The press’ collective reluctance to investigate the truth behind the automakers’ plight delivers endless wonder. But Motown media’s “eternal sunshine of the big ass automaker” shtick just plain rankles. In “Detroit Can Ride Out These Strange Days,” Free Press columnist Tom Walsh told his readers to hold fast and be of good cheer. ”These are nutty and painful times for Detroit's auto industry. But they are times for resolve, not for panic.” Hey Tom; are you sure about that?

Every industry craves a hit, whether it’s a bestseller, a summer blockbuster or 300k crossovers off a Canadian assembly line. It is, however, only one way to make a buck. According to “The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More,” consumers are quickly evolving beyond cookie-cutter mass consumption. In fact, a careful reading of Wired editor Chris Anderson’s tome indicates that the days when a single vehicle could “save” a company may be long gone. Automakers who want to survive must now chase the tail of the dragon.

Before Magnum became a Hemi-powered station wagon (or a mustachioed P.I.) the term referred to elongated bullet casings with extra gun powder. Before the Caliber became synonymous with cheap, underpowered, poor-handling cars, it was the measure of a bullet’s diameter. Once again, The Dodge Boys have raided the Shooter’s Bible, naming their new entry level SUV after Nitro Express elephant gun cartridges (double entendre to NOX fuel a bonus). Does the Nitro deliver the rhino stopping power of Teddy Roosevelt’s big stick, or represent another damp squib for DCX?

The Brazilian Grand Prix at Sao Paolo marked the final act of the 2006 Formula 1 season. It was the scene of a pulsating and emotionally charged contest, where Michael Schumacher (Ferrari) battled Fernando Alonso (Renault) for the driver’s championship. Well, it wasn’t really a “battle;” all Alonso had to do to win was stay in the race. This he did, although Schumacher unleashed yet another in a seemingly endless number of superlative drives, proving that he was still The Man, mechanical misfortunes notwithstanding.

As five o’ clock rolls around on Sunday afternoon, the Pratt & Miller Corvette Racing team is getting its second wind. Twenty-odd hours into the 24 Heures du Mans marathon and the finish line is finally in sight– literally and figuratively; the garage opens onto the racetrack’s historic grandstands. The Pratt & Miller team has persisted through an intense all-night battle with rivals Aston Martin and, finally, the blazing afternoon heat of the French countryside in summer.

The Truth About Cars (TTAC) TWAT Award Selection Committee has convened. Fifteen members of our cadre of car critics and commentators carefully considered the full horror of your 131 nominations. They then selected 20 vehicles that deserve your consideration for the final 10 winners/losers. And so, now, we turn to you, our avid devotees and unshakeable critics, for your knowledge, passion, honesty and sarcasm. It’s time to VOTE for the ten vehicles which will be anointed TTAC’s top TWATs for 2006.

Buy a Toyota Prius and you get a backup camera, keyless ignition, iPod integration and travel over 50 miles for every gallon of gas poured therein. Buy an Audi RS4 and you don't even get self-dimming mirrors, and you can only drive 11 miles per gallon of dead dinos (EPA notwithstanding). The Prius will set you back $25k. The RS4 costs three Prii. At freeway speeds, the Toyota is a near silent and comfortable cruiser, whereas the Audi sounds and feels like a volcano making love to an avalanche.

Yesterday, a Yahoo news bulletin popped up: “GM’s losses narrow.” If that’s the way you see it, please don’t tarry here. You know GM CEO Rabid Rick Wagoner’s turnaround plan is “gaining traction.” You know GM’s too big to fail, that the supertanker will change course and avoid the jagged rocks of bankruptcy. The fact that GM’s fundamentals are still broken— too many brands, models and dealers; excessive bureaucracy and crushing union obligations— is not your concern. For those of you willing to stare into the abyss, let’s take a closer look at those third quarter results.

If I worked for Infiniti, I’d spend a lot of my day pissed off. Infiniti G35 equals The Japanese BMW? Man that must rankle. Not as much as G35 equals The Poor Man’s BMW, but more than enough to aggravate auto execs all the way from Yokohama to Boulogne-Billancourt. In fact, I bet there’s a bunch of Infiniti engineers who’ve compared their handiwork to Munich’s motorized meisterstuck and can’t decide whether to commit seppuku or hunt down Bimmer’s boffins and make them eat sushi, if you know what I mean. OK, that’s a bit overly-dramatic, but what the Hell’s a Japanese sports sedan got to do to get a little respect around here?

Automotive history is littered with titanic failures. For every hot-selling Mustang, there’s a hatful (hateful?) of Vegas, Pintos, Excels, Yugos, Edsels and, of course, Azteks. From its introduction until its timely demise some four years later, the Pontiac Aztek SUV was the subject of journalistic dog-piling and a thousand weak jokes. But really, does it belong in this infamous company? The answer is a bit complicated; the Aztek was certainly a failure, but not exactly in the way you might expect.

Earlier this year, FoMoCo assembled a panel of “futurists” and “trend spotters” from academia, nonprofit organizations and the private sector to identify trends that could impact future product development. While people who’d never read Wired might say Ford needs to put out the fire in the kitchen before they make blueprints for a new bedroom, it’s also true that those who do not see the future are condemned to flashing double zeros on their VCR– I mean DVD-R. Anyway, at the risk of clouding Ford’s crystal ball, I’ve taken the liberty of preparing a couple of potential news releases as a rough guide to future automotive trends…

Is there any doubt that that Ford is heading for Chapter 11? Sure. There are plenty of auto industry eggheads and company officials who continue to believe that FoMoCo has what it takes– or will have what it takes at some point in the near to distant future– to pull out of its current corporate nosedive and return to greatness. OK, profitability. Um, how about market stabilization? Actually, at this point, staying out of Chapter 11 would be something of a victory. Meanwhile, Monday was Dia de los Muertos for The Blue Oval.

I'm fresh back from a Mazda marketing boondoggle called “Zoom-Zoom Live." Ford's Japanese brand conducted these ride 'n drives in major markets across the US: DC, Boston, New York, Miami, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta and Chicago. I attended the San Francisco event [actually on a decommissioned Naval air base in Alameda, but the SF skyline was visible]. These kind of "bring the consumers to the product and let 'em loose" deals are supposedly the wave of the future, "high-touch" marketingspeakwise. Unfortunately, car companies seem to have a very strange idea of what "let 'em loose" actually means. 

What became of the ninth-generation Lincoln Mark series? Somewhere in the Lincoln brand's twisted nomenclature there is a missing link: a connection between the rip-snorting Mark VIII and Lincoln’s cute-ute Mark X. I mean MKX. While no one at Lincoln's brand-awareness roadshow bought this Houstonian's sly attempt to realign the disjointed Mark series, they still handed me a set of keys to their latest crossover vehicle and told me to go play. Well fair enough.