GM has revised the estimate for U.S. new car sales in submitted to Congress in December. At the time, the company predicted the U.S. market would account for 12m new vehicles in ’09 (a goodly amount from their factories), The General now reckons the number will be closer to 10.5m. As CNNMoney indicates, GM’s second sales revision in as many months suggests that they’re preparing to increase their mega-suckle on Uncle Sugar’s teat when they return to the pig sty in February and/or March. “According to the turnaround plan, GM said it might need $15 billion in federal help by the end of March if estimated industrywide sales fell to the 10.5 million level.” And here we are. But the numbers are a double-edged sword. On one hand, they substantiate GM’s Curley defense. On the other, there isn’t an accountant outside of Dearborn who thinks GM can even break even if sales remain at anything near that level. Prop-up a vital industry for a year or more at the cost of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, or cut bait and fish? The battle lines are drawn.

An eagle-eyed member of TTAC’s Best and Brightest spotted something curious on the 2010 Ford Taurus micro-site: a heads-up on a cookin’ Taurus. Did I just say that? Sounds a bit like “tuned Corolla.” Still, FoMoCo has a long and noble history of offering performance versions of everyday sedans. Even though Ford chassis guru Richard Parry Jones has left the building, and the SHO folk have been transferred to more mundane duties (allegedly), The Blue Oval Boys have more than enough engineering expertise to make the jinxed D3 platform a lot more interesting. To see the possibly inadvertent shout out, click on this link, click on “Key Features” and there it is: “Performance Series.” Mouse over that bad boy and the James Bond license plate effect tells you it’s “Coming February 2009.” That would be the it really is called The Chicago Auto Show.

You remember The Center for Automotive Research (CAR). They’re the Detroit-based automaker and union-funded think tank that progated the “soup lines beckon if you don’t bailout Detroit” study. The mainstream media repeated CAR’s stats– debunked on TTAC by both myself and our Best and Brightest— as gospel. Now that CAR has had its wicked way with $17.4b of your tax money, they’re back from hiatus with fresh apocalyptic visions for policy makers. Only this time, they’re right. “McAlinden, director-economics research for the Center for Automotive Research, predicts auto makers will sell 11.5 million units in 2009, down from 13.2 million last year and 16.2 million in 2007,” Ward’s Dealer Business reports. ‘The U.S. will not see 14 million new-vehicle sales again until 2012 and 16 million in 2013. The downturn will last a long time.'” OK, so… “Whether the two auto makers can meet the loan requirements set by the Bush Admin. remains to be seen. However he does not believe GM can meet the obligations as they are written now, adding, the ‘conditions will be changed so GM can keep them.'” Make no mistake: McAlinden has no faith in GM’s recovery plans.

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Chrysler will stop building PT Cruisers this summer. OK, they’re not actually building anything until next month, and maybe not even then, but you know what I mean. Displaying the link between stress, huge salary, government begging and multiple personality disorder, ChryCo Co-Prez Tom LaSorda got on the blower with Bloomberg to acknowledge that the entire PT model is for sale. “Would we sell those assets? Yes. Do we have any offers to sell those assets? No. Would we be pursuing a buyer? Yes.” In China? Yes. Would they buy it? No. Despite the idea that China wants our cast-offs, they’re way beyond that point. And make no mistake, the PT has gone all the way from hero to zero. “U.S. sales of the PT Cruiser plunged 49 percent last year to 50,910 units, outpacing Chrysler’s 30 percent slide and the 18 percent tumble in the domestic auto market. Deliveries peaked at 144,717 in 2001, according to Autodata Corp. in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey.” For those who lament the death (dearth?) of American automotive production, remember that the PT is hecho en Mexico. Still sucks for them, obviously.

Now that the Need For Speed franchise has definitively and conclusively jumped the shark, Rockstar’s Midnight Club has emerged as the standard-bearer for street racing games. Enter the newest edition: Midnight Club: LA. The recipe for this one was deceptively simple: take the GTA IV driving engine, enhance it to reflect different (i.e. real) cars, stick the driver in yet another trendy city-– this time LA– and let him get into as much trouble as possible. On the whole, Midnight Club picks up right where NFS Carbon left off (let’s pretend ProStreet and Undercover never happened). It’s a fun, arcade-style game, but it’s not without its flaws.

Of course, the next question is, will you? Companies pay millions for new logos, corporate identities and those terrific little sandwiches they serve inside the meeting rooms. Well, they used to, before the beancounters woke up from their profit-gorged torpor. So why would we ask you, our Best and Brightest, to design a logo for The Truth About Cars without paying for your mad design skills? We wouldn’t. Just not up front (our marketing budget is literally zero). We’ve entered into a revenue-sharing agreement with Car Tatts— they of the “it’s so not a bumper sticker” fame– to split the revenue from TTAC tatts. So we’ll cut our winning artist in on that deal (a buck a pop). We’ll also sneak their initials into the logo, which should please Mom no end. Car Tatts is looking for a car-oriented designer (no really) AND you get recognition and kudos from your peers. Now how much wouldn’t we pay? Anyway, the brief. The logo must be significantly better than our existing design (i.e. nothing) and win the approval of our readers (I’ll build a gallery for comment). Send a jpeg to robert.farago@thetruthaboutcars.com. At this point, we’re talking single use; copyright remains with the artist until we sign a deal. The deadline is next Tuesday. Thanks.

The Detroit Free Press reports that Ron Gettelfinger is confused. Yes, the United Auto Workers (UAW) boss is waiting for “clarification on loan impact.” You know the loans, right? The $17.4b hoovered from your tax money to prop-up the bankrupt automakers known as GM and Chrysler (not to mention the $25b retooling loans, which seem to have dropped off the MSM’s radar). The same “bridge to nowhere” loans that require the UAW to agree to wage and benefit parity with Toyota, Honda and Nissan’s American workers before the rest of the money– however many billions that will be– can be shoveled in Motown’s direction. “During an interview on WDET-FM (101.9), Gettelfinger reiterated his complaint that the loan terms dealing with the union are unclear.” What is it with Ron and radio? Why can’t he give the print boys his best stuff? And what doesn’t Big Ron understand about “parity?” “There’s a lot of provisions in the loan guarantees that the companies had to sign,” Gettelfinger said. “We don’t really have any documents to work from other than their loan agreements, so we’re waiting to see until President-elect Obama gets in power, then we’ll see how this thing comes out.” Badly. I assure you. Maybe not in January or February or March. But soon. And forever.

“Like most people, we here at Toyota love good news.” And God knows there’s not a lot of that going around these days. Even for the royal we here at Toyota, where we’re used to making more profit per year than GM’s market capitalization. No really. “So the following piece of business from the Insurance Institute of Canada (IIoC) interests us a great deal.” Well, the intern in charge of finding non-controversial Toyota-oriented material for Open Road, anyway. “The thing that’s caught our attention is a list from IIoC that purports to detail the 10 vehicles that were the most frequently stolen in 2008, and also the 10 cars least frequently stolen.” Sorry about that “purports” thing. You try and post blogs every day with Legal breathing down your neck. “So the good news is that the IIoC listed no Toyota products on the most-stolen list. None. Zilch. Nada. There are lots of other brands represented there, some of them repeatedly. Some luxury brands, some aging economy brands. But not us.” I swear, if TTAC says one thing about how this proves that we’re somehow undesirable, they will not get one press car. Do they get press cars? Oh, OK. Never mind. [List of most and least stolen vehicles after the jump.]

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I’m a third generation mule trader. Grandpa literally bought mules and cows from the rural outskirts of Bavaria and sold them at the nearby cattle auctions. Dad’s been a food importer since 1949 for a company called Roland where he’s sold to Chinatown wholesalers and store owners for nearly 59 years. As for yours truly? I have auctioned off and horse traded the modern day mule at thousands of dealer sales. I love cars. I love the auction business. Most importantly I love learning. Educating people about cars and auctions, creating the urgency to buy, and learning about managing cars AND people is what I do outside my family life. It’s engaging. It’s a pain in the ass. And it would be completely unnecessary if people looked at a car the same way I do.

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Rick Bondy waits silently as the PR guy and engineer pile into the back of the Lincoln Town Car Ballistic Protection Series (BPS). Bondy’s booked track time at Ford’s Dearborn Proving Ground; the look on his face says he’s not going to miss a single minute. Sensing his urgency, I point to the radar detector nestling in my camera bag. “I’ve got one of these if you need it.” “No thanks,” Bondy replies, thumping his Secret Service badge on the armrest. “I’ve got one of these.”

The long running Navistar/Ford dispute over warranty claims, pricing and other supply details vis-à-vis the Navistar-made Powerstroke diesel engines is over. The official press release [via Yahoo! News] gets right to the point: “Ford Motor Company and Navistar International Corporation have reached an agreement to restructure their ongoing business relationship and settle all existing litigation between the companies.” The engine supply deal is officially dead as of December 31, 2009. Cash is changing hands, but nobody is saying how much: “As a result of the agreement, Ford will make a payment to Navistar.” The South American and Blue Diamond F-650/750 joint projects will continue, for now. Cummins is the supplier of record for Ford branded F-650 and F-750 diesel engines but the trucks are actually produced in Mexico based on a Navistar design. International, meanwhile, sells version of the same trucks with its own engines.

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