Left Coast do-gooders? Take a hike. East Coast intellectuals? On your bike. The Chevy Silverado doesn’t give a damn about you and your fancy gas electric cars. GM’s new[ish] pickup is a rolling tribute to the working class people who form the backbone of our country– as defined by the musical stylings of John Cougar Mellencamp. More to the point, a good old Harvard boy named Rick Wagoner says his company’s turnaround depends on the Silverado. So are its flat-bedded shoulders strong enough to support the world’s America’s largest automaker? 

I recently received a review of the Cadillac BLS penned by a South African scribe. While the writer responded to my revisions by retreating to the pub, I couldn’t stop thinking about the obscure object of his ire. The execrable BLS– a Saab 9-3 reskin with neither style nor grace– was born in the middle of GM’s so-called product renaissance. BLS sales projections started at 20k units per year, then fell to 10, then seven. And now I learn that instead of killing this poor-selling, po-faced, brand-defiling half-breed, GM has appointed one Wolfgang Schubert to “save” the BLS.

Brace yourselves gentle readers. The sophomore model Acura MDX is neither appreciably larger nor significantly heavier than the outgoing 2006 model. Yes, it’s true. In this era of automotive bloat, when the vast majority of major manufacturers cater to fashion and safety requirements with steadily-increasing automotive obesity, Acura’s engineers have attained the near impossible: improvement without additional mass. So is it a small step sideways for Acura, or a giant leap forwards for the MDX? 

Fifteen years ago, I lived in the Colorado Mountains. Naturally, I owned a Jeep. For someone who was constantly fording streams and driving through blizzards, the vehicle made perfect sense. Now that I’m living in California, I buy vehicles which make the most of the balmly weather and the pleasing plethora of paved surfaces. And yet my current employment has an agricultural element; there are times when I need a vehicle to traverse rocky trails and unpaved lanes. Workers who see me approaching to bum a ride in their truck have started to pretend they only speak Spanish. So I’ve been shopping for an SUV. I began with one of the brands I know best: BMW.

When the new[ish] Chevrolet Tahoe SUV was released, reporters asked GM Car Czar Bob Lutz whether rising gas prices would discourage SUV buyers from jumping into The General’s gas-guzzling truck. ”Rich people don’t care about gas prices,” Lutz remarked. Yes well, it’s time for Maximum Bob to take a class in Remedial Marketing. It’s a five minute course that starts with the Bell Curve. 

GM’s investment in The People’s Republic of China presents two main dangers. First, it extends GM’s supply chain over an enormous distance. Second, it enmeshes The General in the economy of a non-democratic country. Frank Williams has already raised the alarm over the possibility of Chinese nationalization. We’ve also highlighted the chances of de facto nationalization; based on western automakers’ [mandatory] partners’ history of stealing Western designs and technology. In all this, we shouldn’t ignore the fact that GM’s money is propping up a communist dictatorship.

A small bump in the road traversed at the slightest discernible angle on dry pavement at 50mph will send the Shelby GT500’s rear end sideways with enough violence to engage the traction control. If you don't care, God bless you. I fully understand and appreciate your perspective: muscle cars are about power, not finesse. Finesse is for people who aren’t willing to risk their childrens' future to experience a few moments of high horsepower hoonery. Fine. But include me out.

Historically speaking, Chrysler’s desire to keep pace with Ford and GM has kept the company perched on the brink of disaster. In his magnificent Motown expose “The Reckoning,” author David Halberstam devotes a couple of chapters to the "Crisis Corporation's" perennial woes. Halberstam describes the corrosive effects of the automaker’s sales bank, where vehicles were built, registered as sold and held in vast lots– until reality caught up with book-keeping. The practice was eventually abandoned. As you’ve just read, it’s baaaaack.

Just a few years ago, Walter Chrysler’s namesake was riding high. The “partnership of equals” between America’s Chrysler Corporation and Germany’s Daimler-Benz bore fruit in the form of the critically acclaimed Chrysler 300 and Dodge Magnum. “Hemi” was the performance buzzword. “SRT” indicated the performance deal of the decade. Fast forward to ’06 and everything Chrysler's doing seems strangely, willfully, specifically designed to push the automaker to the brink of self-annihilation.