The Detroit News reports that golfing phenom Tiger Woods is set to tackle Buick's one foot in the grave image. In a new series of ads, Woods waxes eloquent about driving his Lambda gimme– despite the fact that it's made by a brand that's more Geritol than Gen X. Or Y. "Growing up I thought it was for my mom and my dad and that generation and certainly not for someone in their 20s and 30s." But now that Tiger's a husband and father, he "appreciates the Enclave's safety features" and how easy it is to stuff his family, pets and golf clubs into the Tahoe-sized CUV. The multimillionaire also likes his $40k mom-mobile's style. "The Enclave looks cool– you feel like this car was specifically made for you." I'm sure it was. Hey! How about lending it to one of those potential Enclave buyers who can't get their hands on the crossover (before they cross over) because GM screwed-up the parts supply? And if the Enclave is already hot, and GM can't meet existing demand, why pay Mr. Woods to turn-up the heat? Someone needs to tell GM's marketing minions that timing is. Everything.

After rebadging the lackluster Five Hundred as a slightly-blingier-but-still-lackluster Taurus, Ford CEO Alan Mulally's still trying to recapture the magic. The Detroit News reports Big Al's talking about jacking-up the Taurus nameplate and sliding a new car under it in 2009. Speaking in Detroit yesterday, he hinted that a new new Taurus would arrive on the scene in the next "year or so." What's more "the new Taurus is the one we should have made originally" (you mean originally originally or later originally?). And then Mulally clammed-up, saying "I've probably said too much." The usual fictional unidentified "other company sources" told the DetN the new new Taurus would be built on the same platform as the existing one with totally new sheet metal, a new interior, better fuel economy and an optional EcoBoost engine. Viva la evolution!  

In the interest of balanced reporting, we bring you the following thoughts on the Subaru WRX STi from Terry Box, the Dallas News' erstwhile car critic: "Remember how pudgy and plain your old girlfriend looked at the last high school reunion and then you saw her six months later [and] she was cut-and-buff, a woman suddenly with muscle and attitude and presence. That's the way I view the '08 Subaru WRX STI." Yes folks, the same car Jeremy Clarkson destroyed in The Sunday Times gets a glowing review in the Dallas News. Like Clarkson, Box had problems with the myriad of controls festooning the center console. Unlike Clarkson, "it didn't matter." And so it goes. Box gums the car a bit ("you'll just have to accept that Subaru apparently put most of its money into the engine and suspension, not the dashboard and door panels"), and then gushes all over the poor thing ("around 3,000, the fuse gets lit, and the car rushes to 6,000 rpm so quickly that mere mortals will struggle to shift fast enough to keep up with the motor"). At least Box didn't denigrate those who buy the WRX STI and enjoy driving it. But as you'd expect from a car review where advertising limits editorial freedom, the plain unvarnished truth doesn't get a look in. 

TTAC is often accused of being overly-harsh on cars and the causes of cars. But we've never violated the number one rule in the info biz: don't insult the customer. In his latest diatribe in The Sunday Times, British car critic catapults himself across that editorial line with his usual acerbic style and boot-in-the-ass subtlety. To wit: "There are many ways to tell if someone is a bit thick. You can sit them in a room and ask them to push various bits of plastic into a wooden box… [or you can] ask them this simple question: 'Are you wearing a Subaru rally jacket?' Because if they are, you will need to speak more slowly." And so begins Jeremy Clarkson's opening salvo against Subie fans. Jezza pisses on Subaru drivers ("for the majority of them, there are only eight letters in the alphabet. WRX STIR and B."), rally enthusiasts ("a sport for the terminally gormless") and their four-wheeled object of veneration ("a £25,000 car that comes with fewer toys than an Ethiopian birthday boy."). In case Subaru lovers really are stupid (which is a ridiculous slur), Clarkson's conclusion spells out his message in no uncertain terms. "I think therefore you may have to be a bit dim to buy one." 

Pistonheads insist that Toyotas are a snooze to drive. Toyota agrees. Stockhouse reports that ToMoCo has developed a system that measures driver's eye apertures to see if they're awake and paying attention. The system's camera and image-processing system monitors the positions of the driver's upper and lower eyelids. OK, here's the tricky bit. Toyota says its integrated the eye thingamabob with its Pre-Crash safety Nanny. Apparently, without the eye system, Pre-Crash lets you know a crash is ABOUT to happen. With Big Brother scanning your eyes, Pre-Crash lets you know an accident COULD happen. Anyway, it's just another damn thing electronic gizmo that can go wrong, that your dealer will have to replace rather than repair. Toyota says they will  offer the system on selected domestic (Japan) models "in the near future."

GM Marketing Maven Mark LaNeve is changing his tune faster than a short-circuited juke box. Yesterday, speaking to Automotive News [AN sub], GM's Marketeer outlined the idea of creating metro superstores. LaNeve said he'd run the concept up the proverbial flagpole at the annual National Auto Dealers Association (NADA) convention next month. When the story appeared, LaNeve saw that no one was saluting it. In fact, dealers were firing Howitzers at the damn thing. So Marketing Mark sent a polite message to dealers (and AN) stating "there will be no announcements of any kind regarding any new initiative or change to our channel strategy." In classic GM what-you-thought-you-heard-wasn't-what-I-should-have-said style, LaNeve claimed that the AN story "gave the impression of a major policy announcement of shift in strategy." On the other hand, he also said GM is discussing the cost of real estate in prime markets and the inclusion of "more than one" brand at some locations. What LaNeve didn't say was how many irate phone calls and emails he received from NADA members threatened by his metro megastore misegos.

Soon, the answer to "that thing gotta Hemi in it?" will be "Huh?" While plenty of pistonhead's have debated the current motor's right to that legendary moniker, it may soon be a moot point. According to Automotive News [AN; sub], Chrysler co-president Jim Press says that buyers not of the baby-boomer generation don't have the emotional attachment to the name their parents do. "The Hemi is not the powertrain of the future. It's the powertrain of today." (I guess he followed Pumbaa's advice and put his behind in the past.) So what engine will the next generation embrace as the performance engine of choice? Press reckons it'll be high-performance V6's and electric motors– even though the Hemi will continue for a few more years nestled in the snout of the Ram pickup. Somehow the idea of Paul Revere and the Raiders singing "Forget about your electric motors and your GTO's…" doesn't have quite the same emotional resonance.

Leave it to Gaywheels to make the Detroit Auto Show sound so… well… gay. They've chosen their "Top Ten Moments" from the show, starting with the bull-on-bull action during the roll-out of the new Ram. That's where "the daddy bulls started mounting the boy bulls in a bovine version of '70s porn, complete with mustachioed cowboys." Moving right along… another fav was the Mercedes' GLK intro when Kim Cattrall "smiled coyly, touched Dieter's shoulder, and cooed about 'assertiveness, bulges in the right places… [and a] tight little package.'" They describe the CTS-V as having "a well-bulging hood that Kim Cattrall would love" and liken the BMW 1-series convertible to "any guy packing six-pack abs on South Beach, [who] sheds its top in 22 seconds. And like that same guy after a day of sun and proximity to half-naked men, the 1-Series is raring to go." And just in case the American Family Association isn't pissed-off enough at Ford, gaywheels says "if Ford could just stream the video from the F-150's optional backup cam down from Brokeback Mountain, they'd have a major new source of badly needed revenue." At this point, it's gotta be worth a try.

"The two big questions in my opinion is [are?] whether they have or can get the technology, especially in the battery arena, to pull this off… The second thing that seems questionable is that they will be able to manufacture a car in the volumes that they are talking about." No, that's not TTAC talking about Tesla or Volt. That's Tesla's Daryl Siry trash talking Henrik Fisker's Karma electric car, unveiled at the Detroit Auto Show. In what sounds like a classic case of "if you can't beat 'em, beat 'em up" he gives Fiskar a right royal pasting in his Horseless Age blog. Speaking from experience, Siry points out "Designing and integrating the battery pack alone is going to be a very big undertaking." Then he takes Fisker to task for "already quoting a price and taking reservations on a car that isn't even in drivable prototype phase" (a la Tesla). After pointing out that Jalopnik's wrong, wrong, wrong about the demise of their WhiteStar project, Siry admits he's learned that "there is a long road between here and there." We suggest Siry contemplate the even larger space between his company's hype and on-the-ground reality.

By the end of next month, GM will have offered 48k workers a buyout package. How many United Auto Workers' (UAW) members will take the offer is yet to be seen, but the Lansing State Journal thinks it may not be enough. Most workers willing to be coerced bribed enticed to take such a deal did so last year, when 34k union employees left the company. The remaining (and somewhat younger) workers realize they'll have to work somewhere; if they give up their $28/hr jobs they won't be able to find anything close to it in their area. However, unless GM can rid itself of the higher-paid workers and replace them with "noncore" workers willing to accept $14/hr, their nebulous turnaround plan might not work according to [undisclosed] plan. Union officials would only say they were waiting for more details of the buyout before commenting on their evaporating membership's options.

Audi has dominated the Le Mans series with the diesel-powered R10; Peugeot is also fielding a diesel race car. Now The Daily Yomiyuri reports that Toyota's considering jumping into the alternate powertrain fray with a hybrid-powered Le Mans car. Although Toyota last ran the Le Mans in 1999, they recently won the Tokachi 24-hour race last year in a Supra retrofitted with a hybrid drivetrain. The LeMans cars will have a "special capacitor" (no, they didn't use the word "flux") to "facilitate an extremely fast power supply and charging function." Apparently, ToMoCo sees a hybrid-powered endurance racer as a way to generate interest in the gas – electric powertrain in Europe, which already has plenty of cars equipped high mileage gas and diesel powerplants. Considering Toyota's "success" in F1, they better hope they don't need a checkered flag to make the point.

Once upon a time, GM had to pull a TV spot for the Corvette because the media nannies thought it would encourage 10-year-olds to drive America's sports car recklessly. And now the Canadian Press reports that Ford's yanked a newspaper ad in Saskatchewan and Manitoba because the (thought?) police says it encourages auto theft. The full-page ad showed the rear of a Ford SUV with a bumper sticker that reads "Drive it like you stole it," with "Built for life in Manitoba" underneath. Ford of Canada spokeswoman Gina Gehlert has throw herself on her PR sword (guaranteed non-fatal), saying "It was never our intention to offend anyone." But Gehlert refused to comment on whether the ad will appear in other markets or be reworked into something that doesn't lead Canadian youth into a lifetime of crime. May I suggest a bumper sticker that says "Drive it like you rented it?" No, that's not it. Any suggestions?

Whenever TTAC publishes a less than flattering review of a domestic nameplate, fans of the brand (or model) accuse us of being "import bigots" or "biased." So I went through our rated reviews and broke them down by nameplate (regardless of country of origin). The average rating (rounded to two decimals) for domestic brands: 3.17 stars. So-called imports: 3.43 stars. Three five-star imports are out of the reach of mere mortals (Gallardo, 911 Turbo and AMG CL63), so I took those out and re-calculated the import score; it dropped to 3.35. If you round any of these scores to star ratings, domestics average three stars and imports average, you guessed it, three stars. Taking it one step further (I gotta get a life!), 23 percent of the imports reviewed received ratings lower than three stars; only 17 percent of the domestics fell into that category.

I didn't crunch the numbers for editorials. Suffice it to say, TTAC's been critical of The Big 2.8, Toyota, Lexus, Porsche, Jaguar and the entire Chinese auto industry. If someone in this industry is doing something dumb, we're going to point it out. Period. As for our Detroit Death Watches, they cover the most important automotive story of our time; a story that's been largely ignored or improperly analyzed by the majority of the mainstream media. If that makes us "import bigots" or "anti-whatever," then so be it. TTAC's going to continue exposing the truth, wherever we find it. [NB: you are free to discuss TTAC's editorial stance or style in this post without restriction, within reason. If you know what I mean…] 

All right– enough with the nay-saying and snarking at GM Car Czar Maximum Bob Lutz. He promised a Volt by 2010 and by George, Chevy's made good on that promise! You, yes you can now buy your very own Chevy Volt! Unfortunately (or fortunately for you!), they're only building 7,500 in this production run. So if you want your very own zero emissions automobile, you need to get your order in right now! Yes, it's a little cramped. Sure, luggage space is limited. But you can park it almost anywhere. And the best part? Its affordable! Be the first on your block to own the new "gas free" Chevrolet Volt! (Batteries not included.)

Allstate can't sell new auto insurance insurance policies in Florida. The Chicago Tribune reports that the Florida Insurance Commission has revoked their certificate of authority to write new business because The Good Hands People refused to hand over documents on how they set rates in light of the company's relationships with trade groups and risk-modeling and insurance-rating firms. Allstate faced the same situation in Missouri and opted to pay fines rather than submit similar documents to a court. In the near term, industry experts don't expect Florida's actions to have much effect on the company. But Allstate's strained relationship with the state's regulators could impact them over time. Allstate said it was "surprised" by Florida's actions and is "evaluating its options."