I know it’s hard to believe that the world’s largest automaker is going down– especially when the company’s management swears up, down and sideways that revenues are up, costs are down and market share is stabilizing sideways. But understand this: GM observers will only realize the extent of GM’s peril retroactively. Meanwhile, it’s clear that GM is trying to follow the old English adage “When you’re stuck in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging.”

Once upon a time, a dapper German auto exec named Wolfgang Rietzle dreamed of running BMW. When the Bavarians gave Wolfie the cold shoulder (twice), he left their employ to build his own, even larger fiefdom: the Premier Automotive Group (PAG). Technically, Ford owned Wolfie’s farrago of upmarket car brands. But as far as Wolfie was concerned, “his” five luxury marques vould vun day rule ze vorld! Three years later, Bill Ford tried to fail Wolfie upwards. The mad professor banked his bucks and blew town, leaving a Frankensteinian monster for Ford to fix. Yesterday, Ford said it lives! I say, grab your pitchforks!

In last night’s State of the Union address, President Bush cooked-up a cute little saying: “20 by 10.” That’s a 20% reduction in American gas consumption over the next 10 years. In case you thought the Prez has decided to whack automakers with a 2 X 4, the fine print centers on renewable and alternative fuels: corn ethanol (E85), biodiesel, hydrogen and dilithium crystals. Bush also promised to change car fuel economy regs from current fleet averages to attribute-based (size) requirements. There’s a link to the plan below, and plenty of analysis online. So let’s talk about towing.

It’s no secret that The Detroit News (DTN) likes to cheer for the home team. It’s also no surprise that the financially challenged paper imports low-cost out-of-town talent to satisfy their product needs– just like the domestic automakers they support. So when I read Washington Post writer Warren Brown’s analysis of GM’s fortunes on the DTN website, I was hardly stunned to discover a happy clappy Pollyanna puff piece. Like his prickly personality, Brown’s nose for news is distinctly stuffy; his piece embodies and elevates mindless pro-GM optimism to new heights.

I may be the only American automotive journalist who thinks the United Auto Workers (UAW) won't make any significant concessions in their new contracts with The Big Two Point Five. Window dressing? Absolutely. I fully expect to read breathless accounts of breakthough announcements– and discover familiar pay postponements, paper shuffling and prevarication. Genuine, honest-to-God, we’ll reduce the amount of money we’re draining from your coffers concessions? Never. And then I read Sharon Terlep’s piece in the Detroit News– “UAW: Expect Sacrifice”– and changed my mind. For five minutes.

Allstate is currently blanketing the videosphere with ads touting “accident forgiveness.” Watching Allstate's viscious vérité, my mind drifted to our prodigal curmudgeon and part-time EMT. I wondered how Stephan Wilkinson would categorize the causation of the twisted metal carnage he’s encountered: “accidental,” “avoidable” or “brain dead stupid?” Allstate's willingness to forgive accidents sounds all warm and fuzzy, but given the potential advantages of apportioning blame, is it really such a good idea?

Last spring, reporters forced GM CEO Rabid Rick Wagoner to confront his company’s demons. At the opening of a Russian assembly plant, in the midst of US plant closures, sell-offs and buyouts; scribes raised the unholy specter of Toyota’s usurpation of GM’s ““World’s Largest Automaker” crown Wagoner told the assembled throng that GM would “like to stay number one” but it wasn’t the company’s "top priority.” New Year, new tune: "I like being number one,” Wagoner told Detroit auto show survivors. “I think our people take pride in it."

There’s a Lincoln ad on the back cover of this month's Automobile mag. It’s a rear three quarter shot of an MKZ on an empty road in a moody landscape, parked in front of a train crossing. A five line poem referring to astronautical countdowns, racehorses at the gate and quivering arrows hovers above the barrier. The last line is a little unsettling: “Ready or not, here I come.” (Uh, you might want to wait for that train to blow by.) The ad raises an interesting question: does Lincoln’s marketing department have any idea who might want to buy their car?

When we added a comments section to The Truth About Cars, I was determined that TTAC would not become what Jalopnik’s Mike Spinelli called “a picnic over a cesspool.” To that end, TTAC instituted a zero tolerance policy towards comments that flame/insult the website, its authors or fellow commentators. I’ve sent dozens of emails to offenders, explaining why their comment(s) were edited or deleted. I’ve also permanently banned seventeen subscribers from posting. I believe this policy has been a success. But I want to give you a chance to publicly vent your feelings on our editorial policies without fear of retribution. And here it is.

Everything either grows or dies. As The Big Two Point Five face the New Year, they’d do well to remember this. All the talk about “market share stabilization,” “matching production to demand,” and “right-sizing” is merely an attempt to obscure the simple fact that they’re dying. I know: that’s a pretty depressing sentiment for automakers still staggering about with an SUV-sized hangover. But death is a normal part of life; a precursor to rebirth. As 2006 dies, 2007 beckons. Here’s a guide to what Detroit faces– must face– in the year ahead.

There I was, flying down a German autobahn in a VW Phaeton, bumping up against the car’s electronic limiter. I glanced at the rear view mirror and moved over. A modified M5 streaked by at over 180mph. I say modified because BMW is part of a “gentleman’s agreement” hammered out in the 70’s, when Germany’s Green Party wanted to impose speed limits on de-restricted autobahns. Mercedes, BMW and Audi all agreed to limit their products’ top speed to 155mph. The idea that other countries could build automobiles capable of cresting 250kph somehow escaped everyone’s attention. As, eventually, did the entire issue.

Writing in his Fastlane Blog, GM Car Czar Bob Lutz recently claimed that proposals to raise Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards by four percent per year would “effectively hand the truck and SUV market over to the imports, particularly the Japanese, who have earned years of accumulated credits from their fleets of formerly very small cars." Wrong. First, CAFE credits were never transferable between cars and light trucks. Second, as of ’07, light truck CAFE standards are gone; replaced by target mileage figures based on a vehicle’s footprint. Third, even when there WERE such things as CAFE credits for light trucks, Toyota, Honda and Nissan never used them. Fourth, Bob Lutz is an idiot.

About a decade or so ago, I traveled to BMW's Munich HQ to pick-up a press fleet K100RS. I arrived with a hard shell suitcase, intending to transfer its contents to the motorcycle’s panniers. When a press flack asked about the case, I joked that I was going to bungee it onto the back of the bike. When we returned from lunch, German engineers had attached my suitcase to the butt of Beemer’s “flying brick,” complete with homemade aerodynamic addenda. They’d found an elegant way to accomplish a completely ludicrous task. Porsche Cayenne Turbo S? Same deal. 

Gary Cowger recently sat down with Wards Automotive for a good old kvetch. GM’s group Vice President of Global Manufacturing and Labor Relations complained that news of his employer's financial woes was overshadowing their brilliant new products. Gary blamed excessive media coverage and speculation. “There’s a lot of noise in the system, and that’s because we live in an age of transparency like the world has never seen before… It’s almost too much information out there.” As you might expect from such a staunch defender of bridled free speech, Cowger has taken steps to rectify the situation– at least in-house.

As much as I enjoy vigorous debate, I abhor pseudo-science. From The Bermuda Triangle to past life regression, I just can’t deal. If the subject matter in question is faith-based like, say, a talking salamander's role in the development of Mormonism, I’m good. But the moment an aspiring conversationalist tries to deploy scientific explanations for a fundamentally irrational belief system– aliens sucking up Air Force planes from the Gulf Of Mexico for anal experimentation or Joan of Arc reborn as a 42-year-old housewife in Hackensack, New Jersey– I’m out. So when I read that insurance quote provider Lee Romanov says your star sign affects your chances of having an automobile accident, I just had to ring her up. Yes, it's been that kind of day.