Automotive News [sub] reports a Turin [Italy] court has banned the Great Wall GWPeri from European sales. The court agrees with Fiat's assessment that the car "is a (Fiat) Panda with a different front end." The court ordered Great Wall to pay Fiat about $24k for the first imported model, and nearly $80k for each future import. Great Wall's lawyers say they'll appeal the decision. Fiat is also suing Great Wall in China, where the Panda isn't even sold. That case is still pending. It's been rumored that Great Wall has been interested in the U.S. market for some time, so let me be the first to say, bring the GWPeri here! The Panda's supposed to be a fun little car, and our own struggling automakers could use a captive import or two right now. Bring it as a Chevy, and let Fiat angrily nurse its $2b of GM's money. Either way, this is clearly a sign of things to come. Up next, lawsuits over this (Great Wall) Scion xB, this (SG) RX300, this (Lifan) MINI Cooper, this HUMMER, etc, etc. Hell, Great Wall even stole its GWPeri ad from an old Citroen C4 spot. Talk about incorrigible.

The automotive industry is the global leader in greenwashing. Whether through highly-touted donations to activist groups, misleading advertisements or assorted implausible claims, automakers will do most anything (or in some nothing) to seem eco-friendly. The New York Times reports that the ad men are worried that many consumers can discern now disingenuous environmental claims from environmental action. The Grey Lady traveled to Cannes for an annual ad industry knees-up, and found that green claims are being dialed back to the point reflecting reality. Forget morality, it's one of those impact deals. "After 18 months, levels of concern on any issue tend to drop off," said Jonathan Banks, Nielsen UK's business insight director. Another problem: watchdog groups are fact checking green claims. Britain's A.S.A. and the America's F.T.C. are looking into tightening eco-ad standards. How long before automakes can't advertise highway mpgs?

We're talking about Subie-grokking enthusiasts. What brought this to mind: the automaker's announcement [reported by our slack-jawed pals at Autoblog] that the current WRX will become the Impreza GT. The new WRX will be a fanboy's wet dream. She'll be packing 265hp, an upgraded suspension and fancy-schmancy-trim,. And get this: no slushbox. Manual transmission only. Considering Subaru has been ditching stick shift trannies like bad dates, it's a win for pistonheads everywhere. The new Lancer Raillart had a hand in this. And even though Subies aren't the most fuel-efficient vehicles on planet Earth, they're still a hit with that part of the North American continent we call the snow belt. Not to mention various other inclement weather enclaves (so to speak). In a decidedly down U.S. new car market, Subie sales rose 5.3 percent in June, up 4.4 percent year-to-date. Impreza sales rose two percent in June, 12 percent year-to-date. So Subie can well afford to hone for hoons.  

NPR's Market Place recently featured on an economist who said gas prices don't follow any rational economic pattern. Supply has nothing to do with demand, and vice-versa. Wonderful. TTAC contributor and former Car and Driver ME Stephan Wilkinson emailed me this morning on the same topic. "Opinions, of course, range all the way from simple supply-and-demand to Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, with all sorts of goofball imaginings in between." Personally I like the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy idea, but there's probably more to it than that. But how would I know? Wilkinson goes on, "There's an interesting piece in the new Conde Nast Portfolio, 'Crude Reporting,' on how bad a job simplistic journalists have been doing with the subject, at least in part because newsrooms are staffed by a generation of Reaganomics enthusiasts who believe that the market rules, whereas back in the old days, reporters were 'the redistribuionist children of the New Deal and the AFL-CIO.'" Well, if this is the same "generation of Reaganomics enthusiasts" who didn't once bother to ask Judith Miller if she was, you know, making shit up during our march to war, then a bit more is illuminated. Your thoughts?

A couple of months ago, we ran a survey to find out a bit about our Best and Brightest. Our opt-in survey (with all that implies) asked about how often you visit and what you do while you're here, your car buying habits, involvement in the automotive hobby and (of course) some of the usual standard demographic stuff. Needless to say, we didn't tell you how to answer it, like your  friendly neighborhood dealership service department. The results are in and here they are. The PDF has numeric scores from most questions with a summary of the open-ended questions. It's given us an insight to who our customers are and how we can improve the quality of our product. And believe me… we'll look at every comment you made. Thanks to all who participated. BTW: advertisers need apply.

Click here for survey results 

This week General Motors sent out a note saying that full Camaro details would come out on Monday the 21st of July. So I put the Camaro on the mental backburner. Now, in a series of events that so fits the development of the Camaro, pictures have leaked onto the net. Are they intentionally leaked? Is a bear Catholic? Anyway, putting aside the marketing problems, and gas prices, and GM's problems, and Bob Lutz's talking, and the seemingly endless hype, ladies and gentlemen, we have a new four-seat, rear wheel-drive V6 and V8 pony car. Woohoo! The info that accompanied the pictures over at Cartribe.com is spotty and inconsistent with what we've heard before. They claim engine options are the 3.6-liter V6 with direct injection, good for around 300 horses (that's almost definitely true). But they also claim the V8 is the 6.2-liter LS3 V8 out of the Corvette. In this application it would make some 416 horses they say. Unfortunately, I'm doubting it. As an SS, maybe. My money is on the 360 horse V8 as the base V8 engine. The official specs come Monday. But for now enjoy the pics of a hitherto unannounced RS version. Just like last time (early 1970s), the muscle cars are best right before the market implodes. But to quote Joel Goodsen's father in Risky Business, sometimes you just gotta say "What the heck."

Pixamo Gallery  

According to an Automotive News Europe report yesterday, Mercedes is set to have an entirely turbocharged automobile lineup by 2010-2011. You might have noticed that while the "big boys" blogged it immediately, we at TTAC did not. The story, which was originally published in Europe based on a European presentation, was just too many steps removed from Dieter Zetsche to race to press – and a little too wild. Rather than pull an Autoblog on the CTS-V/Europe (rush to report, then recant ), we held off until getting confirmation from the author of the original news story, James Franey. Well it turns out that the madness, in this case, is true – until Mercedes changes its mind. In the meantime, the plan is to go all turbocharged, aside from perhaps the hybrid models set to debut in the coming years. You can see in the attached PDF that Daimler is defecating a brick over the upcoming European emissions regulations and their very European fines for noncompliance. Everything will end up with some kind of marketing-lover name – Bluetec, BlueEfficiency, and DiesOtto. The latter is the most exciting from an enthusiast point of view, with the concept DiesOtto engine delivering 238 hp, 294 lb ft of torque, and 40 US MPG from a 1.8 liter gasoline engine in an S-Class. And from Zetsche's presentation, it looks like it'll be happening. Oh yeah, and everything will get turbos, too. 

During his visit to MI, presidential candidate John McCain dropped his automaker-unfriendly talk of California's emissions standards to focus on the "game-changing" plug-in hybrid electric – gas Chevrolet Volt. Maverick reputation notwithstanding, McCain was only too happy to lead in the self-congratulatory cheerleading. "The eyes of the world are now on the Volt and this will be not only be about the jobs or economy of this great and beautiful state," McCain said. "It's also about the future of the world. We have to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil as a national security issue." Surrounded by competitive products like the Chevy Cobalt, McCain called the the Volt "another great leap forward in American history." Meanwhile, GM CEO Rick Wagoner showed his understanding of engineering. He told McCain that "If this [the Volt's powertrain] doesn't work perfectly, we can do everything else perfectly and it's not going to work." This while admitting that the Volt development team is "pushing the time envelope." Uh-oh.

The Detroit News reports that 150 Chrysler white collar retirees attended the first meeting of the National Chrysler Retirement Organization. The meeting comes days after GM announced retiree health care cuts, and a month after Chrysler cut life insurance to its former workers. "Chrysler workers were promised these benefits and counted on them when they retired, especially if they took an early retirement," said Chuck Austin, the org's president pro tem. "For them now to change their minds anytime they'd like — it's not right." The organization has sent letters to Chairman and CEO Bob Nardelli and Nancy Rae, executive vice president for human resources and communications, asking for benefit guarantees. Meanwhile, the group is looking into legal redress. "We need to make sure that the pension fund is 100 percent secured," says former Chrysler human resources staffer Nancy Furman. "If we are losing our benefits, seeing our 401(k)s drop and living longer, we need to make sure every penny counts." The group's also asking Chrysler to follow GM's lead and freeze executive salary raises and bonuses. Unfortunately, when (or if you prefer, if) Chrysler goes C11, these retirees will have little legal recourse. Yet another reason to bemoan, not celebrate, Chrysler's ignominious decline.

Looking for a campaign bounce before Obama sweeps the media away for his world tour, McCain is confronting the stagnant economy right at its rotten core. But touring the GM Design Center Dome at Warren, McCain may not have uncovered anything energizing for his campaign to latch on to. In fact, early reports seem to indicate that the Senator from Arizona is hardly bending over backwards for the General– or should that be forwards? At an early-morning town hall meeting at GM's technical center, McCain reversed his position on California's emissions regulation, saying "I guess at the end of the day I support the states being able to do that." The gaffery didn't end there. The Detroit News reports that McCain got to visit GM's Volt display, where he was joined by the top brass (CEO Rick Wagoner, Bob Lutz and pals). McCain thought it would be a great place to tout his "Lexington Plan," which includes a $5k tax incentive for buyers of zero-emissions vehicles. But without even entering the "long tailpipe" debate, McCain forgot to remember that the Volt actually has an internal combustion engine. Which means that it ain't exactly zero emissions. Luckily, GM employees have become accustomed to disingenuous pronouncements from their higher-ups. "It'd be nice to have a friend in Washington," said Don Jamison, 49, a GM bumper systems engineer. "Of course, he's politicking for votes, so he's going to be telling us all kinds of things." Roger and me that. 

GM's flailing Rethink brand is holding a contest that just BEGS to be punked, on every possible level. You can almost hear the titters at GM as the brand managers read the irony-free press release. "Contestants can kiss their own Astra, a friend’s Astra or drop by any Saturn retailer and kiss their Astra, and then upload a photo of the kiss at www.ImSaturn.com [strapline: UR2]. The contestant with the funniest, most creative photo – as selected by the online Saturn community – will win a 2008 Saturn XR 5-door." And if that isn't enough of an open invitation to chaos, yes, that is GM Car Czar Bob Lutz putting flesh to metal on the Belgian-built vehicle that racked-up all of 888 sales in June, 4365 year-to-date. There's plenty more hilarity where that comes from (click here). And MAN what I wouldn't do to see the photos that didn't make the site. But I won't do that. No I won't do that.

Thanks to fierce competition, new technology and good old-fashioned hubris, luxury brands are continuing their relentless pursuit of lower-priced brand extensions (a.k.a. "affordable luxury"). It's a tricky transition that can degrade brand values and lead to some mutant machines [see: MB and their (un)Smart move.] Incrementalism seems to be the way Fordward. Mercedes' A and B Class, for example are [almost] accepted as genuine Stuttgart pure breed. In their latest attempt to conquer the world, the German engineers (and designers) are now set to expand the MB compact-class line-up. Among the new omers expect an entry-level convertible to go head-to-head with Audi's A3. The next CLK gets the folding hard-top, so this… thing is keeps the lid simple (i.e. inexpensive). Needless to say, the German effort to make a cheap cabriolet will no doubt face a Korean effort to make a luxury convertible. Strange times.

[For more of AA's photochopistry, click on www.avarvarii.com] 

Later today, we'll share the results of TTAC's readers' poll. It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that you really are the autoblogosphere's Best and Brightest. One of the gems unearthed by this opt-in poll (yeah, I know) is that our hard-core surfs Autoblog and Jalopnik on a regular basis. This [non] revelation inspires us to continue following branding guru Al Reis advice: if you're not the market leader, define your brand against the other guys. Now no one can accuse Jalopnik of not having a sense of humor (or an anti-flaming policy). But Autoblog has just crossed into new dimensions of unfunny with this video. I mean, there I was thinking, fair enough, poke a little fun at the Ford Flex. Why not? And as I watched… nothing. Save some elliptical crack about Ford Thunderbird technology and the old FoMoCo logo at the end, this clip could have from come The Blue Oval Boys themselves. Lapdoggery never looked so… bland. Anyway, TTAC video will be coming to a screen near you soon. Expect the unexpected. 

In 2002, my friend Patrick threw a glass ashtray at me in a bar in Boston. “Berzerkowitz!” he barked, celebrating the successful hit right in the middle of my forehead. That’s how he said hi. The next morning, once he sobered up, and my face still hurt like a sonofabitch, we went for a ride in the car he rented for the weekend. “It’s the most generic car I have ever driven,” Pat told me from the driver’s seat of a Hyundai XG350L.

TTAC commentator Muholland Mike writes… " As an avid reader and sometimes poster on your site I have a follow up to this story [about the elimination of the LA Times Highway One section, and the banishment to Pulitzer Prize winning auto critic Dan Neil to the Business section]. I opened up my Wed. LA times yesterday morning to find that the Auto section hadn't really gone away, it has just morphed into one of these hideous "special" sections full of crap/pr based stories on some lame ass theme like: "Luxury cars for morons." So it seems that GM and the local LA dealers have won out. Dan Neil is banished to the back of the Friday business section and the advertising department is now in complete control of the "new and improved" Automotive section, Just like every other sell-out newspaper in America." Speaking as TTAC's publisher, I look forward to the day when we can afford to hire Dan Neil.