My wife and I were talking about Tom Cruise the other day. After discussing the diminutive actor's parenting skills and religious beliefs, we came to the somewhat inevitable conclusion that Hollywood's number one Scientologist is as crazy as a loon. In this, he's not alone. At least not in Hollywood. You don't have to read the celebrity gossip mags or watch their TV equivalents to know that Tinsel Town's "elite" have lost all grip on what we outside of their realm commonly refer to as "reality." It's only common sense. Take a group– any group– of good-looking, highly ambitious, ultra-competitive people, give them each a couple of thousand toadies or so and ten or more million dollars, and watch their neuroses bubble to the surface like magma heading for the top of a pre-eruption Mt. St. Helens. Money on that scale still can't buy you love, but it can buy you drug addiction, divorce and up close and personal access to a panoply of mental illnesses. And if these well-loved and lawyered-up people happen to be actors/actresses, they'll be able to hide their insanity from the outside world. Until they can't. I mention all this because I've been searching for a reason why so many carmakers make such boneheaded branding decisions. And I've decided it's because they're cruising along without a care in the world, burning through other people's money as if it were… other people's money. When one of the heavy hitters goes Chapter 11, the resulting chill may cause a change. Then again, maybe not. And how dull would our world be if we couldn't laugh at the foibles of others?

You may remember Sweden's infamous Älgtest (a.k.a. moose or Elk test). A kamikaze professional driver guides a fully-laden vehicle (simulated passengers, genuine cargo) down a closed course at 35.5mph. He/she then swerves to avoid an object, then swerves back; simulating the manoeuvres needed to to miss both an errant moose and oncoming traffic. Back in '97, pictures of Mercedes' newly-launched A-Class flipping over during moose testing led the German automaker to retrofit every single car sold with a new Electronic Stability Program module. And now those crazy bastards at Teknikens Värld have put the Toyota Hilux through the same test — with similar results. (TTAC's American readers may remember the Hilux as the previous generation Toyota Tacoma pickup.) The video in the link brings back memories of the 1988 Consumer Reports exposé on the Suzuki "Somersault" Samurai. Anyway, hands-up anyone who thinks Toyota is going to retrofit ESP on old Hilux pickups? Yeah I thought so.

According to WardsAuto.com, there will be no '09 Ford Crown Victoria. It was bound to happen sooner or later, what with sales of Ford's last full-size rear wheel-drive sedan tanking by 90 percent since 2000. Twisting the knife, Wards says Ford moved just 46,188 Crown Vics year-to-date, down 9.1 percent from last year's totals. So that's it for Ye Olde Crown Vic, at least on the retail side. Ford will continue making a fleet-only Vic at its Ontario plant, alongside the newly relocated, equally doomed Lincoln Town Car. Meanwhile, the Grand Marquis variant will continue not to clog Mercury dealer parking lots for the forseeable future, despite underselling the underselling Crown Vic by about 15 percent. By 2010, when job guarantees to Ford's St. Thomas-based Canadian Auto Workers' union expire, all of Ford's full-sized RWD sedans will be toast. What a waste. 

In another case of under-informed greenery, Slate.com attempts to answer the question vexing America's automotive environmentalists: should American drivers switch to manual transmissions to save the planet? Answer: yes. Author Brendan I. Koerner says self-shifters can shave 15 percent off their annual gas consumption. "The Department of Energy estimates that the average American driver uses 500 gallons of gas per year, so we're talking about a reduction of 75 gallons. Since a gallon of gas emits 19.564 pounds of carbon dioxide… you'd be reducing your annual CO₂ output by approximately two-thirds of a metric ton." But then again no; American drivers lack the right technique/attitude to harvest the savings. "If you're lazy about shifting and allow your RPMs to soar unnoticed, then you might actually guzzle more gas than if your car were equipped with a well-engineered slushbox." Koerner seems blissfully unaware of the wide variety of cog-swappers on the market: slushbox, CVT, DSG, automatic clutch. But he's convinced that manual transmissions are a better bet, if only because "The brake pads on stick-shift cars… tend to wear out less rapidly than those on automatics. And manual transmissions are relatively cheap to fix and replace, so you can wait longer to buy a new vehicle." Who knew?

With the pickup truck market headed for the crash barrier and consumer demand shifting from SUVs towards more fuel-efficient cars and CUVs, GM has decided to introduce a pickup truck version of one of its slowest-selling SUVs. CNNMoney reports GM is wasting spending $73m to equip its Shreveport, Louisiana plant to build the Hummer H3T alongside Chevy Colorados and GMC Canyons. You may recall– then again why would you?– that the H3T was introduced as a two-door concept at the LA Auto Show in 2004. Although the concept looked kinda cool and (relatively) compact in a Jeep Gladiator kinda way, the new Hummer pickup will have a four-door cab. GM describes the forthcoming H3T as "larger than a mid-sized truck but smaller than a full-sized truck." Which raises an interesting question: "Why?"

Audi has the A3. Mercedes has the B-class. BMW has the 1-series. And now Lexus is jumping on the small car bandwagon. According to Redbook (the Aussie website, not the thirty-something fashion mag), Toyota's upmarket car brand is dumping plans to build a RAV-4-based SUV in favor of crafting the Lexus of small cars. An unnamed, overly-grammatical Lexus executive claimed "the booming small passenger market in Europe has required us to rethink the situation in terms of the sub-RX entry-level SUV. In response, we have decided to shift from SUV to passenger car, under the project name of C-Premium." The new baby Lexus will be offered in both sedan and hatchback versions. It should arrive just in time to help Lexus meet stricter CO2 and fuel economy standards. Let's just hope the "C" in "C-Premium" doesn't mean "Corolla."

Can someone please explain this to me? To field a credible small car stateside, GM has decided to import the relatively diminutive Opel Astra from Europe into the U.S. and re-badge it a Saturn. Because of the unfavorable exchange rate between the U.S. and the Eurozone, and the fact that the Astra will be screwed together in a high-cost country (Belgium), GM will make a loss on every Astra sold. So the more Astras they sell, the more money they'll lose. And yet, Just-Auto [sub] reports that GM has decided to increase the number of Astras headed stateside from 30k to 40k per year. Originally, we heard that the Opel Astra was a "placeholder;" if it sold in sufficient quantities, GM would transfer production to the U.S. But building cars in the U.S. isn't any cheaper than assembling them in the land of mayonnaise on your french fries. It can't be a Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) pleasing deal, as the imported Astra wouldn't count towards GM's domestic CAFE averages. Is it a union thing? A world car thing? A stupid ass hubris WTF GM thing? 

Now that the European courts have finally struck down the so-called "VW Law" preventing Porsche from taking control of the German automaker, VW's labor union is upping the ante in its battle for power on their future owner's board. As Just-Auto reports [sub], VW's works council is seriously pissed at the idea that Porsche's numerically inferior labor union will get the same representation on the new holding company's BOD as VW's One Man Army. So the VeeDub boys are downing tools; they're striking VW over the issue. For three hours. Only not technically. Technically, the VW works council is holding "information meetings" re: the Porsche takeover amongst its union brothers and sisters. The fact that these gatherings will stop production at all six of VW's German assembly plants is neither here nor there, presumably.  

Well duh. More importantly, why is Michelle Maynard over at The New York Times publicly humiliating Chrysler's CEO for his non-car guyitude? That debate is so last August. OK, so Nardelli made some Home Depot-esque gaffes during his speech to the Magazine Publishers of America conference. Such as “I think a vehicle today has to be your most favorite room under your roof. I really believe that. I mean, it has to bring you gratification, it has to be tranquil. It’s incidental that it gets you from Point A to B, right?” Well no, obviously. But we get the distinct impression that Maynard was, well, picking on Bob. "'An automobile also needs “cup holders — some for water and some for…,' Mr. Nardelli said, but he did not finish that thought." Is the Old Gray Lady (the paper, not Maynard) seriously suggesting that the Chrysler CEO's inability to name any other beverage suitable for a cupholder indicates a lack of pistonhead credentials? The article gives Nardelli's PR handler enough rope to hang himself the last word.  "It’s his own spin on it,” Mr. Aberlich said. “It’s good to have that fresh perspective, and he’s bringing that.” Fair enough?

Forbes' columnist Jerry Flint says rising U.S. gas prices are not changing– nor are they about to change– America's car-buying habits. "We can afford it. If we rushed out and sold our big, safe, comfortable cars and trucks, trading them for little minis, we would be driving uncomfortably and less safely. We would lose more money on the trade-ins than we would ever save in lower gasoline bills." Uh, what about sagging pickup trucks sales, or the switch from SUVs to crossovers? Don't the numbers reflect a new mpg-related car-buying paradigm? Flint dismisses the shift as nothing more than a continuation of a pre-existing trend– although the dean of automotive journalists fails to state what triggered these trends in the first place. As always, Flint's take on the hard numbers is let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may PC anti-matter. Until the last 'graph. "But all is not hopeless," Flint opines, suddenly revealing his disapproval for American consumers' recalcitrance re: downsizing their cars, carpooling or hopping onto public transportation. "Auto companies around the world, those in Detroit included, are developing improved engines that will push a car farther on a gallon. They will be here in a few years. And they'll fit under the hood of a roomy, comfortable American car." Well thank God for that!

BMW’s next big thing is the 1-Series coupe and convertible. Propellerheads are positively dizzy at the prospect of a new, small-ish, rear wheel-drive BMW offering a modicum of practicality, brand-faithful weight distribution and one of the company’s legendary in-line six-cylinder engines. Why it’s the 2002 reborn! Hello? Has the entire enthusiast community been neuralized? They seem to have forgotten the fact that BMW already sells a model answering to this description: the Z4 Coupe. Or, in fact, doesn’t, much. And for good reason: the Z4 is a rolling condemnation of BMW’s evolutionary commitment to ultimate driving, a four-wheeled cautionary tale for anyone blinded by the BMW badge. 

I have been reading the comments to the post "In Defense of American Automakers" with ever-increasing fascination and mounting excitement. As of this writing, there are 828 comments beneath Mr. Ressler's rant. Yes, there's a great deal of rhetorical repetition. Yes, the same half dozen or so commentators have set up fortifications on either side of the "import bigot" issue–  which neither side shows the slightest willingness to abandon. But despite this intellectual intransigence, I'm getting the feeling that something radical is gradually emerging. I'm not entirely sure how to characterize this development; slapping a label on the interchange would be premature. But I am sure that this is exactly the sort of discussion this website was created to engender. The argument’s longevity and vitality reveals a fundamental truth that I have been championing for the last five years: the American automotive marketplace is, at its core, engaged in a strange new war of ideas. Ideas that involve art, science, politics, culture, psychology, commerce and national security. Prior to now, if debates on these topics occurred, they occurred within industry enclaves. As I've said many times, we're still a long way from the time when the "barbarians" muscle their way inside the gates– where they belong. But reading this post, knowing that it's making the rounds inside the manufacturers' servers, I sense we're closer than we've ever been before. We're being noticed. And we will be heard. 

The VW/Audi Group, owners of both the Lamborghini and Bugatti boutique brands, have invented a lucrative niche market that could awkwardly but accurately be called, “I’m Rich but Not Stupid… Come to Think of It, I Am Stupid.” Exhibit A: the Lamborghini Reventón, a limited edition, moderately rebodied Murcielago LP640 that stickers for $1,440,000 (exactly 4.5 times a Mercy’s $320k Monroney). Exhibit B: the Bugatti Veyron Pur Sang. For $560k more than the $1,440,000 "base" Bug, you can get an unpainted body. I asked the best high-end bodyshop guy I know how much he’d charge if a Veyron owner on a budget asked him to strip their ride right down to the aluminum and carbon-fiber skin, polish the metal and shoot it with a layer of clearcoat.  "Fifty grand," Mickey Bigg of Vails Gate, New York, estimated.  “But I don’t wanna do it. Too much trouble.”

Jet planes, armored personnel carriers and racecars all have nitrogen-filled tires. So it’s got to be cool, right? I mean, I wish my Honda Odyssey minivan was more like an F-22 in some way. Or in any way. Anyway, is it worth an average five bucks a tire to stuff your rubber with the seventh element? For the majority of American drivers– those who do not routinely drive through flaming pools of fuel, off-road on dunes hotter than Scarlett Johansson’s hips or hit 200mph on the straight-aways– the answer is a simple “no.” Yet thousands of vendors are setting up nitrogen pumps and enticing people to pop open their stems. What’s the point?

As Marketwatch rightly points out, all this talk of United Auto Workers' contracts this, plug-in hybrids that, and Chinese expansion the other thing, doesn't have much impact on Detroit's current bottom line. Ahead of this Thursday's reports on October sales, the Dow Jones' diligent reporters have rounded-up the usual suspects. First up, Goldman Sachs analyst Robert Barry. To say Barry isn't bullish on the U.S. car market's immediate prospects would be like saying Eeyore needs Prozac. "With oil prices above $90, choppy stock markets, and renewed economic concerns, the selling environment remains poor for new light vehicle sales." Barry reckons ramped-up incentives on outgoing '07s are all that's propping-up U.S. sales. Once those wear-off… Barry's particularly sanguine about Ford Motor Co.; he's told his clients that The Blue Oval Boyz are heading for a 17 percent hit against their October sales numbers. Meanwhile, Deutsche Bank analyst Rod Lache doesn't like what he sees over at Chrysler; weak truck sales are likely to lead another double-digit decline. And Barry's warning that Chrysler's Last Big Thing, its new minivans, "may be off to a slow start."