Everyone else, notify your next of kin. Bloomberg attributes the all-too usual “people familiar with the matter” with the revelation that GM is “studying whether to shed its Saturn, Saab and Pontiac brands in addition to Hummer.” And what price are they putting on the three brands? $12b worth of government “bridge loan.” There goes the argument that the bailout is about saving jobs.  Of course, proving TTAC right (and doing what they say would happen if the loan didn’t go through) isn’t going to the only tough pill to swallow if the RenCen is serious about going through with this. A nasty little business called state franchise law awaits this oncoming freight train, potentially putting taxpayers (not to mention General Motors) on the hook for billions more. You know, since “bankruptcy is not an option.” Putting 82-year old brands on the block? That’s another matter. Anyway, old-school Saab enthusiasts rejoice, Pontiac faithful start looking for a white knight, and everyone with a job on the line, buckle up. The BOD is scheduled to review a proposal Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, and GM will then prepare a 10- to 12-page public document and a private, more detailed plan of about 80 pages with background material. Until then it’s just one big, white-knuckle thrill ride.

In honor of the imminent celebrations, Consumer Reports has picked its “Automotive Turkeys” of 2008, and they got some good ones. Tax credits for Hybrid Tahoes, Chrysler’s four-week Aspen/Durango Hybrid reign of terror, Acura’s styling, the Smart’s pricing and much more get the thumbs down from CR’s Mike Quincy. In advance of TTAC’s Ten Worst awards, I’m asking: what makes your list of automotive blunders for 2008? Personally, the Volt transformation, the bailout beggary and Chrysler’s Project D(isaster) would be near the top of my list. Yours?

For lo, Robert Nardelli hath descended from the mountain, and yea verily he has a plan! “The company … is ready to share our plans for returning Chrysler to profitability as we move beyond this unprecedented financial crisis,” says Bob the Builder in a memo to employees that was leaked to Reuters. The memo clarifies that government funds would be used to support Chrysler’s ongoing operations, including obligations to pay wages and suppliers, fund health care and pensions and to continue future product development. Not a penny will go to Cerberus. In even less surprising news, Bloomberg reports that Chrysler expects to meet its 24 percent workforce reduction goal with few, if any, involuntary layoffs. Apparently Chrysler’s employees are finding buyout offers more compelling now that the company is in the federal begging business. “There is some reasoning here that is telling people there is more security in unemployment than in staying with the company,”says automotive corporate recruiter Ed Crowder. “If they don’t take it now, they are feeling we may not get anything in three months.” Chrysler expects “minimal, if any, involuntary layoffs come the end of next month,” according to spokesfolks.

Popular Mechanics reckons “GM’s current precarious situation didn’t come about overnight.” Ya think? “Over the past few decades,” writes PM scribe John Pearly Huffman, “GM put some truly terrible products out on the market. Unreliable, uninteresting and flat ugly, these were cars that simply destroyed GM’s reputation.” The usual suspects get their due as PM hands it to the Vegas, X-Cars and Azteks that we all know and hate. But there’s a touch of controversy too. The EV1 was certainly no runaway success, but was it a “car that destroyed GM’s reputation”? I’m not so sure.  And then there’s the 1991-1995 Saturns, again not without its flaws, but probably not a permanent stain on GM’s character. Where’s the last-gen Malibu, a car that cemented the mental association between GM and rental fleet mediocrity? Or the Volt, which proved conclusively that GM is no longer a reality-based automaker? I guess everyone has their favorites…

CAR Magazine runs first official renderings of the Aston Martin Rapide.

Trying to steal someone’s thunder?

The House Financial Services Committee will reconvene for another round of auto industry bailout hearings at 9:30 am on December 5, reports Automotive News [sub].  The committee did not release a witness list, but it is expected that the CEOs of General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC will appear for a second round of begging. We’re also learning that each company is expected to provide two documents to Congress. One would be a shorter, public summary. The other would be a longer, detailed document including proprietary information, to which Capitol Hill access would be tightly restricted, according to GM spokesfolks. Needless to say, TTAC will be posting the public copies, and would be more than happy to post the restricted versions as well, should any principled public servant feel that they deserve public review. You can find our contact form on our navigation bar at the top of your page. Meanwhile, the Senate Banking Committee has yet to schedule public hearings, and we’re still waiting to see how this will affect the planned caravan of love from Detroit to DC. We’ll keep you posted.

WaPo columnist Warren Brown never turns down an opportunity to show Detroit some love. Or at least lash out at its haters. Today he takes on the “sophist nonsense… spun by people who haven’t bothered to check the numbers, and who have paid even less regard to the history of their supposed knowledge,” otherwise known as opposition to the government bailout of a failing industry. And like Michael Jackson’s greatest music video, the arguments appeal to the sense of pathos rather than logic or reason. The financial sector and price-conscious consumers are blamed for dragging down Detroit, despite the fact that both have supported Detroit for decades. The automakers may have slurped all the credit they could get for years, and consumers may have only purchased Detroit iron on price alone, but they’re the ones to blame for the industry’s downfall, reckons Brown. But like the gloved one, Detroit can’t create its own very public trainwreck and then blame people for noticing. Or if you must damn the media and public for calling your failures like they see them, at least do it with a sense of humor. Even Michael Jackson knows that.

This one isn’t so much a new boondoggle as the failure of an existing boondoggle. Falling fuel prices have triggered a clause in Missouri’s ethanol blending mandate, which allows retailers to sell unblended gasoline instead of E10. The Springfield News-Leader reports that gasoline is now cheaper than ethanol, which means station owners have the right to ignore a state law requiring pumps to sell the ten percent ethanol blend. “The gas price has really dropped tremendously and ethanol has not quite kept up with the pace,” said Ron Hayes, director of the Missouri Department of Agriculture’s weights and measures division, which monitors gasoline sales in the state. The drop in the price of oil has “really slowed down, if not stopped, any additional expansion of capacity” at the state’s six farmer-owned ethanol plants, said Gene Millard, president of the Missouri Renewable Fuels Association. “Plants are just not going to start up producing a product that’s showing negative pricing margins,” he said without placing blame directly where it belongs: ethanol mandates which have drastically elevated the price of corn. Aint it tough when markets don’t respond to your political agenda?

Bloomberg reports that Fitch has cut Toyota’s credit rating amid a tanking US new car market, the first such cut for Toyota in ten years. Toyota was cut from AAA to AA, with a negative outlook; still comfortably above the sub-junk ratings of some automakers. However, the increased borrowing costs associated with a cut credit rating could bring an end to Toyota’s zero-percent financing incentive program. But according to Fitch, this rating cut is simply a sign of the times, rather than eing based on some specific Toyota wrongdoing. “The negative developments in the industry are so substantial and fundamental that even the strongest player — Toyota — can no longer support a `AAA’ rating,” according to Fitch director Tatsuya Miyuno. For some analysts, Toyota’s position is strong enough to weather the storm. “Toyota’s financial foundation is solid, and I don’t think there has been such a drastic change to warrant a two-level downgrade,” says Yasuhiro Matsumoto of Shinsei Securities. “I don’t see an impact on the company’s new bond issues.” The rating cut leaves only five companies left with an AAA rating from Fitch: Exxon Mobil Corp. and Johnson & Johnson in the U.S. and Regie Autonome des Transports Parisiens, Reseau Ferre de France and Societe Nationale des Chemins de Fer Francais in France.

“Spirit Airlines wants to bailout Detroit air passengers.” Geddit? The airline is offering a “Detroit Bailout” sale; travelers can fly from Detroit to domestic and international destinations at prices starting from $59 each way. This isn’t the first unusual promotion offered by Spirit. The airline once held a “Hunt for Hoffa” promotion in which visitors to its website could play an online game involving longtime missing and presumed dead labor leader Jimmy Hoffa. Customer complaints forced the cancellation of the Hoffa promotion.

WRCB has the first image of what its contracted photographer calls the “test mule” for the new mid-size sedan (NMS) that Volkwagen will produce at its new plant in Chattanooga. Volkswagen tells the local news outlet that “unfortunately, this is not the NMS. This vehicle is built on the Jetta chassis which may also include some components of a new midsize sedan (NMS) being tested.” Still, this is as close to the long-rumored NMS as we’ll be seeing for a while.

Automotive News [sub] is reporting that GM managers are worried enough about their chances for a bailout to write up a “Plan B” in case the funds don’t come through. Of course this plan has nothing to do with restructuring, returning to profitability, or facing reality, it’s simply a plan to “keep the company running until President-elect Barack Obama takes office in January.” At which point… um… nope, it doesn’t say anything. Nationalization? Chapter 11? The Rapture? Who freaking knows. Anyway, the “Plan B” is pretty much a bunch more of the same, as it calls for GM to delay payments to suppliers, slash white-collar jobs and salaries and gut its marketing campaigns. So, y’know, the usual, only a little worse. AN even suggests that “the cuts could even seep into r&d — the vital core activity crucial to GM’s long-term success.” Which is how necrosis works. One minute you’re cutting off toes and telling yourself things will be fine. Before you know it, you’re out of limbs to sever and the stuff is up to your neck. If (more) R&D goes on hold, GM will have no future to fight for. And if suppliers start demanding payment on delivery? Game over. Sources are saying GM will make “a massive communication to the world” of its plans after Thanksgiving.

Inside Line recently got a friendly call from a Tesla spokesperson who was positively bursting with the good news: Porsche had purchased a Tesla Roadster. And though its always nice to make a sale, the Tesla flack was clearly more interested in the PR benefits of Porsche engineers studying the $120k roadster. “A Porsche senior engineer actually came over a few weeks back, and he was seriously analyzing the car in every detail,” dishes the Tesla source. Separately, a “German source” tells Inside Line that Porsche is “none too pleased” with the recently-released eRuf, a lithium-ion-powered electric Carrera. So what does this all add up to? Porsche’s building a lithium-ion sportscar. After all, they’re not buying a Tesla to study their customer service. According to the Tesla spokesperson, Porsche’s order is “pretty far down on the list of current orders.” Chances are we’ll see an EV Porsche on the Nordschleife before Tesla makes its way down that notoriously interminable waiting list.

The planned cavalcade of chrome fuel-efficient American vehicles from Detroit to DC is “a great idea,” according to GM spokesfolks, but neither the General nor Ford will officially participate in the stunt. Suppliers, dealers and the UAW will make up the bulk of the spectacle, although there’s still a chance that Chrysler’s Bob Nardelli could join in the fun. “The whole grassroots caravan to Washington, D.C., effort we think is a great idea,” said GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson. “It’s just not something we are in a position to sponsor or manage.” You know, like everything else. “As for our mode of transport, it can be safely assumed it will not be by company plane,” Wilkinson said. “For security reasons, we don’t normally comment on transportation of our senior executives. As the date for the hearings gets close, we may provide more details.” And we’ll be waiting with bated breath. The march on Washington is being organized by Dura CEO and Chairman Tim Leuliette, although the Freep gives a hat tip to Automotive News [sub] scribe Jason Vines for kinda, sorta coming up with the idea in a column published last Friday. PR man Vines’ advice? Organize the event on the internet and “arm everyone with a short list of facts so they can speak intelligently on camera, as too-often-lazy TV journalists like to find the fattest, dumbest protesters and get them to say something stupid or offensive on camera.” Is this why Red Ink Rick is being kept away?

As thing stand now, All three automakers will present plans for reorganization to the congress by December second. Five days later, Detroit’s caravan of love will kick off its pilgrimage to Washington, where the three CEOs will hold an encore performance of their famed congressional testimony. The reception that awaits them in our nation’s capitol will depend largely on how candid the second round of testimony is, and how viable the new reorganization plans are. Now that everyone is well aware of the fact that they are screwed, Rick, Bob and Alan must convince congress that they can dig their way out. Since GM claims to already have “a plan,” lets take a moment today to speculate on what that plan is… or should be. My feeling is that Wagoner’s credibility is so weak that he has to open with a structured bankruptcy offer to avoid being laughed out of the hearing room. If he agrees that brand and dealer cuts are necessary, GM just might get the bailout. Given his pathological performance thus far though, I’d guess Wagoner’s pride (wait, that’s not the right word) won’t let him. He’ll probably talk up the cuts to truck manufacturing, hype the Cruze and Volt and suggest that maybe the union might give some ground soon. And he’ll jet home empty-handed to start Chapter 11 proceedings. Your thoughts?