The first presentation I attended on the second day of NAIAS was for Lincoln (no mention of Mercury). The MKT crossover has a roomy interior that manages to look and feel more upscale than that of the MKS sedan. Stitched upholstery on the center stack and center console are an improvement over silver-painted plastic. As in the MKS and the related Ford Flex, seats in the first two rows are very comfortable. So what’s not to love? That would be the clunky, chunky exterior.

In the immortal words of Rodger Myers Jr., “You kids don’t know what you want. That’s why you’re still kids, ’cause you’re stupid.” I mention this because a couple of hours ago, Farago posted this little nugget about Generation Y and what they want when it comes to cars. According to the Deloitte survey, the three most important factors are exterior style, price and green. Which Robert categorized as, “complete horseshit.” Hmmm, not a lot of wiggle room there. But, obviously RF’s right. Horsepower is the number one thing a kid cares about, followed quickly by torque and then number of turbochargers. I think. And as commenter bleach said, “Environmentally friendly, eh? I’m guessing that survey also found Gen Y considers abstinence from sex, drugs and alcohol to be cool too.” Ha ha ha! But kids are pretty stupid (see above). So I decided to ask my 28-year-old fiancee (the age range of the survey was 17-28 year olds) what she thought. “Yup,” she totally agreed. Though for her it would be affordability, looks and environmental friendliness. What about performance I asked in a panic? Surely you must want performance? “No. The only people that care about performance are gearheads like you. I just want to go 80 mph on the freeway and get to where I’m going.” I was a bit shocked, especially because this blasphemy was happening under my roof. What about getting on the freeway quickly — surely that had to matter! “Most cars get on the freeway fine.” Safety? “No.” Um — I was fishing around — good brakes, surely. “That would fall under performance. Look, I’m a little spoiled from driving your car, but really price looks and whether or not it hurts the planet sound right.” Gulp. For the record, I’m not marrying her for her opinions on cars. Anyhow, what do you think the kids want?

The talk about US-based A123 receiving federal and Michigan taxpayer funding to ramp up American-made batteries for the plug-in electric – gas hybrid Chevrolet Volt seems to have been much ado about nothing. The AP (via Yahoo) reports that GM “has picked LG Chem of South Korea to supply the lithium-ion battery cells for its Chevrolet Volt.” Apparently mindful of its precarious political situation, GM makes a big deal about the South Korean cells being “assembled into battery modules and packs at a factory in Michigan.” In the mid-80s, I was a young engineer in Silicon Valley’s then booming semiconductor industry, and we outsourced the low tech, low value added final packaging and assembly offshore to places like South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. Back then, the high value added R&D and primary manufacturing still largely happened in the US. My how times have changed.

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“To dial the industry back to a point where it’s viable at 11m is going to be hard – though we’re going to try,” GM Car Czar Bob Lutz promised at the don’t call it the Detroit Auto Show [via just-auto, sub]. “But there’s a question as to whether any car company in the world can survive on an 11m market for a sustained period of time. If it continues I would imagine you’d see massive consolidation in the industry, massive plant shutdowns, massive layoffs and much smaller product programmes.”  Needless to say, Maximum Bob doesn’t like that idea one bit. OK, well, a little. “A better proposal is not to get it back up to 17.5m because on a sustained basis you could argue that was an unrealistic number with a financial and housing ‘bubble’ effect,” Lutz said, taking no responsibility for helping to create that self-same bubble. Anyway, thatleaves us… “I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect an industry level of 13 or 14m – with the restructuring we’re undergoing, that’s going to be OK.” When asked if that was a PR-oriented asessement or a promise to stay away from the federal bailout buffet, Maximum Bob showed NFL-quality broken field running. “Talk to Rick Wagoner- I don’t do money,” Lutz demurred. “I do product development – I only spend it.” How great is that?

Honda has launched a new series of short films (well, they say they’re short) about the importance of failure. Not giving up. Kicking out the ladder then lighting the building on fire (WTF?). Surrendering your life to Sochiro at the Temple of VTEC. Something. “Ultimately, we hope these films will intrigue and inspire people by giving them a look into Honda’s unique philosophy—that impossible dreams can be realized through determination, creativity and hard work,” pronounced Todd Carey, associate creative director at RPA, without disclosing what he means by “ultimately” (time delay zen?). But if you’re looking for an endlessly annoying piano riff (are they going to trademark those two notes or what?) or someone talking about how cool it is that they weren’t fired for fucking up, this is the series for you. To be fair, it’s beautifully shot and all the Honda employees speak from the heart. And remember: corporate culture eats executive strategy for lunch.

A Rocky Mountain News investigation reveals that Denver city officials and police made no effort whatsoever to track the performance of their public safety program (a.k.a. red light cameras) beyond counting the 11,200 tickets worth $840,000 that had been issued between June and November. Redflex Traffic Systems, the Australian company that operates the automated ticketing machines at four intersections in return for a cut of the profits, did not submit a single report to the city regarding maintenance or calibration of the cameras, despite being required to do so by contract. The city only requested these documents after the Rocky Mountain News made an inquiry to follow up on the program’s performance. Doh! Another interesting discovery: increasing the duration of the yellow signals has had a greater safety impact than the use of red light cameras in Denver, Colorado. That’s the conclusion of a

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Of course, that’s complete horseshit. You can no more reduce a “cool car” to a formula than you can pick a hit song by analyzing the notes. Certainly, if you’re looking for mainstream success, both car and song needs a “hook” or two and must work within a certain prescribed range (price, length). But it’s hard to take any survey on cool cars seriously when it’s conducted by people who push pencils for a living, based on a poll of “1,006 participants aged 17 to 28… randomly drawn from a panel of individuals who agreed to participate in online surveys.” Anyway, here goes nothing: “Deloitte’s survey discovered that the majority of Gen Y respondents felt a vehicle reflects a person’s style, status and values, and the factors named most often as among the top three reasons that a vehicle is cool were exterior styling, affordability and being environmentally friendly. Among survey respondents, 44 percent said exterior styling was the most important factor in selecting a vehicle, 40 percent said affordability and 35 percent said environmentally friendly. These statistics are important as they represent an opportunity for auto manufacturers and suppliers to be creative and turn their new business models into customized programs tailored to reach this diverse market.” See what I mean?

“‘The government loan was just in time,’ [Chrysler Co_president jim] Press said. ‘It’s kind of like if you were in college and you were at the last of the four years and you were kind of low on money and your parents put all that money back into the back account. ‘It’s good timing.’

“Press also joked about the federal loans when introducing other top executives at Chrysler as Sunday’s press event started.

“‘This is the guy that has the money, he’s got all the money,’ Press said in introducing Chrysler Chief Financial Officer Ron Kolka. ‘The government checks go right to Ron Kolka, so if anybody needs a loan, see Ron Kolka.'”

Hey Ron, can I borrow $1m? I’m just messing with you. No, but seriously. We could become an official supplier of Chrysler humor.

Seven days and I’ll be back in the United States, having bid my farewell to the Middle East (but knowing I will return). As the countdown commences, I eagerly anticipate driving something without a Toyota badge on it, and possibly buying something interesting with all the money I have saved eating government food (and some sand). These past many months I have pored over eBay, Autotrader, and mobile.de (German used car site, check it out, forbidden gems!). After looking at the multitudes of steel out there, I wondered something… what could I get that would have oodles of character, the shades of a future classic, and not cost too much. So I present, Seven Future Classics for the Depressed Economy:

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Several of our Best and Brightest are not happy with the Nancy Pelosi-mobile post. Wolfx14 and y2dkcar protested that it highlights the inadvisability TTAC’s bailout– I mean, “federal bridge loans to Detroit”– coverage, both in terms of stance and quantity. I’m fully aware that there’s been a surfeit of bridge loan-related posts in the last 12 hours. And there’s no question that Eddy, myself and most of our writers believe that these are bridge loans to nowhere. In TTAC’s defense, the loans are a huge mistake. And there hasn’t been this much bridge playing since The Big 2.8’s execs flew into DC on their big ass jets to beg for billions. Still, we’ve been alternating money and car coverage pretty well since the last time the B&B upbraided us for out mondo-beration of the pols and execs feasting at Uncle Sugar’s bailout buffet. See? There I go again. Well, this IS the biggest story in American automotive history. And we HAVE been monitoring the situation before most people thought there WAS a situation. But I want to give you, our not-so-gentle readers, a chance to vent again on TTAC’s editorial choices. So let rip without [much] fear of deletion or amendment. Meanwhile, if anyone wants to write a[nother] pro-bailout diatribe, let me know (robert.farago@thetruthaboutcars.com). Thanks.

“Here in Michigan we have a problem: the automobile industry. Thanks to foreign competition and the doubtful management of the Big Three, the state’s economy is in serious trouble. Should we just sell the state to the Chinese? There is a history of this in Michigan – we once traded the city of Toledo to Ohio in exchange for the upper peninsula. So perhaps it would be a good idea. But what would be a good price?

Mrs J, Michigan”

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This may not be news to you, TTAC’s Best and Brightest; or anyone who knows what happens when you take in less money than you spend (no matter who gives you the money). But The Detroit News presents the revelation that GM has already laid the groundwork for a larger federal “investment” than the $13.4b dumped into its coffers by February 15, before the whole “show us your new new new new new new new new turnaround plan” thing. “General Motors Corp.’s chief operating officer [Fritz Henderson] said Monday that the automaker has presented a worst-case scenario to Congress in which it would need more money than the $13.4 billion allocated by the Treasury Department.” To whom was this scenario presented? And why weren’t we, the people, the people paying the tab, told about it? The rest of the article talks about the “confusion” over government-mandated union concessions, but honestly, I’m left wondering what you call a tragi-comedy that borders on farce, and whether these guys will stop scamming us long enough for me to write about actual honest-to-God cars.