Buying an automobile from a private seller is risky business. There’s only one guarantee: you have less chance of successful legal compensation than you would trying to recover your $5 tip from a New York City cabbie. On the positive side, you can make out like a bandit. This is especially true for a privately owned collector car. Whether it’s a classic or a street rod, if someone else gets stuck with the time and expense of restoration, you win. 

It’s no secret that The Detroit News (DTN) likes to cheer for the home team. It’s also no surprise that the financially challenged paper imports low-cost out-of-town talent to satisfy their product needs– just like the domestic automakers they support. So when I read Washington Post writer Warren Brown’s analysis of GM’s fortunes on the DTN website, I was hardly stunned to discover a happy clappy Pollyanna puff piece. Like his prickly personality, Brown’s nose for news is distinctly stuffy; his piece embodies and elevates mindless pro-GM optimism to new heights.

Over the years, my father’s garage has become an elephant’s graveyard of corroded metal, faded wiring diagrams, desiccated gaskets and other relics of a lifetime of Land Rover ownership. Buried deep somewhere in that automotive salmagundi: an old Punch magazine. Within its yellowed pages, a cartoon shows three British Leyland workers clustered around the company magazine, contemplating a picture of an Austin Mini with its speedometer mounted on the hubcap. The caption reads: “Cock-up of The Month.” Amen. The Land Rover was the far best four by four by far ever built by lazy English Communists.

I may be the only American automotive journalist who thinks the United Auto Workers (UAW) won't make any significant concessions in their new contracts with The Big Two Point Five. Window dressing? Absolutely. I fully expect to read breathless accounts of breakthough announcements– and discover familiar pay postponements, paper shuffling and prevarication. Genuine, honest-to-God, we’ll reduce the amount of money we’re draining from your coffers concessions? Never. And then I read Sharon Terlep’s piece in the Detroit News– “UAW: Expect Sacrifice”– and changed my mind. For five minutes.

I’m 31, single and happy. So obviously my mother is constantly nagging me to get hitched and give her grandchildren. Even my sister’s impending marriage has failed to distract her; she’ll never be content until, presumably, I am not. Perhaps she’s right. I’m the only unmarried man at my weekly poker game. My best friend is expecting his first child this summer. If I were honest, I might admit I’m at the age when oat-sowing men settle down, produce offspring and molt. I can, however, offer at least one compelling reason for not introducing my spawn upon the world’s stage: I'd fit the Suzuki XL7's psychographic profile.

Trivia buffs, scholars of ancient history and encyclopedia-reading geeks know the first month of the year is named for the Roman god Janus. Janus didn’t have any special powers. His entire claim to fame was based on having two faces, one on the front of his head and one on the back. Since Janus could keep an eye on what was coming as well as what was going, he was placed in charge of gates and doors, transitions, and beginnings and endings. Being two faced also meant he could talk out of two mouths at the same time. Kinda like Toyota.

Hybrid cars are the automaker’s equivalent of straight teeth: everyone wants them. Carmakers without hybrids are beginning to look, well, a little unkempt. Not wanting to be perceived as a snaggletooth, Nissan joins the club with its new-for-‘07 Altima Hybrid. The company describes its first foray into gas-electric frugality as "the first hybrid that drives like a Nissan." The firm’s marketers clearly intend for Nissan’s self-fashioned sporting image to set the Altima hybrid apart from its key competitors. They’re also convinced, presumably, that consumers will know what this tagline means.

According to yesterday's Yahoo finance, Apple juice is the Detroit’s drink of the moment. Mark Fields, FoMoCo’s Prez Del Americas: "I admire their pure understanding of the brand and the type of customer they're going after.” Mark LeNeve, GM’s Veep of SS&M (Sales, Service and Marketing): "We're really trying to be more like companies like Apple, where we can innovate and move faster.” Eric Ridenour, COO of the C in DCX: "I think a fresh, creative mind is something that you can appreciate and focus simply on some complicated things." While the Big Two Point Five’s top execs are happy to sing the praises of the iMac, iPod, Apple TV and iPhone, it's lip service. They’re unwilling to learn the true lessons of Apple’s recent success. 

The Yugo and Excel are automotive nameplates synonymous with pistonhead schadenfreude. Yet both models sold well (at least initially). Their success proves two things: 1) you can flog just about anything if the price is low enough and 2) building a car for the lowest possible price does nothing to elevate the automotive arts. While the Yugo has gone to the place where forgettable cars are eventually forgotten (save by those who endured them), Hyundai’s successor to the Excel, the Accent, still strives for, um, sales. After twenty years of evolution, is the Accent still a contender for a Forbes’ best product?

Allstate is currently blanketing the videosphere with ads touting “accident forgiveness.” Watching Allstate's viscious vérité, my mind drifted to our prodigal curmudgeon and part-time EMT. I wondered how Stephan Wilkinson would categorize the causation of the twisted metal carnage he’s encountered: “accidental,” “avoidable” or “brain dead stupid?” Allstate's willingness to forgive accidents sounds all warm and fuzzy, but given the potential advantages of apportioning blame, is it really such a good idea?

It’s easier to convince an Evangelical that Christ was a grifter than to persuade pistonheads to give up their regular oil change. Yea, verily, the maniacal motorists believe in the healing power of regular visits to the Church of St. Pennzoil. And they certainly have the Gospel of Jiffy Lube on their sides: Thou shalt change thy oil every 3k miles or your engine will blow up in an explosion of fire and brimstone. Well I hereby give pistonheads permission to skip their next regularly scheduled motor oil change. And the one after that one. In fact, if you’re not planning to keep your car for all eternity, consider forgetting oil changes altogether.

Last spring, reporters forced GM CEO Rabid Rick Wagoner to confront his company’s demons. At the opening of a Russian assembly plant, in the midst of US plant closures, sell-offs and buyouts; scribes raised the unholy specter of Toyota’s usurpation of GM’s ““World’s Largest Automaker” crown Wagoner told the assembled throng that GM would “like to stay number one” but it wasn’t the company’s "top priority.” New Year, new tune: "I like being number one,” Wagoner told Detroit auto show survivors. “I think our people take pride in it."

Safety legislation is killing Volvo. New rules and test procedures have virtually leveled the playing field, to the point where Volkswagen sells crash protection as credibly as Thor's mob. Even worse, the Swedish brand has at least partially surrendered the field. Sure, their cars still come laden with the latest safety-oriented gizmos and boast the best construction techniques, but the focus has shifted. According to the official website, you should buy the new Volvo S80 because of its “Scandinavian luxury.” In case you’re wondering, that means “comfort + power + safety.” Talk about changing priorities…

There’s a Lincoln ad on the back cover of this month's Automobile mag. It’s a rear three quarter shot of an MKZ on an empty road in a moody landscape, parked in front of a train crossing. A five line poem referring to astronautical countdowns, racehorses at the gate and quivering arrows hovers above the barrier. The last line is a little unsettling: “Ready or not, here I come.” (Uh, you might want to wait for that train to blow by.) The ad raises an interesting question: does Lincoln’s marketing department have any idea who might want to buy their car?

What the Hell’s a Suzuki’s SX4? I know it’s my job to know about these things, but I swear the test car greeting me upon my return from Old Blighty was the first one I’ve ever seen. If first impressions last, this tall, decidedly Japanese runabout says Subaru Forrester meets Scion xA on the suburban side of town. (In keeping with the parlance of our times, Suzuki shuns the “w” word and calls the SX4 a crossover.) A quick walk around revealed four big wheels, four big disc brakes, a Prius style double A-pillar and an AWD badge. Hmmm…? Could this sub-radar Suzuki be a sleeper?