I guess no one told Jaguar Design Boss Ian Callum that the British brand's forthcoming sale spells the end of his reign over the historic marque's sheetmetal. While Jag's new buyers will no doubt be glad to see the back end of Mr. Callum, Mr. Callum is busy worrying about the back end of future Jaguars. The design jeffe told just-auto [sub] that he's going to take the word 'jaguar' off the back of production cars. But not just yet. "When people see the XF they won't know what it is," Callum demurred. "So they will look for a name badge. That's why we've left it on, but put the leaper there as well, The name will go probably on production cars within two or three years." After explaining the philosophy behind the XF's front end– creating a schnoz that Jaguar founder Sir William Lyons could have penned– Callum predicted the new sedan's nose wasn't a one-off. "It's styling that you'll see on Jaguars more and more," he added. If ever a sentence cried-out for the word "hopefully," that one's it. 

Our own Jay Shoemaker called it: Mercedes' in-house tuner is practicing its black magic on more models. Pistonheads reports that AMG is set to unleash the SLK 55 AMG Black Series on suspecting, well-heeled hoons. To banish/bolster the ride's rep as the ultimate hairdresser/mistress' car, the Boys from Affalterbach have upgraded the [once] uber-SLK's 5.5-liter V8 to 400hp, and blessed it with enough twist to keep the traction control Nanny stuttering for days. (We're torquing zero to 60mph in 4.5 seconds.) Since they couldn't throw out the SLK's back seat, AMG lightened the load by fixing the SLK's folding tin top in place and binning all those meticulous motors and bling-bringing braces. Suspension mods, bigger brakes, larger shoes, carbon in the cabin and away you go; proving that a nose heavy German two-door can be just as breathtakingly bonkers as an ass-engined German two-door. 

You may have noticed a few changes to the site over the last few days: disappearing and reappearing car reviews, some new functions, a flaming warning above the edit box, a bigger edit box in which not to flame, etc. Yes, our most excellent programmers have been busy doing a little pre-winter cleaning. The editorial side of this endeavor thank them for their hard-work, creativity and perspicacity (in cyberspace, no one can smell you sweat). And now, finally, we can return to podcasting. I've chosen Mr. Justin Berkowitz for our daily cast. He's got the right 'tude for the job and doesn't actually have a job– the "real" kind that doesn't let you podcast from a company-sponsored cubicle. We'll be riffing on our content for your dining and dancing pleasure. Enjoy. Oh, and the best way to clear your cache to see the prettified site: click on "classic" in the header bar, then click on "new" in the top right corner. 

OK, the 9mm bit is me. But the purposeful walk advice comes from Universal Protection Services, a security company whose intergalactic remit includes providing sparking industry with "innovative fire/life safety programs and electronic security solutions." Company executive vice president and COO Steve Jones has some decidedly low-tech solutions for people who've seen all those spooky TV shows and movies where bad things happen in echoey parking garages. Mr. Jones says you shouldn't linger around your car (waiting for someone to cue the knife-wielding/chloroform-clutching psycho), keep your doors locked and windows up until Elvis (and you) have left the building and "if possible, park next to entrances or in open and well-lit areas." Huh. We were kind of hoping for stuff like never stop and say "Hello? Is anyone there?" and "fight for your life; if they get you in the car, you're dead meat." 

Last week, GM told the world its '08 models would hit the streets with 14 new or "significantly revised powertrains" with a "focus on saving fuel and improving performance." Public Citizen ("We fight for clean, safe and sustainable energy sources") has accused the automaker of mistaking "old" for "new." The consumer advocacy group claims that "most of the good ideas in the new powertrain lineup… are old news technologies that were listed five years ago." The sole exception? GM's two-mode hybrid. Even then Public Citizen slates the automaker's hybrid efforts for "putting it in some of the largest models, undermining efforts to build more efficient functional family vehicles." What's more, Public Citizen has an answer to SUV and pickup truck economy and safety: unibody construction! "Building the body and frame as a single piece, instead of the Frankenstein monster of a car body stuck to a truck frame, could help protect occupants of a vehicle struck by an SUV." And reduce their ability to tow or haul. At least Public Citizen questions the wisdom of biofuels. Looks like that initiative may be losing momentum amongst the chattering classes. 

Venture supplies Ford of Australia with bumper bars, dashboard consoles, interior panels and door trims. Faced with Ford's production slowdown, Venture execs decided to trim 40 percent of its 500-person workforce. Its union said beauty mate, just pay us the AUS$25.5m in entitlements you owe us. News.com.au says Venture promised to meet its obligations. But the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union wasn't buying it and called a strike. Normally, FoMoCo Down Under uses Venture's bits and pieces to build 359 vehicles per day. Since last Thursday, nothing. Yesterday, Ford asked Australia's Industrial Relations Commission to force Venture employees back to work pending independent adjudication. No decision has been made; the strike continues. Ford production remains suspended at the cost of millions of dollars per day.

Automotive News [AN sub] reports that Bernd Osterloh, the chief works council representative at VW, asked Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking for a seat on the board of the newly-created Porsche Automobil Holding SE. The request which reflects the fact that Porsche now owns a 30.9 percent stake in Volkswagen. Wiedeking considered the request for just under femtosecond before rejecting it. In fact, Porsche's decision to place their VW stock in an European holding company was designed to avoid just such an eventuality. While German-incorporated companies have strict rules mandating employee participation, European companies have… none. But hey, you can't blame a guy for asking. 

Add water to an alloy of aluminum and gallium and hey presto! Hydrogen! India Today reports the process was developed by Purdue University Professor Jerry Woodall. It "reduces the protective properties of the aluminum oxide skin normally created on aluminium's surface after bonding with oxygen… The skin usually acts as a barrier, preventing oxygen from reacting with aluminium. But the new technology allows the reaction to continue until all of the aluminum is used to generate hydrogen." Woodall claims his process is cheap, practical and powerful enough to secure more research funding revolutionize our energy infrastructure. But give the guy credit: he also knows how to think small. "The golf cart of the future, three or four years from now, will have an aluminum-gallium alloy. You will add water to generate hydrogen either for an internal combustion engine or to operate a fuel cell that recharges a battery. The battery will then power an electric motor to drive the golf cart." Fore! 

TTAC pricing provider TrueDelta recently surveyed its consumer panel (join via our home page) on car dealers' customer satisfaction surveys. For anyone who's ever been "pre-prepared" for a post-sale or service survey by "helpful" dealer staff, the results confirm that the fix is in. Automotive News [AN sub] summarizes Mr. Karesh's findings: "Nearly half of the respondents in the TrueDelta poll said the dealership tried to influence their survey responses. More than one in four said they were overtly pressured by dealership employees to provide perfect scores. About one in eight admitted inflating their scores in response to such pressure." AN named three names as the worst offenders: BMW, Hyundai and Nissan. And get this: two percent of respondents said dealer staff asked to watch them complete the forms, asked to complete the forms for the customer and/or offered them a bribe for perfect score. How great is that? [NB: While this website has dealt with this subject before, it's great to see the truth hit the mainstream media.]

According to The Sunday Telegraph, FoMoCo is making it easier for bidders intent on relieving the automaker of the remaining British pieces of their PAG (Premium Automotive Group). In an "unprecedented move," Ford has decided that potential buyers do not have to submit fully-financed bids for the second round. The change reflects the tightening of the international credit market; a trend that raised the cost of Cerberus' Chrysler takeover and delayed the recent sale of GM's Allison Transmissions unit. The lowered bar is a big boost to bids by two (count 'em two) ex-Jag CEOs (Sir Nick Scheele and Bob Dover), former Ford CEO Jac Nasser and Chrysler-owning Cerberus; all of whom are playing this game with OPM (Other People's Money). Indian automakers Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra, however, are bound to be pissed at FoMoCo's newly leveled playing field. 

While Boston Globe columnist Tom Keane wants to save the planet as much as the next guy, he's fed-up with green policies that make things worse. To wit: Logan Airport's new policy blessing hybrids with preferential parking– which encourages people to drive to the airport rather than use mass transit. Keane attacks other green laws: prohibitions against urban density (that push sprawl to the 'burbs), Brookline's proposal to double excise taxes on SUVs (which can be more fuel efficient than cars), carpool lanes (which slow down the majority of drivers and create more pollution), cloth diapers (whose cleaning requires more energy than disposables "in some cases") and carbon trading (which encourages consumption by relieving guilt). Kean's rant against "environmental backfire" is a welcome sign that common sense may finally be entering the debate over planet-saving public policy. And if you believe that, I've got a hydrogen-powered BMW 7-Series I'd like to sell you.

Having watched the UK morph from a nation of car-lovers into a country of downtrodden, guilt-ridden motorists, I read student scribe Andy Thompson's anti-car diatribe in The Daily Utah Chronicle with a deep sense of foreboding. The globally-warmed college curmudgeon labeled the automobile a "social epidemic," decried our nation's $135b highway spending as "a giant subsidy to the oil and automobile industry" and called for a mass transit system beside every American highway. Although Thompson's diatribe shows scant regard for the facts– The Big Three are not the "rip up the trolley tracks" political force of old and DaimlerChrysler is no more– a larger, more worrying question looms. Will America's college campuses be the starting point for a Euro-style anti-car jihad? Er, no. At the conclusion of his piece, Thompson dreams of the day when the "automobile is a luxury — one that everyone owns, just uses about as often as you take the boat out." Whew!

This Sunday's New York Times carried an article about McDonald's move upscale within the Eurozone. We're talking minimalist decor, caffè lattes, Internet access and "rental iPods." The changes' champion: Denis Hennequin, the French-born president of McDonald’s Europe. When challenged about the wisdom of aiming Le Big Mac (a.k.a. Mac Royale) at les BCBG (preppies), Hennequin said he "admires strong brands that reinvent themselves to become more fashionable and appealing, as the trendy car line Mini Cooper did." Excusez-moi. The Mini Cooper is not "a car line," it's now MINI, not Mini; and the original Mini was extinct before BMW resurrected (not reinvented) the brand. D'accord?

The stats arrive via from The Arizona Star, which poured over Pima County police records from the last two years. For the mathematically challenged, .06 percent of all drivers stopped at Pima's sobriety checkpoints were convicted of drunk driving. Both the police and anti-drink driving campaigners declared themselves somewhat delighted with the results. "At least we've removed nearly 300 impaired drivers off the road," Sheriff's Lt. Karl Woolridge pronounced. Critics point out that the checkpoints' apprehension rate is no different than the non-checkpoint apprehension rate– despite costing taxpayers $142k in police overtime and tying-up over two dozen deputies during holiday weekends. In 1995, Arizona legislators pulled the plug on Pima County checkpoints due to this same low arrest rate. Lawmakers reinstated random roadblocks ten years later, when they decided that sobriety checkpoints had a deterrent effect. Good luck proving THAT theory.  

It's a media truism: when the principles are tight-lipped about a big story, speculate away! Case in point: The UK's Observer quotes unnamed inside sources who say Ford and General Motors have threatened to "leave Detroit and take their car manufacturing operations overseas" if unions "don't agree to a massive pay cut for hourly paid workers." First, why would GM and Ford spend hundreds of millions on relocation expenses just to make a point to the UAW? Second, no one expects a massive pay cut for the union's hourly workers. Third, Ford and GM have already moved large chunks of their car manufacturing operations overseas. To suggest that Ford and GM could/would go nuclear– shutting down mission critical U.S. operations in response to union intransigence– is just plain silly (even for a New York City-based reporter). Building on this imaginary doomsday scenario, BloggingStocks goes one step further. They postulate that the UAW will strike if they can't get a sufficiently large union-controlled health care fund from GM and Ford (of Chrysler we hear nothing). Sorry guys, but it's the bus you don't see that kills you.