When Porsche introduced the world to its first production SUV in 2003, it set off an intense, polarized debate that continues to this day. For some, the Cayenne was a crossing of the Rubicon (no pun intended) leading to the dumbing-down of a proud marque… for others, it was a new, more accessible way to experience the brand. Sure enough, sales of the Cayenne have been good (significantly better than the Cayman and Boxster combined), but Porsche seems to have let passion for its brand run out of control.

Since the Cayenne controversy, every V6 Panamera and Cayman S has given the anti-Cayenne faction evidence of the slippery slope of brand destruction they saw coming with Porsche’s first SUV (and which Jack Baruth traces back as far as the 914). And now, as if to confirm the worst fears of even some of its own executives, Porsche is throwing rocket fuel on the fire in the form of a new, smaller SUV. The question this time: after the Cayenne, Pana V6, and various sins against the fanbase (some more deadly than others), are the purists still fired up enough to rage against the Cajun?

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Jack Baruth’s prescient preemptive strike against the American incarnation of everyone’s favorite car show leaves little room for more full-length opinion on the new Top Gear USA. Which is a good thing considering I’ve only watched the first installment online (why get cable when you have the internet?)… and as far as this anglophile originalist is concerned, once was enough. But it’s certainly possible that I’ve missed signs of improvement. So now that we’re two episodes deep, let’s hear it from you: is Top Gear USA irredeemably mediocre, or is there reason top look forward to future episodes? And if your opinion leans towards the former choice, how the hell do we as Americans successfully combine our two great cultural loves, cars and TV? Because, as a nation, it’s hard to deny that our TV-shows-about-cars track record thus far is just plain embarrassing.

Remember the just-released Toyota Ractis? It’s just dropped in Subaru form, giving the Japanese market the tantalizing choice of two distinct brands for an identical four-door subcompact hatch. Moreover, the Trezia marks a changing of the guard at Subaru: whereas Subaru used to develop and sell a wacky rainbow of subcompact and “kei” cars and trucks (some of which are still visible at Subaru’s Japanese website), all future Subarus smaller than the Impreza will be rebadged Toyotas. This change won’t materially affect the US market, but it can’t help but erode Subaru’s image as an independent small maker of quirky cars. Apparently there is just no place for that kind of automaker in the future… the revolution will be rebadged.

GM’s stock may be hovering near its IPO price of $3/share, but the UAW doesn’t need much more growth to cash out with every penny it wanted from GM. The UAW’s VEBA account has banked $3.4b in stock sales so far, and Forbes reports

The VEBA will break even on its investment if it can sell the remaining 206 million shares at an average price of $36.96.

Taxpayers, meanwhile, need GM’s stock to top at least $52/share in order to break even on the bailout that it funded. Because it’s just not a bailout unless the least deserving benefit the most. Meanwhile, with its accounts once again flush with cash, the UAW is turning South in hopes of accomplishing what it has never accomplished before: unionizing at ransplant auto factory in a right-to-work, Southern state.

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Ask the average motorist what they think of when they think of Audi, the word “headlights” will come up mighty quickly. And not coincidentally either: Volkswagen’s premium brand even spearheaded last year’s holiday marketing campaign by inviting consumers to “have the best lights in your neighborhood.” But one of the biggest challenges of the multiple-brand strategy is the constant pressure to take whatever works for one brand and apply it to the others, which is apparently just what Volkswagen has done.

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So, GM is spending $40m on projects aimed at removing 8m metric tons of C02 from the atmosphere over the next five years… there’s nothing wrong with that, right? Not so fast Greenzo! Here’s the issue: GM claims that

its new carbon-reduction goal equates to the emissions in 2011 from driving the 1.9 million vehicles Chevrolet is expected to sell in the United States over the next year.

Which means that Chevy will actually spend five years and $40m to eliminate all the C02 it will create based on one year of sales. To a multinational corporation that might seem admirable, but to the people who actually care about C02 emissions, this merely underlines how massive GM’s C02 emissions actually are. Moreover, it’s spending that $40m on “eliminating” carbon not by making its vehicles more fuel-efficient, but by investing in initiatives that have nothing to do with its core automotive business.
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Just two short years ago, Volvo’s press flacks were talking a big game about Volvo’s luxury aspirations, saying things like

We want to continue to compete with Mercedes, BMW and Audi. We’re working to improve the premium-ness of the brand and our products.

Even as recently as this year, Volvo execs have made much of the need to “not damage the Volvo brand.” But, having been bought by the Chinese automaker Geely, the Swedish brand has changed its tune. Autocar quotes Volvo’s new CEO, Stephen Jacoby, saying

Let’s ditch this talk about premium. It sounds like a pricing strategy and it’s got an expensive ring to it. We need to focus on elegant Scandinavian simplicity, our own unique identity, and not copy our competitors.

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It’s Black Friday, the national holiday of deal-getting, and to celebrate we’ve got a big question: What new car is the best value for money? It’s a big, open-ended, debate-sparking kind of question… the perfect way to debate your way out of your tryptophan coma. To get things started, we’ll begin by nominating the Subaru Impreza 2.5 Five-Door. For $18k you get Subaru’s fantastic AWD system, 170 HP, good storage space, and a package that’s ass comfortable cruising at freeway speeds as it quietly tootling around town or blasting up snowy roads to the mountain. Plus, you get the character and grunt of a boxer engine… and when it comes to new automobiles, uniqueness is priceless. OK, over to you, B&B. Which new car on the US market is the steal of all deals (before incentives, etc)?

The NSX is one of those in-the-know cars that are impossible to find used, and seem unlikely to ever be matched by a new car. It marked a high point for the Honda brand, and it redefined on-road performance in a manner that now seems remarkably ahead of its time. At a time when the horsepower wars were just beginning, the NSX went to battle with lightweight aluminum construction and a high-tech (yo) V6… and 20 years after it first debuted, it still stacks up nicely on paper compared to a $75k Lotus Evora.  But the NSX’s heritage as a “working class hero” supercar (to borrow the words of Justin Berkowitz) took a hit when Honda decided to me-too the Lexus LF-A and create a front-engined V-10-powered “NSX” that was blasted as an anti-NSX and sent off to do racing duty when Honda hit the Carpocalypse. But apparently there’s a new New NSX in development…

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Gratitude doesn’t always come easy for a bunch of opinionated car-mudgeons (just ask our pals in the PR business) but today we all have plenty to be thankful for. As Editor-in-Chief of this fine site, I am eternally indebted to TTAC’s immensely talented writers, our faithful fans, and our dedicated owners. I feel incredibly lucky to have what I believe to be the best team of auto writers in the world backing me up each day, overcoming the challenges, sacrifices and personality clashes that are our daily bread and putting out the finest car-related content to be found anywhere. Our owners at VerticalScope are owed a special thanks as well, for paying the bills while allowing us to work in complete freedom. And of course, without you, our faithful readers and commenters, none of this would be possible (or necessary). Your faithfulness to this site, your dedication to the truth, and your occasional ad clicks allow TTAC to persist, keeping our talented writers working at continually improving their craft.

So thank you to everyone who makes TTAC what it is…. without your dedicated support, TTAC might not have survived to see this day. And please believe that your trust and time has earned more than a mere post of thanks: I will carry this sense of gratitude with me every day as inspiration to make TTAC the very best site it can possibly be.

Yours in Kaizen,

Edward Niedermeyer, Editor-in-Chief of TTAC

Luca di Montezemolo testing the New Stratos from New Stratos on Vimeo.

Ferrari Chariman Luca Di Montezomolo recently got a spin in Michael Stoschek’s homage to the Lancia Stratos, possibly one of the rarest treats in the car game just now. And even though it’s neither a Lancia nor a Stratos, anyone would be thrilled to drive one before they’re all locked into some climate-controlled bunker somewhere. But that’s not all Luca has to be thankful for: with a disastrous 2010 F1 season behind it, Ferrari is the center of speculation that Fiat will sell it off as it moves towards closer ties with Chrysler Group. Freedom from Fiat might mean an end to Lancia-branded one-offs based on Ferrari platforms, but given the depth of Fiat’s gamble on Chrysler, Ferrari would probably prefer to watch from a distance anyway. In fact, the only thing Luca probably isn’t thankful for this week is direct competition from the McLaren MP4-12C, which is launching at almost the exact same price as the 458 Italia.

When Chrysler revealed its Five Year plan last year, product plans showed the PT Cruiser dieing off after 2010 with no planned replacement. Then, earlier this year, Chrysler rebadged a Lancia Delta and brought it along to the Detroit Auto Show without saying much about it. Now, Motor Trend says a production version of the Chryslerized Delta Concept will be shown at the next Geneva Auto Show, raising the possibility that the Lancia could come to the US… and soon. Sure, it’s possible that the Delta will simply be for other markets where the Lancia/Chrysler two-face will show its Chrysler side (the UK and Brazil come to mind), but Chrysler needs to beef up its US volume to keep the turnaround turning around. And that means not only replacing the PT, but bringing customers in with something new and fresh. Could a PT Corsa fit the bill?

…and this is Fiat’s. The Italian brand left the US market in 1982, but it has returned with a first ad that seems like it was made sometime in the late 1990s. It’s a good thing the 500 has been relatively well–received, because it isn’t cheap and it clearly doesn’t have a fraction of the MINI’s marketing mojo. Between this, the “my tank is full” Ram ads (not to mention the entire first wave of “New Chrysler” ads), and the hallucinogenic Caravan spots, it seems like Chrysler’s Olivier Francois should be up for some kind of special award this year…

Don’t thank us GM… thank George W. Bush. Also, do we remember what happened when Chrysler tried this? History seems to indicate that paying back every penny is the best “thank you” of all.