In addition to arguing against Indiana’s pension fund challenge, the Obama administration is sending PTFOA members Ron Bloom and Ed Montgomery to formally defend its handling of the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies to the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday. This is the first such testimony from the PTFOA, and it comes (as the Freep puts it) “a torrent of criticism from Republicans about the government’s decision to take a 60 percent majority stake in GM.” Even Autoblog smells the political smoke in the breeze, fretting that the “far right wing” stands ready to boycott a newly federalized GM. Dudes, people have been silently boycotting GM for decades. But if GM gets worse, it will be nice to have that excuse ready to go.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has ordered that the sale of Chrysler to Fiat is “stayed pending further order,” reports the AP. “Was TARP money used illegally?” asks the WSJ Deal Journal. It won’t be easy to prove, is the professorial opinion. Oh, and did we mention that the Obama administration has filed a brief (PDF via the excellent scotusblog) against the initial plea, arguing that TARP issues are out of bounds for the courts? Meanwhile, Fiat’s walk-away deadline of the 15th draws closer every minute. Hit the jump for Bader-Ginsburg’s inscrutable order (and more! Thanks for the tips!).

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Ridiculous studies like the Stauro by Taylor Weldon are surprisingly common at the periphery of automotive plausibility. There’s something about cars that always has someone taking a long, dusty trek in the desert of the unreal. But an orange oil-fueled steam engine in a three-wheel buggy takes the “sustainable concept vehicle” genre to dizzying new heights of suspended disbelief. Although apparently not for Popular Science‘s Mike Spinelli (remember him from when Jalopnik used to be readable?). Spinelli parrots Weldon’s claim that “the three-wheeled Stauro is designed to seat two passengers in comfort and safety. As for the car’s fictional production; all manufacturing facilities and materials sourced would be within 500 miles of the company headquarters, for a super-low carbon footprint.” And then tops the whole surreal scene with a dollop of bizzare commentary by concluding that this “sounds like a plan for the new GM.” Subtle humor or pure insanity? We report, you deride.

“After four years of working with multiple potential buyers, General Motors has decided to wind down its medium-duty truck operations,” is the message from bankruptcy court. Topkicked to the curb, so to speak. Because if someone hasn’t bought after four years of wrangling, it’s time to move on. July 31 will mark the end of production for Topkick and Kodiak, which sold a combined 20,000 units last year. Reuters reports that the medium duty truck workers will be reassigned or leave the company through GM’s attrition program.

We have met the Obamamobile, and it is a train. Just ask Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. Locke was in Michigan recently, while SecTrans Ray LaHood, VP Joe Biden and MI Governor Jennifer Granholm were discussing a Detroit-Pontiac-Chicago high-speed rail line in Washington, D.C. The HuffPo‘s Susan Demas asked Locke if he saw the rail project as a way to wean Michigan’s manufacturing base off its centuries-long auto addiction. To which Locke replied, “Oh, yeah,” faster than the Kool-Aid man after a post-college Eurorail adventure. “As you see more construction of rail cars, high-speed cars, it’s going to require new engineering, new products and services and that’s the natural fit and extension for automotive dealers and suppliers and manufacturers.” And Demas agrees, arguing that “linking up with rail makes perfect sense for a contracting industry, at a time when environmental and economic factors make expanding public transit a necessity.” Yes, necessity. As in the mother of invention. And political intervention.

General Motors is at war with itself. Thanks to a staggering though not unexpected lack of decisiveness, GM’s management has managed to completely alienate its major, public-facing “stakeholder:” GM dealers. Without the guys on the sharp end moving the metal, General Motors might as well declare bankruptcy and surrender the keys to the executive washroom to a 25-member federal quango led by Washington insiders with no manufacturing experience whatsoever. Oh wait. In fact, GM needs its dealers even more now that it’s a zombie than before, when it was also a zombie (but didn’t know it). And of all the items of GM CEO Fritz Henderson “to do” list, not throwing GM’s entire U.S. dealer network into chaos should have been somewhere near the top. I want to say something about a “race to the bottom,” but I’ll let you connect those dots.

Automotive News [sub] reports that Tata plans on bringing a version of its Nano subcompact to the US market “in about two years.” About? “Maybe two years and six months,” equivocated Tata chairman Ratan Tata at the Cornell Global Forum on Sustainable Enterprise. But the Indian firm faces at least one major challenge: where to sell the thing. Jaguar/Land Rover North America spokesfolks say that “Tata will not use Jaguar Land Rover’s distribution network and vice versa.” For obvious reasons. The Nano boasts none of the small-but-premium appeal of BMW’s MINI or Chrysler’s forthcoming Fiat 500. So where will it sell? Roger Penske’s Saturn World Market? Global Vehicles U.S.A.’s 330-strong Mahindra distribution network? Wal-Mart?

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Sitting in the new Toyota Prius, I suddenly blurted out, “Open the pod bay doors, Hal,” half expecting something to happen. Alas, I was still entombed in the resin chamber that passes for an automobile interior. If Ralph Nader had been an engineer, this is the car he would have designed, a vehicle for people who loathe automobiles.

I bought my first hybrid back in 2006. An ’01 Prius that was an absolute dealer queen. Oil changes every 3k. Every recommended service by Toyota performed. A brand new battery. New factory-spec tires from the dealer. It was a complete freak of nature amplified by the fact that I bought it at a time when I was the only dealer in the auction lane. The cost including the auction fee was $6650. It never left the auction. I took 24 pictures. Wrote a glorious soliloquy on eBay, and sold it to a guy from Alabama for $8800. That sale represents the only profit I’ve ever regretted.

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ABT Sportsline press release: “For many years ago people used to wear their hair, even in Kempten, in styles which seem strange to us nowadays. ABT Sportsline, however, already knew how to properly “style” cars from the VW group 50 years ago. Since then the motto ‘cooler, faster, wider’ has lost none of its fascination.” None?

Don’t worry Detroit: you’re not being singled out for “special” federal supervision (perish the thought). The New York Times reports that Congress is taking control of the pay and compensation for all beneficiaries of federal largesse who’ve double-dipped into the taxpayer’s purse. “The Obama administration plans to require banks and corporations that have received two rounds of federal bailouts to submit any major executive pay changes for approval by a new federal official who will monitor compensation, according to two government officials.” A Pay Czar! Heads-up, bosses, meet the new boss of bosses: Kenneth Feinberg. You may remember Mr. Feinberg as the 9/11 victims’ compensating lawyer originally tipped to be Obama’s Car Czar—a job so big the Prez eventually gave it to Wall Street insider Steve Rattner and 24 of his closest friends. Anyway, there’s an important (if not exactly auto-oriented) dynamic in play here . . .

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Land Rover is still alive, still owned by India’s Tata Motors, still begging for money from the UK government and still building toweringly expensive SUVs that suck gas like The Detroit Lions, uh, suck. (Despite an endless, unpolluted stream of corporate green initiatives.) Gaydon’s latest top-‘o-the-line, go-anywhere land yacht: the Range Rover 5.0-liter Supercharged. Tata revealed the plutocrat’s rolling throne at the London Motorexpo this morning. US prices have yet to be announced, but Brits will pay £79,995 for the privilege of staying off the country’s green lanes (at the pain of death) and not daring to drive five miles per hour over the speed limit for fear of speed cameras on poles, gantry-mounted elapsed time speed cameras, camera vans and police holding speed cameras [not shown].

Arrowhead Justice Court Judge John C. Keegan last week dismissed the photo radar-based reckless driving charges filed against the Executive Director of the Arizona Republican Party. On May 6, officers from the Arizona Department of Public Safety (DPS), which is headed by Democrat Roger Vanderpool, showed up at the state GOP headquarters with a speed camera ticket in hand to arrest Brett Mecum, 30. Judge Keegan took the case as an opportunity to reinforce his previous judgment that the Arizona law governing freeway speed cameras is unconstitutional.

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The hangover following the late night rescue of Opel is causing bigger headaches by the day. Last week, the German magazine Focus wrote that half of the €1.5 billion bridge loan, guaranteed by the German government, could escape “abroad”—€600 million to Spain, €150 million to the UK. Today, Opel denied that report. According to Die Welt, a drive for charitable donations yielded €200 million from Spain. The governments of Belgium, Austria, Poland, and the UK also pledged hitherto unspecified amounts to keep their Opel factories open. Then, German media wrote that GM wouldn’t hand over the Opel patents gratis. Oh no, they would want €6.5 billion in license fees over the next 10 years, €200 million in preferred stock, and €300 million in cold, hard cash for the patents that had been supposedly “sold” by Opel to Delaware. That topic is currently open, but “sources” say it ain’t true. Then there’s the matter of €4 billion for the Opel pension fund. The German government was asked to come up with the money, the answer was: “Nein!” Will it ever end? Nein.

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Due north of Toronto, TTAC reader Nick R writes:

My dad’s Ford Thunderbird 30^th Anniversary Edition (i.e., 1955-1985) hasn’t been started in about two years. It has 140,000km, never been winter driven and its original save for the radio (I still have the non-functioning original one though). I want to start cleaning it up and fixing a few little things, but to do that I have to get it started and run it.

It has been stored outside, under a cover, in my driveway. I know the oil was replaced and the tank filled up just prior to being put in storage. Prior to storage the battery was removed, the oil and coolant changed and the tank filled with gas.

After prolonged storage, is there any special I should do other than dropping a new battery in it? Are the tires likely to be flat spotted? I also need to fix the antenna, which got bent; any tips on finding a replacement for that would be helpful too!

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