Earlier this week, I wrote about the General Motors XP-75 Eagle and the idea that GM might have engaged in a relatively small bit of realpolitik during said plane’s conception and gestation. I’ve been writing for TTAC long enough to have a fairly accurate sense of how the B&B as a whole will regard whatever I write, but in the case of this article my guesses about what I’d find in the comments section were completely and thoroughly mistaken. I’d like to address them as part of larger concerns I have about the future of writing and criticism on the Internet, and I will do so in what you’re about to read.

But first, let’s talk about the way the Japanese treated prisoners during World War II, shall we?

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Rubens Barrichello’s daughter once asked him why he looked so sad on the podium; to make his children as well as the tifosi feel better about Ferrari’s relentless approach to team orders, he decided to make sure he always smiled from then on. The contrast between the crinkled mouth and unsmiling eyes he displayed in the podiums after that makes for an interesting study in human dynamics. How can a man feel so conflicted about standing on the most important podium in the racing world, week in and week out?

At the end of the Malaysian Grand Prix yesterday, however, there were no smiling faces at all.

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Facing tough German competition, the people at General Motors come up with a large-displacement supercharged contender that outpowers but also out-weighs the BMW-and-Benz-powered entries. The look of their new model is controversial, but we’re told that it has to be that way due to existing platform constraints. And, of course, they’ll need a massive cash injection from the United States Government to make the whole thing happen, and they’ll get it, even though the aforementioned government wants them to build something completely different.

Wait a minute. Did you think I was talking about the CTS-V? Pas du tout! Set the wayback machine for the big band era, and let’s hear a story about how General Motors (allegedly) sabotaged the strategic plans of the United States in order to further their own economic interests.

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This has been done before — most notably by Top Gear in the Stewart-Ford days — but this time it’s live, and real, and fantastic.

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Was it this guy? Who knows? But somebody finally decided to sue Porsche for their hilariously (if you don’t own a Porsche) failure-prone M96 watercooled boxer engines. Of course, the M96 has more than one known reason for going “pop” unexpectedly and turning on that “Drive to workshop and buy $11,750 Remanufactured Engine” light, but the IMS is the most frequent offender.

Now Porsche’s been forced to say that they’re sorry in that most American of ways — the class-action settlement. But since Porsche is Porsche, the devil is in the details. And there’s a hole in the list of covered VINs big enough to drive my 2004 Boxster S “550 Spyder” Anniversary Edition through.

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Your humble author came to love the W-body Impala relatively late in the game. TTAC was deliberately left off the list for 2014 Impala press drive invites, presumably to make more room for the Jen Friels and AutoBosses of the world. However, if what we’re reading in other sources is in any way legitimate, my advice to buy the old one while you still can appears to have been approximately as prescient as Paul Atreides was in Dune Messiah.

Perhaps the most surprising review comes from a source not normally known for harsh words regarding new cars.

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Spy photographer Bark M strikes again! Well, actually, this is the first time he’s struck. Any guesses as to what it is? For reference, our man spotted this vehicle outside Auburn Hills. What’s throwing us off is that there’s no Alfa Romeo bodywork clumsily attached to the rest of the car…

I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: from the perspective of the manufacturer, dealers are the worst part of the business. Their consistent thirty-day-crunch mindset leads to all sorts of idiocy, including the “$500 Dance Contest” you see above.

There’s something appropriate about it, however:

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“Elmwood Place is engaged in nothing more than a high-tech game of 3-Card Monty, (sic)” Ruehlman wrote, referring to a card game used by con artists.

And with that phrase, Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman stopped a six-thousand-ticket-per-month operation.

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My refusal to convict Oldsmobile driver Rod Kinkade on the testimony of a cycling team had the bike riders of TTAC howling for my blood. They won’t get it; I paid for eleven units of the finest junkie-and-derelict blood the last time I was struck by a motorist. It took three long, expensive days of ICU residence to get all that blood into me while they were Hemovacing the bad stuff out of a two-inch-diameter hole in my right leg. No soup for you, roadies.
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Full disclosure: While my business-class compatriots were living it up in Geneva, I was sitting at home in Ohio, waiting anxiously for the Fed-Ex-mishap-delayed arrival of something called a “Modern Eagle NOS Brazilian” and letting my three-year-old son watch The Lost World in HD. I’d forgotten that there was a part where the T. Rex bites a hapless civilian in half. “There’s meat inside people, if you’re a hungry dinosaur and you can’t find a ‘ceratops to eat,” the boy opined upon seeing the scene. Oh, well. Nature, red in tooth and claw, and all that.

It’s reasonable, therefore, that I might be personally bitter about the latest auto show and my failure to snag a seat on a charter flight to same. No surprise there. What is surprising is this: the people who went weren’t excited about the product either. Sure, they took Facebook pictures of their triple-seven sleeping pods and eighty-euro mystery dinners, but when it came to the actual rolling stock, the lack of enthusiasm among the professional enthusiasts could be viewed from space. Assuming, of course, you have an Internet connection in space and are willing to use it to read auto blogs. The closest thing to a universally acclaimed car at the show was a diesel version of a sporty hatchback. That’s like getting worked up over Diet Dr. Pepper.

The responsibility for this dismal state of affairs can be clearly laid at the feet of three companies. Porsche, Ferrari, and Lamborghini were given a chance to render automotive equivalents of Miss Alex Morgan in steel, aluminum, and carbon fiber. Instead, they chose to give us Honey Boo-Boo’s mother, Snooki, and Janet Reno in a Predator mask, respectively.

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Motorsports coverage is rarely part of TTAC’s remit, but I would be remiss if I failed to mention the first Grand-Am race at Circuit of the Americas. It’s great to have another world-class track in the United States, and there was some great racing there this past week.

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So… what did you get up to last weekend? Probably nothing like what the founder of Skatterbrane (Guitar) Pickups, Rod Kinkade, did. He lost his temper with a group of professional cyclists who were out on a training ride and he rammed one of them with his Oldsmobile Aurora, nearly killing the victim. It was completely unprovoked and he would have gotten away with it if a couple of brilliant men hadn’t run him down and brought him to justice. Now he’s been charged with felony assault. He admitted to the incident, and he’s going down, make no mistake about it.

It’s also possible that none of the above is true.

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“So, I ordered myself a Jeep.”

“Awesome! What did you end up getting?”

“Loaded Sahara Unlimited, Gecko Green, tan leather, six-speed manual, just like you suggested.”

“Well, that is what I suggested alright… but…”

“But what?”

“I didn’t think you were actually going to do it.”

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I bet you’ve always wanted to know how limousines are made, right? What’s that? You’ve never had any interest in that whatsoever?

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