It is one thing to recognize the legendary status of Mr. Shelby and the original Cobras, including the 427 S/C, and quite another to assert that purchasers and potential
purchasers view Cobra continuations or replicas, sold primarily as kits, which employ the Cobra 427 S/C Design as coming from a single source.  The fact that Cobra replicas, sold primarily as kits, which employ the 427 S/C Design, have been sold by numerous third parties for more than three decades, including between 2002 and 2009, precludes us from drawing that conclusion.  Accordingly, we find applicant’s evidence based on media coverage of Mr. Shelby and all of the Cobras not probative of the issue of acquired distinctiveness.

That’s right, the Shelby Cobra has been officially copied to death, according to a recent ruling by the US Patent Office’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board [in PDF here]. The board’s finding was complex, as proving “distinctiveness” takes a lot of doing, but the upshot is that so many Cobra replicas have been built, consumers don’t actually think of the original (Shelby-designed) Cobras when they see one. Had Shelby sued every single kit car maker since day one, he’d have the legal rights to his design, but in the years since 1968, the term “Cobra” has come to mean more than the specific Shelby Cobra 289 or Shelby Cobra 427 S/C. In fact, a survey used to try to prove the distinctiveness of the Shelby designs in the eyes of consumers may have even used a photo of a 289 to illustrate a 427 S/C… even the guy running the survey wasn’t sure. The moral of Caroll Shelby’s legal battle to own the rights to anything resembling an original Cobra: never stop suing the kit car makers. Or, just be happy with the millions of dollars and legend status you’ve already accumulated.

Toyota and Fiat may not be setting European sales charts alight, but according to a recent analysis of per-vehicle CO2 output, the two automakers are on the cusp of meeting the EU’s stringent 2015 standard. Automakers competing in Europe will have to reduce their carbon emissions to 130 gm/km by 2015, a huge challenge for firms like BMW, Mercedes and Volkswagen, which currently have average emissions of 151, 167 and 153 grams per km respectively. Fiat and Toyota, on the other hand, have already reduced their emissions to 131 and 132 grams per km, putting them within a sneeze of the 2015 standard. But the auto industry never though that any of its firms would be on track for overcompliance. In fact, the AFP reports

In 2008 carmakers successfully pushed back from 2012 to 2015 the deadline for technological innovation, allowing them to meet stipulations, in exchange for a commitment to drop to 95 g/km by 2020.

Despite not insignificant loopholes, they can be heavily fined if they miss these targets as the EU strives to meet wider aims in reducing emissions of harmful gases blamed for negative climate change effects.

With the release of the EPA’s 2011 fuel economy guide comes this list of the EPA’s most fuel-sipping-est vehicles on the US market (EVs and plug-in hybrids excluded). For a list of the ten least-efficient vehicles on the market today, just hit the jump…

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Yes, we’ve been waiting for this moment for some time. Ever since Chrysler pimped cgi renderings of the new 300 in its bailout-requesting “viability plan,” promising that it would be “the most-awarded new car in automotive history,” we’ve been curious about the follow up to the car that arguably saved the Chrysler brand’s image. But now that we’re seeing the first pictures, we can’t help but feel that some of the 300’s brash swagger may have been lost in the humiliation of bankruptcy. Sure, the mirrors are completely chromed, which is a pure class move, but the whole thing (the front end in particular) has certainly lost more than a little of its “I’m not actually super-wealthy, but you’d never know it by the way I treat people” attitude. Jalopnik may be worried about the Rolls-Royce-alike bodykit business, but we’re more concerned that America’s most pimping automobile (in the value-neutral sense) has turned into the Cadillac STS.

Pity the Buick Regal GS. Since the idea of a hotted-up Opel Insignia was floated for the US market, fans imagined that Opel’s epic Insignia OPC would be headed stateside, complete with 325 horsepower, 2.8 liter turbocharged V6 and all wheel drive. Buick reps quickly ruled out the turbo-six engine, as GM’s corporate order demanded that the engine be limited to “premium” Cadillac and Saab models. Then we found out that the Regal GS would have the same turbocharged Ecotec four-cylinder engine found in its Regal Turbo sister model, tuned from 220 to 255 horsepower, leading us to conclude that

That engine can reportedly be tuned to an easy 310 hp and 300 lb-ft of torque, making the “base” Regal CXL with the 220 hp 2.0T engine a much smarter buy. Unless the idea of tuning a Buick is simply more cognitive dissonance than you can handle. Otherwise, the only thing the GS really brings to the table is AWD and a bodykit with more front-end venting than the United States Senate.

Well, now it’s time to knock another item off the list: Automotive News [sub] reports that the GS will not get AWD because

We really don’t think consumers will want that feature… It does take away from some of the performance capability of the vehicle.

Which is doubly strange considering that AN is forced to note that

The Regal GS will accelerate slightly slower than expected, with estimates having it reach 60 mph at less than seven seconds. In January, executives said the production car would accelerate about one second faster.

D’oh! With the Regal Turbo hitting 60 in about 7.5 seconds, it’s beginning to look like the GS really is all about the bodykit. The saddest part of all this: the GS will still technically be “the sportiest Buick ever,” and will certainly be marketed as such, just as the Regal Turbo is now.

Er, not here… you have to go over to retailroadshow.com for the non-embeddable presentation pitching investors on the new General Motors. But since retailroadshow doesn’t have a comments section, make sure to surf back to TTAC when you’re done taking in the pitch. Meanwhile, consider this: Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, a major investor in Citi, EuroDisney, The Four Seasons, AOL, Apple, News Corp, and more has said his investment firm would look “very seriously” at buying into GM’s IPO. Oh yes, and the White House has reiterated its confidence that all the money it invested in GM’s bailout would be repaid. Even though GM pushed against the higher IPO price ($30/share) requested by Treasury, which would have slowed future appreciation of the stock, but would have given the government a higher initial payback. Also, it seems that UBS has been dropped as an underwriter of the IPO after one of its large-cap, non-automotive analysts sent an email that disclosed information restricted by the SEC.

You know it’s an all-new 2011 model because of the fancy computer-generated press shots, but otherwise would you have any idea that this is the 2011 model-year Morgan three-wheeler? Yes, the wackiest of British cottage sportscar shops has dusted off its old three-wheeler designs and is bringing the model back after a 58-year hiatus. InsideLine says the new version will offer 100 HP from a Harley “Screaming Eagle” engine and will weigh a mere 1,100-lbs, giving it an estimated 4.5 second 0-60 time. Of course, it will have to be homologated as a motorcycle thanks to the missing wheel, and there’s no word on price or American availability. Still, it seems to have retained the most important quality of its predecessor, namely that it is, as Sir Stirling Moss once put it,

a great babe magnet

With battery partner Toyota already $50m deep in Tesla’s equity (and another $60m deep in an electric RAV4 development agreement), Automotive News [sub] reports the Japanese automaker’s main EV partner, Panasonic, is investing $30m of its own in the Silicon Valley EV form. Panasonic and Toyota jointly build NiMh and Li-ion batteries in a venture called Primearth, and the move appears to bring Tesla closer into Toyota’s orbit. Tesla already uses Panasonic cells in its drivetrains (although not exclusively), and the two firms have already partnered on power-pack development. Panasonic’s $30m investment is said to have bought it a two percent stake in Tesla, and the two will cooperate together on sales and marketing of those battery packs in the future.

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With GM’s IPO officially launched, we thought we’d send ChartOTD diving inside GM’s sales performance this year. The graph above shows GM’s top nameplates by volume for the January-October 2010 period, compared to the same ten months of 2009. All of GM’s top-ten volume vehicles are doing better than they did last year, but these are not in fact GM’s fastest-growing nameplates. For that graph and more, hit the jump…

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The need to expand automotive brands while improving fuel economy is driving automakers to some interesting lengths of late. From GM future concepts that have more in common with a Segway than a Cruze, to Honda’s U-3X and Chrysler’s ill-fated PeaPod, automakers are sending strong hints that the future will be smaller and decidedly less car-like. And MINI and Smart recently took this trend to its logical conclusion, each announcing that they would build (or, more precisely, re-brand) scooters… or as they call them, “alternative mobility concepts.” Which raises the question: what’s a scooter brand to do? Well, Piaggio, maker of the Vespa and other scooter-based “alternative mobility concepts” isn’t going to just drone off into that good night, and it’s fighting back by creating an “alternative” to its core scooter products: a four wheeled car-like “mobility concept.”

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Who spent the most money on volume-building but profit-sapping incentives over the last month? Well, it depends on who you ask. Edmunds.com’s True Cost Of Incentives index puts GM at the top of the heap, with an October estimate of $3,437 spent per sale. Truecar.com has a similar number for GM, at $3,472, but says that Chrysler was the king of incentivized sales last month, spending $3,629 per car sold. Interestingly, both firms put Ford at just over $3,000 spent per vehicle, but Edmunds says Chrysler is actually under that mark, spending $2,927 per vehicle. In another discrepancy between the two reports, TrueCar puts Nissan at $3,050 while Edmunds puts the Nissan number at $2,321. In any case, Toyota may just be the Japanese automaker that breaks Detroit’s dominance of average incentive numbers. Toyota’s Bob Carter has revealed that big incentives are coming as Toyota struggles to get its volume up by year’s end, telling Automotive News [sub]

You will see an enhancement to marketing and incentives but [they] will remain consistent in the APR and lease arenas,” he said. “They will be the best deals of the year — leasing and APR deals are moving the market.

With its IPO hitting markets, GM has released limited preliminary results that show the firm earned $1.9b to $2.1b in the third quarter of this year. That performance outstripped Ford’s $1.73b Q3 profit, and GM’s $36b in revenue also beat Ford’s $29b figure for the same quarter. GM also announced that it expects to generate positive EBIT in the fourth quarter, although it warned that its Q4 results would not be as strong as the previous three quarters in which GM claims to have earned $4b to $4.2b in net income attributable to shareholders. The projection of weaker Q4 results proves that political considerations weren’t the only factor pushing for an immediate post-election IPO. One note of warning, however: GM has not released complete data on its results, meaning we haven’t seen the impact of GM’s recent debt-cutting moves on cashflow. On the other hand, with a $5b revolving line of credit secured and profits rolling in, GM isn’t likely to be facing liquidity problems in the immediate short term. We’ll wait for full results before we pass final judgment, however.

Having won the Automotive X-Prize (if only in the “Alternative” class), Li-ion Motors was all set to become the next big thing in alt-energy auto startups. And, based on its winning X-Prize entry, the Wave II, it seemed that Li-ion was focused on small, practical electric cars. Not so. Li-ion has showed up at the annual SEMA tuner-fest with its first production-intent vehicle, the Inizio… and it’s essentially a slightly faster but more expensive (and uglier) Tesla Roadster. It barely beats the Tesla’s 3.7 second 0-60 time (at 3.4 seconds), and can achieve 170 mph compared to the Tesla’s 125 (for those times you want a big speeding ticket and a run-down battery). Li-ion also expects it to cost 140,000 to the Tesla’s $110,000… and it won’t be ready for two years anyway, by which time Audi will already be eating Tesla’s lunch.

Oh, and if you think that Tesla’s on financially shaky ground, consider that Li-ion has been accused of being a shell game (or, a “bunch of thieves”), has run afoul of the SEC, and reportedly has to spend $75k of its X-Prize money settling a lawsuit. Even the most ardent Tesla-basher has to admit that, compared to this latest EV sportscar pretender, the Silicon Valley startup looks pretty darn good.

Chryslers sales in October of last year amounted to a miserable 65,803 units, so the firm’s 37 percent year-over-year sales increase in October of 2010 is not really all that surprising. And despite the uptick, Chrysler is still coming up short of its monthly “survival volume” sales goal of 95k units, coming in at just 90,137. A 79 percent increase in 300 sales (5,211 units) was the sole bright spot for the Chrysler brand last month (although T&C kept volume up with an 18 percent gain). Jeep’s new Grand Cherokee is heating up nicely, with volume hitting 12,721 units, and leading Jeep to a 111 percent increase. And the new JGC brought the whole Jeep brand up with it, as only Commander failed to record a sales increase (all other Jeep nameplates were up at least 46%). Dodge saw a slight three percent increase on the month, as low-volume nameplates gained large percentages for small volume increases, and bigger nameplates like Caravan (-8%) saw small percentage decreases. The Ram brand was up 37 percent, with volume at 18,090 units. But really, the big news here (other than the usual not-quite-enough-volume story) is the JGC and its apparent beneficial effects on the Jeep brand. Full press release here.

Perhaps one of the least-covered elements of the auto industry restructuring has been the numerous tax advantages GM has earned as a government-owned automaker. Unlike most bankruptcies, GM was allowed to hold onto some $16b of net operating loss credits (tax-loss carry-forwards), which can be used to offset future tax bills. Typically, companies that restructure in bankruptcy lose existing carry-forwards as the price of wiping out debt, but because the government is invested in GM, it decided to allow old tax losses to flow into the new company even as debt was left behind. In the latest update on this story, The Wall Street Journal notes that some $18.9b of GM’s carry-forwards were from the old company, and that the firm has a whopping $45.4b in future tax savings. And because carry-forwards can be banked up to 20 years before they are spent, GM will have to make massive profits before it starts actually paying taxes to the federal government. The government’s position:

the profit-shielding tax credit makes the bailed-out companies more attractive to investors, and that the value of the benefit is greater than the lost tax payments, especially since the tax payments would not exist if the companies fail

Which is all well and good, but the reality is also that this practically doubles the taxpayers’ cost of bailing out GM. As a policy this makes sense for the reasons given (assuming the bailout was a foregone conclusion), but it would be nice if this “hidden charge” were at least noted on the bill.