Based on his first two posts, it was clear that the Chicago Auto Show's Internet Director, Mark Bilek was spoiling for a fight with someone. Anyone. As long as it was a blogger. Not surprisingly, he got his wish. Autoblog (AB) asked its readers to watch the 24-hour webcams covering the autoshow's construction for a new car before its official debut. Bilek went ballistic. Rather than just pull the plug on the cameras quietly, Bilek excoriated AB via the Chicago Auto Show Blog (Showlopnik). "Now for an episode of 'When blogging goes bad.' All Chicago Auto Show Web cam fans can thank AutoBlog.com… Thanks to your friends at AutoBlog, the Web cams are disabled. It is one thing to leave the cams up for the general public, but it's another when they are used for a Web site's personal promotion. Yea, I got a screen cap for you AutoBlog, it's a big middle-finger salute from all of the Web cam fans of the Chicago Auto Show thanking you for keeping them in the dark." This is the same guy who previously knocked blogs as being spiteful, overly opinionated and unprofessional. Mote. Beam. Eye. Done.

The execs for the Chicago Auto Show managed to hire possibly the worst person imaginable for the job of "Internet Director." Not only does Mark Bilek hate blogs and bloggers, but he can't even keep his mouth shut (or keyboard inactive) about it. On the Chicago Auto Show's blog Showlopnik, Bilek ponders blogging credentials: "It appears that you have to a) be very young and inexperienced, b) have an opinion about everything, and c) always be 100% right, even if you don't offer solutions."  Regarding news embargos, "Ha! I laugh at embargos. I am a blogger now and I don't have a code of ethics–or scruples for that matter. I don't care if I made a binding agreement not to make public sensitive information? As long as someone else broke their promise first, it's OK for me, right? So here goes. I overheard the head chef at McCormick Place in an airport jet way discussing the menu for First Look for Charity and, guess what? There will be shrimp I tell you. Also, we'll have food from India, Asia, Europe, South America, and even North America. In addition, there will be beer, wine, and soda! Imagine that! Just remember, you heard it here first. PS, that makes me important, right?" Mark Bilek. Our friend in the digital age.

Yesterday, in our Super Bowl car ad guide, we speculated about what you'd be seeing from Hyundai. No need for guessing: Hyundai went ahead and posted both 30 second ads online. Our take: they look pretty good. Very simple, easy to follow (especially if you've had the standard game day spirits), and effective. Hyundai is just extending the image it has already staked out: value. They'll sell you the same car for less money, or more car for the same money. It works selling Sonatas to Corolla shoppers, and they've taken exactly the same approach here. "S-Class size for the price of the C-Class." Then they tell you it's got 375 horsepower. No green nonsense, no claims of inventing new market segments, and certainly no streams running through the woods. Just more for your money. What do you think?

The image you are seeing comes from the Washington auto show. A facelifted Mitsubishi Galant has been making the rounds at several of the regional auto shows, and a dealer has even confirmed having a few in stock. But this freshened Galant is not on Mitsubishi's consumer website, press website or any of the press picture databases. A call to the Mitsubishi News Bureau has not been returned (they are probably not in the Berkowitz fan club after my review of the Lancer). As you can see from the horrendous blurry cameraphone picture, the rear end is in fact different and less ugly than before. Unfortunately, the car underneath is likely the same pedestrian and generic machine Americans have been ignoring for the past several years. Mitsubishi has had record sales in 2007, but they have yet to crack serious sales numbers in the Altima-Accord-Camry territory in which they used to be very competitive. So two lessons here. First, when you launch a car, launch the damn car properly. Second… well we'll have to wait until we can see the thing, won't we.

Do you like violent land acquisition games? You're in luck! And we even know the ad schedule for this weekend's Bowl of Superness; the playbook leaked out onto the net (was it secret to begin with?). Not surprisingly– considering the perks (Percs?) bestowed upon the top brass funding the athletic endeavor– the auto industry will be attempting to divert you from the salsa. The cost for 30-seconds of your (and a billion of your friends') time: $2.7m. Or less. Here's the run down.

First Quarter:
Audi finally unleashes the ad that's supposed to redefine luxury: "Audi selected The Godfather as a thematic foundation for its Super Bowl ad because the film expresses the idea of a new power rising in an established hierarchy." Stop smoking the ad crack boys; the Godfather is about a bunch of hoodlums killing hoodlums to become the top hoodlums. How's that for a business plan? Cars.com uses their 30 seconds of fame to persuade you to visit their slow, boring, bloated website to increase your buying confidence. I'm not hotlinking their page because I'd have to call it tepid-linking, and that doesn't sound right. Bridgestone will remind you that tires are important, and theirs are worth buying.

Second quarter:
Rumor had it that Chevy was going to try to keep viewers from heading to the toilet by explaining the transition from gas-friendly to gas-free. Now GM's spot will show one or more hybrids from Chevy, Saturn or GMC. Toyota will debut the new Corolla. Here's hoping the game is still exciting.

Third Quarter:
More Bridgestone, then more Cars.com. The Cars.com ad will include Alice Cooper and Richard Simmons having sex in a Chevrolet HHR. Or something like that. Hyundai really will attempt to redefine luxury, launching the new Genesis rear wheel-drive budget luxury sedan. The ad will attempt to make Mercedes, BMW and Lexus owners feel like they're suckers. Hyundai will take a second bite of the advertising apple to present… It's OK honey, I'll get the beer.

Fourth Quarter:
Toyota's 30-second spot about the Sequoia will be "family focused." As Toyota is already airing a family focused Sequoia ad, perhaps they're moving from high mileage to recycling.

[See the rundown here. TTAC will provide post-game Audi ad analysis on Monday]

Fiat's CEO once called his employer "so worthless it could not be sold." As recently as 2003, Fiat lost $2.7b for the year. In the middle of its travails, Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne jumped in bed with GM CEO Rick Wagoner. The Harvard MBA swapped six percent of GM's shares for 20 percent of Fiat's. And get this: Wagoner signed a "put option" obliging The General to buy the remaining 80 percent of the Italian car maker between January 2004 and July 2009. In 2005, GM paid Fiat $2b– not including lawyer's fees– NOT to consummate the transaction. GM's epic stupidity funded winning new models like the Fiat 500, Panda, and Grande Punto. Five years later, a resurgent Fiat has paid off ALL of it debts, turned a profit and kept a few hundred million in reserve. And now… Moody's and S&P have looked at Fiat's balance sheet and returned Fiat SpA to "junk" bond level status (again). Sergio Marchionne's response: "that's obscene." If so, the fact that the man who funded Fiat's turnaround is still the head of GM is pure pornography.

Here we go again: pictures hitting the net before an official debut. Snaps that prove that Volkswagen's European bargain brand Skoda does VW better than VW does VW. Skoda, a Czech company whose cars were punchlines for years ("A friend of mine got a new side mirror for his Skoda. Sounds like a fair trade to me"), has been churning-out one reasonable reskinned VW after another. The first generation Superb was a stretched, bargain-priced Passat. Skoda passes 'at with a new model based on the current Mk6 Passat (currently sold Stateside). The Superb may not live-up to its name, but it a looks damn sight better than the Passat: more stolid, more German and more "European." Best of all, there are non-wild ass rumors coming from VW's American HQ that the Superb could be headed stateside a in lightened content form. As a re-badged Volksie, the Superb would serve as a lower-priced mainstream replacement for the Passat, as the Passat Coupe moves upmarket. What do you reckon: should VW NA pass or play? 

Volkswagen will soon be re-joining the list of European auto manufacturers manufacturing autos in the U.S. In fact, VW was the very first ferrin' automaker to set-up shop in The Land of the Free way back in 1978, with a Rabbit factory in New Stanton, Pennsylvania. And man, did they screw that one up. The nasty, unreliable crap [barely] constructed in the U.S. plant single-handedly destroyed VW's reputation for "German engineering," strangling sales and forcing the company to close-up shop, tuck its tail between its legs and head south of the border. This time 'round, the Detroit Free Press reports that VeeDub's building their new plant in North Carolina, aiming for a 2010 start-up date. Don't be surprised if the facility facilitates SUVs, like the Tiguan, or the next generation Touareg. Fortunately, there's no risk that VW will pollute a stellar reputation for well-built products, thanks to ongoing quality problems… everywhere. As the owner of a German-built GTI that's provided 18 months of mechanical headaches, here's hoping VW finally sorts it shit out, somewhere, soon.  

After showing an oil-burning concept car last year, Subaru has just debuted their European-spec diesel engine. Significance is twofold. First, until this point, Subaru hasn't offered a diesel engine. Oil burners account for 40 percent of the European new car market; Subie's diesel deficit has seriously retarded their progress into the Eurozone. Second, this ain't no regular four-pot diesel. It's a 2.0-liter turbocharged flat-four that churns-out 148 horses and 258 ft.-lbs.of twist (from 1800 rpm.) Yup, you heard right: it's a flat-four; the same horizontally opposed Boxer layout Subaru sells in gas-powered form. As horizontally opposed engines have better balance than their inline counterparts, a Subaru diesel could be smoother and quieter than an in-line oil burner. In the Legacy wagon, it should get about 41 U.S. miles per gallon and chug from zero to sixty mph in roughly 8.5 seconds. Reviews are trickling in: AutoExpress, Car magazine and Fifth Gear . So far, so good. Will the Subie diesel clean-up its act to California compliance and come to the States? The answer of the week (via Autobloggreen) is yes. But with a projected date of 2010, there's still plenty of time for Subaru to cancel, confirm, cancel, confirm…

Once again, pictures of a new car have leaked onto the web before the manufacturer's official debut date. Sometimes this sort of thing is an actual leak involving skullduggery, corporate betrayal, miniature cameras and journalistic derring-do. These days, it's usually a manufacturer's thinly-veiled attempt to whip-up interest in a relatively mundane product. Anyway, as you can see on Autozeitung's website, the changes to the new Mercedes SL-class roadster are hardly revolutionary. The new bits primarily involve the front clip, where a RetroBig grill now resides (RetroBig is my name, not theirs). The SL's headlights have also morphed, from ugly double blobs to somewhat different ugly blobs. Looking at the front of this thing, you can't help but wonder if the outgoing model's a more reasonable evolution of the old 1990s Mercedes SL500. The next gen's front end looks more like a mutation. Other changes include a hideous bodykit all the way around, fishier gills on the side and an even more schizophrenic interior. Seeing one for yourself in person is the only real way to be the judge. In the meantime, the takeaway word for the new SL: busy.

At first there was one. Now there are many. This week, BMW was proud to herald its new status as "the world's first car maker now offering a seven-speed Double Clutch Gearbox [DSG] especially conceived and designed for a high-speed power unit." The German cog-swapper's high hp capability is an important distinction; VW trumped Bimmer with its low-horsepower seven-speed DSG gearbox late last year. Other new dual clutch transmissions in the news: Mitsubishi is giving long lead buff books and the internet megaliths a taste of their new six-gear dual clutch "SST" box (Edmunds reports that it's not ready for prime time yet). Volvo has just announced details on its dual wet clutch Powershift transmission (also six gears). Although the box is currently reserved for Volvo's European diesel cars, you can bet some version of this transmission will make it into Ford's U.S. passenger cars. At which point dual clutch-loving pistonheads (ipso facto) might implode from all the choice. But where oh where is Porsche's DSG? I mean, c'mon.

In contrast to earlier reports, goauto is now reporting that GM is not bringing a Holden Commodore/Pontiac G8 wagon the U.S. of A. Fair enough? On the one hand, Maximum Bob is unusually realistic when he proclaimed "the sad truth is, as much as some of us like 'sportwagons', they just don't sell in the US." When left to their rear wheel-drive (RWD) devices, wagons don't sell stateside. The Lexus IS300 Sportcross – failure. BMW's RWD wagons  – did pretty badly until the letter "x" showed up in their names. The ugly Dodge Magnum – dead. On the other hand, there's something to be said for "doing your thing." If GM wants RWD to be its thing– especially Pontiac's– then wouldn't it make sense to go all the way with it? How much extra can the Pontiac G8 wagon cost to federalize as GM's already doing it for the sedan? Unless there's a problem with parts…

Usually I ding manufacturers for switching to stupid alphanumeric model names at the expense of memorable word names (Legend became the RL? Seville became the STS? What happened to the Continental?). But Volkswagen is doing their best to make anonymous letter/number combinations look more appealing by choosing the most unpronounceable names they can find/devise. First, we had the Touareg ("twa-reg"), which is embarrassing no matter how you say it (especially to the eponymous semi-nomadic tribe who didn't get a dime from the deal). Then VW unleashed the Tiguan ("tig-wan"), a cute-ute (their tails are made of rubber, their backs are made of springs). Yesterday, VW attempted to top both of those– and the Nissan Qashqai (don't ask me)– by calling their rebadged and slightly reworked Chrysler minivan the Routan. Route-tan? Rootin'? With apologies to Sid and Nancy, I'm going with "Rowten." Or not, as the case may be.

GM Global Product Maven Maximum Bob Lutz claims that satisfying new U.S. federal fuel economy regulations will cost the consumer an additional $6k per car, on average. That seems a bit of a strange statement, as there are already plenty of cars capable of besting the freshly-minted mandate. From Japan to Jerusalem, from Mumbai to Milan, the world is filled, and filling, with suitably fuel efficient passenger cars. The real question is whether or not America is ready– make that “willing”– to buy the same sort of frugal machines that the rest of the world has been driving for years. Take the Fiat Grande Punto. Please.