GM’s Lordstown, OH plant was something of a poster boy for all that went wrong with the UAW over the past several decades, reports the New York Times. Poor quality, worker sabotage and crippling strikes led to the coining of the term “Lordstown Syndrome” as a symbol of UAW recalcitrance. Lordstown’s workers were so feisty that they even picketed their own union hall in the 1980s. Now, with the legacy of the Vega hanging over their heads, and the possibility of plant closure only narrowly avoided by securing the Chevy Cruze manufacturing assignment, the members of UAW Local 1112 are singing a different tune. “We were the bad dog on the street at one time,” 1112’s shop Chairman Ben Strickland tells the Times’ Nick Bunkley. “We’ve got 3,000 lives to worry about. The cockiness and the arrogance that we once portrayed — we definitely got a lot more humble.” That, it turns out, is in large part due to General Motors’ spectacular fall from grace.

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Nissan stumbles into Scion territory with this teaser image of its new compact crossover, the Juke, to be built in Britain starting this year. The Juke is supposed to bridge the gap between the Qashqai (Rogue) soft-roader and the Note compact MPV. Because someone, somewhere wants a compact crossover with less capability than a Rogue and less rear visibility than a Note. The hunt for that confused consumer is now officially on.

Opel already has big plans for its restructuring, despite the minor issue of being short a few billion dollars. According to an interview with Opel boss Nick Reilly in the print edition of Auto Motor und Sport, only a billion Euros of the €3.3b Opel turnaround plan is going to be spent on restructuring. The rest will be spent on new products like a city car, a “mini offroader,” and new high-tech drivetrains. According to Autocar, one of those high-tech drivetrain options is a a pairing that several firms including VW and Peugeot-Citroen already looked into but have yet to bring to market out of concern for the high cost: the diesel-electric hybrid. GM Europe’s Advanced Powertrain Chief Engineer Maurizio Cisternino explains “if you want the best fuel consumption, you have to go with the diesel-electric hybrid.” But there’s a tiny problem: Cisternino wants to get diesel-hybrid prices down to a €1,000 premium over gas-electric hybrids, a goal Cisternino admits “does not work at the moment.” Now if only GM had some government investment in the technology…

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Of all of Chrysler Group’s branding conundrums, the de-Ram-ified Dodge brand has got to be one of the toughest ones. Without the truck-based image or styling, Dodge is a brand without a purpose, and Dodge CEO Ralph Gilles brought little to his brand presentation at Chrysler Group’s five-year plan that would help explain what Dodge is or why consumers should choose it. Other than more refined youthfulness and less rugged wisdom. Or something. Anyway, if Dodge is really to be “all things to all hip people” as the Autoextremist succinctly puts it, they sure picked the right ad agency. Wieden + Kennedy does hip like few others, having started with Nike’s “Just Do It” and taken off from there. As the ad above, and several other Honda spots prove, the guys knows how to bring some youthful enthusiasm to the otherwise staid, desperate world of car advertising. And goodness knows recent Chrysler Group advertising needs the help.

The world’s supposedly cheapest car ($2,500 apiece) will cost $220,000 when Mumbai-based D.C. Design is through with it. They will keep the car’s snub-nosed shape, everything else has to go.

The standard two-cylinder 624cc, 33-horsepower engine will be replaced by a 1600cc engine. To make room for the motor, the back seats will be removed. The car will get new brakes, new suspension, and bigger 20-inch wheels to allow for the top speed of 200 kilometers per hour (124 mph).
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If you ask Western auto manufacturers what they fear more, Chinese car exports or the antichrist, hell, they’ll definitely pick Chinese car exports. Should have chosen the devil: China is looking back at one of the worst car exporting years in recent history.
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Ed Whitacre said yesterday that none of the potential bidders for Saab have come forward with the financing needed. “I think we’ve done everything humanly possible,” Whitacre said. Then he announced that GM will start closing down Saab plants later this week. GM’s really, final, we-really-mean-it-this-time deadline for Saab runs out today.

Who knows, maybe someone will come up with the money. Or at the very least, with some Powerpointilisms: Joran Hagglund, Sweden’s state secretary for industry, said there are bids from two anonymous groups that might make today’s deadline. Except that there is that nasty little detail: “The problem is that none of them can show that they have financing in place,” Hagglund said.
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GM’s CEO and Chairman Whitacre gave Automotive News [sub] some choice nuggets of quote today. Addressing almost everything except his firm’s stagnant sales, Whitacre took on some of GM’s most staggering challenges in the most… folksy tone imaginable. Mr Whitacre, your explanation of GM’s bankruptcy dealer cull if you please:

The way it came out, if you fell above or below a line, you were removed. But you had to do it that way. You can’t just go around flipping coins, so you had to have a process.

Ok, take a minute to wrestle with that one. Then hit the jump.
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I didn’t give you much to go on with the Dodge Daytona except the Reliant behind it. But fincar1 gave it a shot, and it was the right one. In honor of his name, I give you fins, or whatever you want to call these. Have fun!

Cash for Clunkers was set up very quickly, and there hasn’t been an accounting of the administrative costs of the program. There also hasn’t been publicly available information about how contractors were picked to process the thousands of transactions that the program generated… My concern is the waste, fraud and abuse that may have resulted from the vulnerabilities that can come with such a quick start.

Senator Chuck Grassley sticks it to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, in a letter requesting a full accounting of the cash for clunker program. The DOT was all over fraudulent commercial practices during C4C, but this is the first investigation into possible fraud or overruns on the administration side. Why Grassley waited until now to look into this doesn’t exactly compute, but it will still be interesting to see the results of the audit. After all, could it even be possible that the government spent $3b in a matter of weeks on a consumer incentive without fraud of some kind taking place?

Unfortunately, we’ve discovered a slight problem with our list, namely that imported and domestically-produced models are listed separately (as our data comes from a firm that mostly works with suppliers). For the Top 25, this means that the numbers for vehicles produced domestically and imported (like the CRV and RAV4) are off. We ask for your patience while we work with our data provider to fix this problem.

What’s wrong with this picture? TTAC loves sales data, but lately we’ve become a little jaded with our own efforts to provide a thorough look under the hood of the industry. And as everyone in the auto business knows, when the going gets tough, the tough get outsourcing. TTAC is proud to announce that we’ve concluded a deal with the fine data crunchers at Morgan & Company, giving us (and you!) access to their magical spreadsheet kingdom. Needless to say, we’ll be spending much of 2010 wallowing in the beautiful data in hopes of providing a better picture of the industry’s nuts and bolts. For now, check out this chart of Detroit’s market share swan dive since the early 90s. One of these things is not like the other…

Hi Sajeev and Steve, I’m looking to buy a new car in the next year or two.  I have a 2006 Toyota Corolla CE with 35k on the clock.  It’s a manual transmission, which is the only thing that’s kept me from going insane.  When I bought it, I didn’t have much choice in the matter (time crunch) and the price and gas mileage (something like 41 mpg hwy, though I regularly get 35 mpg in stop and go traffic).  It has been servicable, reliable (mostly), cheapish, and gas efficient.  There is nothing wrong with it, other than it’s just kind of boring.

I’m looking for something a little more fun.  I want something that is fun to drive, not just a machine to get from point A to point B.  I used to have a fabulous 1991 Nissan 240SX SE Fastback (again, manual) that I loved.  However, I moved to Phoenix and didn’t have the funds (because of the move) to take care of the things that it needed.  I still regret selling it. So now I’m looking for:
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First it was the Prius, now Audi has come out with an ad featuring failed suicide. In both cases, the intended message (our car doesn’t spew poison) gets a bit lost in shuffle due to the fact that consumers of these products are portrayed attempting suicide. So this is what Audi’s CMO meant when he said rational arguments don’t work in the marketplace. Unfortunately, as the California Air Resources Board helpfully points out, diesel fumes contain arsenic, benzene, formaldehyde, nickel, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. So, you know, professional driver on a closed course, and all that. Don’t try this at home, kids!