All the bad news is available at GM’s media page. All of GM’s brands were down by at least 50 percent, except for Pontiac which squeaked out a 40 percent drop. Buick sold fewer cars this month than it sold LaCrosses in February of ’08. CTS was the only Cadillac that sold over 1k units this month, and at 3,259, it sold at over double the rate of all other Caddys combined. The Malibu has finally outsold the Impala, as ‘bu sales dropped 3.7 percent to the ’pala’s 67.7 percent. Pontiac sold only 80 G3 Aveo clones, although solid (down 4.8 percent) Vibe sales kept the division’s average at a 39.2 percent drop. Saab sold fewer than 500 vehicles, and the canceled Astra is the only bright spot in the Saturn lineup. Astra sales have increased since it was canceled in December.

Nissan’s sales, too, took a brutal pounding last month, with their trucks particularly leading the plunge. While the Versa held on (5045 this February compared to 5708 in Feb ’08), the Sentra fell 21% and the Altima took a header of 31.5%, falling to 16,002 from last February’s 23,363. The trucks were the true mess though, collectively down 51%. The Frontier collapsing from 4661 to 1617 in February (a 65.3% drop) and the Titan down to 1508 from 3794 (down 60.3%). The Xterra had a similar tragedy, from 3548 to 1105 units (−68.9%) and the Pathfinder, too, was down 60.2% to 1498 in February compared with 3765 in February 2008. The Rogue was a small bright spot, which actually was up a bit to 5500 sales, while the Murano fell from 10,074 to 4126 units. Infiniti limped along with gains from the new FX, but the crucial G sedan and coupe were down 47.5 and 45.7% respectively. That amounts to almost 2700 lost G sales versus last February. Ouch.

How post-modern is that?

Toyota Financial Services has requested a $2B loan from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, a government-backed lending institution. TFS says it needs the money to cover the higher cost of borrowing in the US. According to Automotive News [sub], “Toyota may be the first of a string of Japanese companies with high credit ratings to turn to state-backed loans prior to the closing of books for the business year at the end of March.” Toyota’s “implied” credit rating based on credit-default swaps is considerably lower than its current Moody’s rating, as fears grow about liquidity problems across the automotive industry. The money will come from a $5B fund established by the Japanese government to provide liquidity for firms which operate abroad. These funds are said to come from Japan’s $1T+ in foreign cash reserves, the world’s second-largest foreign currency reserves after China. Nissan and Mitsubishi have also said they will apply for loans from this fund.

Anyone remember the John Houseman ad for Smith Barney? “They make money the old-fashioned way. They UHN it.” Well, you can put that idea in an urn, at least when it comes to Washington State car dealers. Now that times are tough, the dealers have successfully lobbied (a euphemism if there ever was one) their state legislators to increase car dealers’ “document fees” from $50 to $150. Get ready to get ill, courtesy The News Tribune.

Such an increase could let auto dealers statewide pocket as much as $100 million to $150 million, money that would go straight to their bottom line. Those figures assume dealers will sell 1 million cars and trucks and that all dealers would charge the maximum fee allowed, as most do.

Sen. Tracey Eide, D-Federal Way, said she sponsored Senate Bill 5816 at the request of the Washington State Auto Dealers Association and its 328 dealerships, and one of her former constituents, Mary Byrne, former owner of Nissan of Fife. Byrne now is a partner in Advantage Nissan in Bremerton.

It gets worse.

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Honda took the industry-standard beating last month, emerging with “only” a 35.4 percent sales drop. Unsurprisingly, Honda’s hot Fit kept its head above water: sales increased 2.3 percent in February. Accord and Civic were both down over 30 points. In the SUV category, only the CR-V escaped 40 percent or higher year-on-year monthly sales loss numbers. Acura’s new TSX is up four percent. The rest of Honda’s luxury brand is way down. The attached Honda press release hopes against hope for a spring uptick in sales. The new Insight Hybrid could also revive sales. Meanwhile, Civic Hybrid sales tumbled 21 percent. But with bread and butter Accord and Civic sales down so sharply, Honda will be hurting until the mass market decides it wants new cars again.

There’s nothing for anyone to like in Ford’s just-released February sales numbers (PDF), which show sales of all brands down nearly 50 percent. SUVs led declines by category, dropping a staggering 71 percent compared to February ’08. Drops were relatively even by brand, with all of Ford’s brands declining by between 40 and 55 percent. Fusion and Mustang sales dropped by 49.2 and 61.4 percent respectively, while Edge and Taurus X dragged CUV sales down with 55.2 and 46.1 percent decreases. Both of these categories fared much better than Ford’s SUVs which were down over 70 percent. Lincoln sales dropped 41.2 percent with MKZ, Navigator and Mark LT all falling over 65 percent. Mercury’s Sable showed a 35 percent sales increase, holding that brand’s losses to under 50 percent. Volvo lost over 55 percent of its sales versus last February, with S60 (down 79.2 percent) and V70 (down 66.8 percent) leading the way. Volvo’s new XC60 sold only 235 units. Volvo’s best-selling car is the S80, which sold a grand total of 671 units last month.

In this Streetfire video, Bob Hartwig of Cinema Vehicle Services invites Fireball Tim to examine a “plethora” of Fast and Furious 4 movie cars. Nice word, plethora. Not as catchy as “meme,” but way better than “farrago.” Still, we live in a world where you can happen upon a murder of crows. So there’s got to be a better collective noun for the vehicles used in a movie based on a trend who’s time has come and gone—a long time ago. I put it to you, our highly literate readers: What’s the best name for the collection featured here? And remember, “It’s always hard to make things 100 percent perfect unless you can buy them off the showroom at the same time.” Words to live by. [Preview for Mad Max—I mean F&F4 here.]

Cars+of+Fast+%26+Furious

Kevin writes:

I currently own a 2000 A6 Avant, and I’m moving from college to Chicago soon. I do love my car, except when it comes to paying the repair and gas bills.  I’ve given up on anything even pretending to be sporty and I’d rather rent a car for track days.

I’m a consultant so I have to drive regardless of weather conditions, but maintain a sort-of-professional look (I’m afraid an F-150 won’t make it). My budget is less than $15,000 (2nd hand cars), and looking for a safe, reliable vehicle that doesn’t need lots of visits to the mechanic.

Sajeev responds:

I would recommend getting a Japanese or American sedan/CUV for maximum durability, efficiency and ease of finding cheap replacement parts. Steven Lang has mentioned that Toyotas, Hondas and some Detroit models fare well in the used car market.  Which is good for you too: a last-gen Accord and the Ford Fusion have been reliable (in whatever short term evaluations I’ve seen) and are quite fun to drive to boot. One of my friends is a consultant (for one of the big firms) and his Accord EX fits the bill nicely.

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Where’s the news? VW’s sales were down from 16,556 to 13,660 from February ’08 to February ’09, a decline of 17.5%. Models like the Rabbit (Golf with a stupid engine) and Passat were down significantly, while VW’s supremely important Jetta model fell from 6823 last February to 5199 this past month. This was offset a bit by an additional 784 units of the Jetta wagon, which wasn’t on sale last February. Some red meat if you’re into that sort of thing: the R32 (which I’ve never been wild about) dropped from 449 cars last February to a paltry 85 this February, a decline of 81%. VW has had a number of new models introduced in the past 12 months, like the Tiguan, Routan, CC, and the aforementioned Jetta wagon which have helped to offset the decline in other areas. Or just flat out stole sales from their siblings. Stay tuned for an upcoming editorial about VW’s models and marketing in the US, which I believe has been infected by the dangerous Genmotovirus.

Covering Detroit’s massive health care liabilities is perhaps the single greatest challenge facing those working on the auto industry bailout, reports the Washington Post. Detroit retirees in particular represent a huge commitment, as current health care benefits include dental, vision and prescription drug benefits for the low price of $11 per month. And as the automakers burn through their cash, they must come up with some way of maintaining or cutting benefits in the face of rising health care costs. GM currently carries $20B in health care obligations, over ten times its market capitalization. Chrysler owes $10B and Ford owes $3.2B of its total $13.2B VEBA commitment this year alone. With bailout plans calling for automakers to inject equity rather than tight cash into the VEBA system, a number of unintended consequences are being forecast.

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In a recent editorial on TTAC, Jack Baruth described a harrowing incident that nearly led to the demise of his beloved Volkswagen Phaeton. The editorial claimed the incident was the masturbatory fantasy of every “driver training” and “active safety” advocate. He concludes that he lived to write another day not because of his driver training, but rather dumb luck. Not so fast, Mr. Baruth.

While California breaks away from the national emissions standards, Canada is headed in the opposite direction towards unified efficiency regulations. “At this point in the United States, it would appear that they are headed towards a 35-mile-per-gallon standard by 2020 and that would start to come into effect in the 2011 model year,” says Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice. “We’ve essentially been prepared to go in that same direction . . . what we’re striving for is a North American standard because we know there’s only one North American automobile industry.” Prentice is in Washington DC discussing energy and environmental policy with the Obama administration. “The first thing that has to happen, however, is that the United States has to land with their own domestic policy,” Prentice tells Automotive News [sub]. “It’s by no means clear how this will emerge from Congress over the course of the next year.” Or whether California will play along. From an industry perspective, consistent regulations from the US to Canada would be welcome, although average fleet economy is not a favored regulatory metric.

New York City announced last Monday that it will install automated bus lane ticket cameras in defiance of a decision by the New York state legislature last year to reject the concept. Mayor Michael Bloomberg crafted a plan to bypass lawmakers and use the power of the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) to issue $150 tickets to cabs that are photographed straying momentarily into the specially marked lanes. Bloomberg hopes that once the camera program is operational he can convince lawmakers to give him the authority to expand the program beyond cabs, allowing every vehicle in the city to be ticketed.

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That ain’t me talkin’ (no, no, no, it ain’t me, babe). The headline comes straight to you from CNNMoney, with a little help from Chris Isidore—a reporter who literally laughed down the phone a year or so ago when I suggested GM would go Tango Uniform. So, from what industry could Mr. Isidore find anyone with a shred of credibility—without a bust of Lenin on their desk—who’d argue to nationalize GM (other than the people who’ve already done it)? Rail!

Larry Kaufman, a former rail executive and consultant, argued in a railroad industry newsletter Monday that the U.S. Railway Association, the special government agency set up in 1974 to deal with bankrupt railroads, is a good model for saving the U.S. auto industry…

Kaufman suggested that a special government agency would help the companies continue to sell cars while they reorganize because it would assure consumers that the companies and their warranties were not about to disappear.

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