One more time! Maybe even literally. Strangely, GM's told its dealers that revealing the imminent arrival of "employee pricing for all" to the outside world would be a felony. So I guess you can call me Miss Demeanor (you know; if I wasn't a Silverado-loving man's man). Anyway, it's all over the damn web. Reuters reports [here and via Automotive News] that "the offer starts Wednesday, runs until Sept. 2 and applies to all 2008 model year Chevrolet vehicles, according to the dealer, who was not authorized to discuss the GM plan." See? The black ops are only a beat behind. So to speak. And if employee pricing isn't enough to pull in the punters, "the top-selling U.S. automaker will offer cash back on slower-selling light trucks, including the Silverado pickup, said the dealer, who had just been briefed by GM." Top selling? Slower-selling? Careful you don't hurt yourself pulling those punches. Anway, we now have confirmation that ALL GM brands are involved in the fire sale. Oh, and try and guess the Money Factor in a standard GM lease these days. It's 16 percent. Which will apply to the new Malibu on Wednesday.

"Selling consumers more vehicle than they need has been the mainstream auto industry's business model for most of the past century," Joseph P. White writes in today's Wall Street Journal. "The wreckage created in Detroit by the bust of the bubble market in large sport-utility vehicles is just the latest example of how dependent auto makers are on the strategy." Whenever I hear pundits talking about other people's needs, and the greedy businessmen that convince consumers to buy against their own self-interest, I get nervous. One of the real joys of living in a democratic capitalistic society: within limits, citizens get to determine for themselves what's in their own best interests. If I want to drive an SUV, I am not denied that opportunity because someone else says "Sorry Comrade Bub, you don't need it." Sure, there are plenty of arguments against SUVs. (I've made more than a few myself.) But it's simply not true that Detroit's in trouble because they suckered dumb ass Americans into SUVs. They're in trouble because they suckered themselves into complacency. When America's automotive "needs" changed– a change that was entirely predictable– they weren't ready. Period. 

[I apologize for the fact that Justin seems genetically incapable of speaking up. I reckon he may just disappear some day. However, if you all clap, he may just come back. C'mon now boys and girls…] 

Our Wild Ass Rumor was three days early, but accurate. Our source inside the former GM division and bankrupt autoparts maker reports that the company has told its workers that 600 white collar Delphinians– in the Electronics and Safety organization– will be shown the door by the end of the year. (The total number employed thereabouts is 3k.) Delphi will identify the 600 puntees by the end of this month [August]. And despite previous promises, the pension freeze is now "independent of bankruptcy emergence." And when might THAT be? Our source says there were "no warm fuzzies on when we could expect to emerge." The Delphi wound continues to fester, only more so.

First, this post dovetails nicely with the Ask the B&B question on homoerotic truck ads. I mean, if the testosterone-laden Torque.tv's announcer's tongue isn't firmly in his cheek, well… Anyway, the video also suggest a click on over to Paul Niedermeyer's excellent editorial on the coming showdown between the 2010 Prius and the 2010 Honda Hybrid. Personally, I find the producer's choice of cartoon clown xylophone background music a bit OTT. But I'm glad the torque team pointed out that a properly-flogged Prius can suck more unleaded than a 'Vette. It brings back fond memories of the time I tried to discover how much gas I could use in a Prius. I never got it below 17mpg. Guess I wasn't trying hard enough.

H2H Ep12, Honda Civic Hybrid Vs. Toyota Prius

As a high school soccer player, I shared a locker room with the football team. Apparently my choice of the world's most popular sport indicated that I and my fellow teammates were all homosexual. Huh? Not that I debated the point with the tight end, but I reckoned there was a distinctly homoerotic undertone to our tormentors' camaraderie (me thinks thou dost towel whip too much). And I've started to notice that truck advertising– always mucho macho– is wandering into the same hyper-male territory. I refer here to the glossy Silverado pimpatorial in September's Car and Driver. "If you're a man's man, you need to be driving a truck's truck." What does that make a Honda Ridegline, an F-150's bitch? I like functional tools as much as the next guy, but I'm beginning to think truck maker's might want to ease-off on the gravelly-voiced steroid approach. Or not. What's your take?

As you may or may not know (and may or may not care), Porsche doesn't look kindly upon media outlets that use the word "targa" in connection with anything other than a [slow-selling] Porsche product. So what of the legendary Targa Florio race ("Besides the course which traversed mountain roads unchanged since the Punic Wars, there were severe changes in climate, bandits and wolves. Each hairpin competed with a sheer abyss for the driver's attention over a 3 lap race of 277 miles")? Never mind. The so-not-a-targa Veyron (V?) 16.4 is a Grand Sport by name, $2.05m by price (or 21 Porsche 911 Targa 4Ss). Bug owners can store their Veyron's [no extra charge] polcarb top, but not within the targa car. Thankfully, Pistonheads reports that "There is also an emergency soft top that can be fitted to protect the driver from a sudden downpour. In Bugatti’s own words, the soft can be 'stowed in the trunk like an umbrella'… If you go for the soft top then you won't be allowed to go over 80mph." Allowed? By whom? Doesn't VW own Bugatti, and isn't Porsche the Maus that Roared? It all sounds suspicious to me. But fun. Lots and lots of fun.

Reuters quotes a source with "direct knowledge of the matter" (i.e. themselves) that claims Chinese SUV maker Changfeng Motor Co. took at a look at buying GM's Dead Brand Stunting and said "Hahahahaha. No." More journalistically, "Changfeng, partly owned by Mitsubishi Motors Corp decided not to proceed with the talks after a tour of Hummer's U.S. production facility, as it saw only limited potential for it to market the vehicle, the source said. 'The Hummer is way too expensive for the Chinese military and demand from civilian buyers is not big enough to justify a purchase, especially with oil prices running near an all-time high,' the source said." OK, if that doesn't sound like a made-up quote, nothing does. Despite the fact that Reuters should have filed this one under Wild Ass Rumor, it's certainly true that the HUMMER brand is a drug on the market, and it ain't Viagra. CNN reports that India's Mahindra and Mahindra is also taking a pass. After Russian "oligarch" Oleg Deripaska said "nyet."

Anyone who thinks GM isn't in a cash crunch better come up with some serious spin stat. The American automaker has officially confirmed that it's withdrawing from the Oscars. No, I don't mean it's removing itself from contention for "The Most Shameless Product Placement in any Movie Since Cinema Was Invented" Oscar. We're talking about ad sponsorship. As in no more. Which also means the Autoblog gallery-filling pre-Oscar stars and our cars "Style" event is toast. The Wall Street Journal makes the contrast with years past. "Not only has GM — the maker of brands such as Cadillac, Chevrolet and Saturn — aired a slew of commercials during the popular awards show, it also has paid extra to be the exclusive auto advertiser during some of the Oscar broadcasts. GM's marketing around the program has included on-the-ground promotions, such as giving the show dozens of GM vehicles to shuttle celebrities to the event and to Oscar-related parties." What, no Escalade Hybrid limos? Nope. And no Emmy sponsorship. And the next Olympics will not have anything shiny and blue paying the bills. It would be nice to think that all this money saved will be going towards new product development. But it's not. It's what the non-technical analysts call throwing shit overboard to stop the ship from sinking. 

Me, never. Why would I? But I know plenty of pistonheads who have. I remember a particularly coke-fueled neighborhood Porsche driver who was crazy enough to get some serious distance from the local po-po, who were Hell bent on throwing his dangerous driving ass in jail. He screeched into his [blacked out] garage, stripped, jumped in bed and pretended to be asleep. Mind if we have a look around? Long-suffering wife: with all due respect officers, talk to my fucking lawyer. These days, it's not enough to evade the long arm of the law. If you're way cool, you race the cops, videotape the result and share your criminal activities with the world. To wit: superspeeders.com, "where horsepower rules, and the rules of the road don't apply." And their teaser video for same, via Streetfire.net [Note to the SF guys: please don't pull the link. This is instructive stuff.] I guess discretion is no longer the better part of stupidity. If it ever was. Anyway, you ever done shit like this?

Cops have a little run in with Ford GT

Steven Cole Smith is The Orlando Sentinel's automotive editor. You may remember Smith as Car and Driver's executive editor and/or as a syndicated New York Times car columnist. Or perhaps you've seen his byline at Edmunds or AutoWeek. Now I'm not going to say Smith pulls his punches to please his paper's patrons, be they carmakers or car dealers. But I will say the Aveo is one of the nastiest cars I've ever driven, and I'm pretending this is 1977. Smith disagrees. "The 1.6-liter, four-cylinder engine is surprisingly smooth and quiet, and while gas mileage isn't great for a car this small, it's pretty darn good: an EPA-rated 25 mpg in the city, 34 mpg on the highway in our test car." And "Headroom in the Aveo5 is generous, and rear-seat room isn't that bad, unless you have some long-legged people in the front seat. That room comes at the expense of luggage space in the back, but the rear seat folds down." And then he gets NASTY, in a loving kind of way. "Inside, for the most part, the Aveo looked and felt surprisingly upscale, but there were a few tipoffs to the fact that this is an inexpensive car: While the flip-down sun visors had vanity mirrors, the mirrors were uncovered, meaning that when the visors were down, they reflected you and everything behind the car. It was annoying enough that I'd have to use a strip of duct tape to cover them if I owned the car." Wait. Smith would actually consider owning one of these shit-boxes? Not bloody likely. 

Terry's one of the good guys: a plain-speaking auto reviewer/ranter for the Dallas Morning News [full version via The Washington Post] who never loses sight of the common man. Well, at least not until he's behind the wheel of a death car muscle car. And then he's gone baby gone! Despite the fact that the V8-lovin' Lone Star scribe's feeling the heat over global warming, it's one of those cold, dead hands deals. "I know that my days as an unrepentant gearhead may be numbered. Sky-high gas prices, global warming, urban sprawl, maybe even the "oil war" in Iraq, are all being piled on cars. Yet despite the growing drumbeat against them, the allegations that they're melting glaciers and maiming thousands, the claim that we're choking on them, the fear that they're our worst national addiction, I love them dearly." What follows is a poetic paean to profligate petrol consumption. Box ultimately argues against those who argue against gas-guzzling-for-fun thus: I'm a climate killer, you're a hypocrite; I'll stop when you stop. As if. 

Extreme Toyota Prius

Wow! More egalitarian than the Marquette County Fair baking competition? More democratic than the contest to name the Pontiac G8 ST? I guess we've got to forgive Detroit Free Press cheerleader Mark Phelan for doing what he does best (as far as we know). And I suppose writing negatively about "the Cruise" (how str8 is that?) would be the very definition of "churlish." But forgive me for saying that Woodward's panoply of pistonheads isn't exactly my cup of leaded gasoline. It's just too painful to see so much rolling proof that a once-proud American industry has joined Fonzie in the Shark-Jumping Hall of Fame. The fact that Paul Eisenstein (my good pal from The Car Connection) has glommed-on to the event with an alt power parade does nothing to convince me that Detroit's glory days lie ahead. "'If it's loud and fast, it's good,' said 19-year-old Alex Bui of White Lake Township. He planned to cruise in his tuned 2006 Honda Civic." And there you have it.

If we (and I'm using that in The New York Times Op Ed "Royal We" sense of the word) had any doubts that The Big Apple is the locus of America's anti-car jihad, scribe Hope Cohen is determined to remove them. In the provocatively titled "No Parking, Ever," Cohen argues that Hizzoner has the "four wheels bad" religion, but lacks sufficient zeal. "Under Mayor Michael Bloomberg… the department has been encouraging alternative transportation by reassigning street space long reserved for cars and trucks to bikes, buses and pedestrians. To accommodate all this movement, the city can no longer be as accommodating as it has been toward stationary vehicles. Before traffic reaches a standstill, as it threatens to do, the city should start phasing out curbside parking." Deftly played, Hope. As is this little carrot. "It is vital that vehicles move smoothly and quickly through New York City’s streets, delivering people and goods to their destinations. Making room for vehicles that are not moving should be a far lower priority." I can understand why they don't, but it really grinds my gears (Jonny) that anti-car advocates don't just come out and call for a passenger car ban. 'Cause you know that's what they really, really want.