Yesterday, in our Super Bowl car ad guide, we speculated about what you'd be seeing from Hyundai. No need for guessing: Hyundai went ahead and posted both 30 second ads online. Our take: they look pretty good. Very simple, easy to follow (especially if you've had the standard game day spirits), and effective. Hyundai is just extending the image it has already staked out: value. They'll sell you the same car for less money, or more car for the same money. It works selling Sonatas to Corolla shoppers, and they've taken exactly the same approach here. "S-Class size for the price of the C-Class." Then they tell you it's got 375 horsepower. No green nonsense, no claims of inventing new market segments, and certainly no streams running through the woods. Just more for your money. What do you think?

Owners of cars with built-in navigation systems are familiar with the legal disclaimer screen, which indemnifies the manufacturer if the unit distracts you to death. Nissan plans to expand this e-hectoring with a start-up screen reminding drivers not to drink and drive. According to a press release on WebWire, "the alert 'Do not drive after drinking' appears automatically for about five seconds on the navigation panel between the hours of 17:30 and 05:00 at the start of the ignition. In the daytime i.e. between 05:00 and 17:30 hours, the display message reads 'Let’s continue safe driving today.'" The new Nannying– featured on their way cool CARWINGS nav system– is a Japan-only deal. For now. Nissan also says it intends to "widen its use of technology to address the hazards of drink-driving." Could a breathalyzer ignition lock be in Nissan drivers' future? 

The U.S. automotive industry's '07 retail sales stats are in, and the Detroit Free Press pronounces Ford the biggest loser. The Blue Oval Boyz' share of the American new car market sank from 15.1 percent in 2006 to 14.2 percent last year. As the Freep's Sarah H. Webster points out, that's better than the '06 decline: a two percentage point drop. But she also notes (further down in the piece) that "Ford's decline, though, is also noteworthy as Ford's incentives, as estimated by Autodata Corp., a private firm in Woodcliff Lake, N.J., remain among the highest in the industry. Ford offered an average of $4,001 in discounts on its cars and trucks last year." We also learn that Chrysler and GM's market share held steady, Toyota lost a fraction of a percentage point and the Big 2.8's combined share of the U.S. market dropped a full percentage point. Heading into a down market, it remains to be seen if the truck-heavy domestics can hold the line. 

Well, they would, wouldn't they? In what Spiegel Online calls a "remarkable change of trends," ADAC (the German equivalent of the AAA) says their car-breakdown stats (2m call-outs per year) indicate that VW, BMW and Mercedes are no longer guaranteed to fail. For the past 10 years, Japanese brands have led the ADAC reliability index. In 2003, nine out of ten of the most reliable cars in Germany were Japanese. But in the 2008 rankings, no Toyota made the top ten of least-likely-to-break-down. ADAC attributes the Japanese automaker's fall from grace to their rapid growth. Meanwhile, ADAC says that German carmakers' attention to "quality as reliability" (as opposed to "quality as tight panel  gaps") accounts for their "win." Here's the company's rundown of Germany's most reliable machines…

1 – BMW X3
2 – Audi A2
3 – BMW 1-Series
4 – BMW MINI
5 – Mazda 3
6 – Mercedes CLK
7 – Audi A4
8 – BMW 3-Series
9 – Mercedes SLK
10 – Mitsubishi Space Star

The image you are seeing comes from the Washington auto show. A facelifted Mitsubishi Galant has been making the rounds at several of the regional auto shows, and a dealer has even confirmed having a few in stock. But this freshened Galant is not on Mitsubishi's consumer website, press website or any of the press picture databases. A call to the Mitsubishi News Bureau has not been returned (they are probably not in the Berkowitz fan club after my review of the Lancer). As you can see from the horrendous blurry cameraphone picture, the rear end is in fact different and less ugly than before. Unfortunately, the car underneath is likely the same pedestrian and generic machine Americans have been ignoring for the past several years. Mitsubishi has had record sales in 2007, but they have yet to crack serious sales numbers in the Altima-Accord-Camry territory in which they used to be very competitive. So two lessons here. First, when you launch a car, launch the damn car properly. Second… well we'll have to wait until we can see the thing, won't we.