Last Thursday, Mark LeNeve declared that General Motors has “turned a corner.” Obviously, GM’s Vice President of North American Sales and Marketing was unaware of the phrase’s historical baggage. To wit: General William Westmoreland’s famous announcement that the American war effort in Indochina had “turned a corner”– just before North Vietnam’s Tet Offensive returned the corner. Since ‘68, any US authority figure announcing an angle exceeded instantly reveals themselves as a master of unintended irony, and sets themselves up for an ignominious defeat.

Speaking of sports utility vehicles, consider the philosophy developed by Jeremy Bentham. Utilitarianism identified pain and pleasure as the only absolutes and declared that “whatever brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people” is, well, great (even if it isn’t so great for the people who don’t make the cut). By this standard, America’s gas-guzzling SUV’s were once a very good thing; the lumbering behemoths brought the majority of American motorists tremendous, not-to-say guilt free pleasure. And then, they didn’t. And now Detroit’s feeling the pain.

We have a rule in my house: no sugar cereal until you eat your "good" cereal.  By the time the girls have inhaled a bowl of non-sweetened Cheerios, Weetabix or Rice Krispies, their appetite for kiddy crack is destroyed or diminished.  Of course, that doesn't stop the bun fight over any promotional toy that dares hide at the bottom of the box. I reckon a Ford marketing maven saw his kids ripping apart a box of Sky High Blood Sugar Flakes to get at a wind-up plastic spaceship and thought "Why can't adults display the same animal enthusiasm for a Ford Fusion?"  A promotion was born.  On Sunday, parents who buy their Fruit Loops, Apple Jacks, Frosted Flakes or Cocoa Krispies from Target will find a free Ford Fusion Hot Wheels model inside.  I rang up FoMoCo's point man Monte Doran to get the skinny on childhood obesity– I mean whether Ford will slap cash on the hood if the models don't move by September.  No seriously, I wanted to know if this was the beginning of a shift away from traditional marketing.  Hey, if you don't ask…

In a recent comment, Stryker1 raised an excellent point: TTAC seems to have lost a bit of its "edge.”  Upon reflection, I agree.  I’m not one for excuses, but I reckon the loss of an internal organ threw me off my groove.  At the same time, TTAC welcomed a large number of new writers and lost touch with a few familiar voices.  The ad thing’s also jerking my chain.  And the light’s bad in here.  Anyway, I'm fully aware that TTAC will rise of fall depending on its ability to stick to its original remit: kick-ass reviews and take-no-prisoners industry-oriented rants.  Here’s how I’m thinking of playing it…   

Cruising into Newport in Maserati's Quattroporte (review to follow), I watched a Mitsubishi Starion drive straight through a stop sign and slam into the side of a BMW 3-Series sedan.  Despite my reputation for unbridled, acid-tongued cynicism, my first thought was the same as yours: is everybody all right?  After ascertaining that the meat wagon wasn't a life or death issue (at least as far as I could tell), and that plenty of gawkers had stopped to gawk, my second thought was less charitable: if I pull over as a witness, how long would it cut into my 24-hour test drive?  And then I saw the Starion driver get out of his relatively unmolested POS and check his front fender for damage and I felt an enormous urge to stop, jump out and clock the guy.  So my question is this: how do we get these stupid bastards off our roads? Better (i.e. not speed-obsessed) enforcement?  Higher driving standards?  How about any driving standards?  I'm not saying anything about the Starion driver's ethnicity, but why are some states giving driving licenses to illegal immigrants who can't speak English?  What the Hell kind of driving test doesn't require enough English literacy to read a warning sign?  Your thoughts?

According to GM, happy days are here again.  Profits are up, costs are down and the company’s turnaround plan is on track.  The automotive media have swallowed The General’s spiel hook, line and sinker.  The financial markets are ready, willing and able to view The General’s second quarter losses through the automaker’s prism of perpetual positivism, sending GM’s stock price to its highest level since last October.  Well folks, it ain’t necessarily so…

When I ordered my first Ferrari, I spent entire nights dreaming of rust, mechanical failures, stratospheric repair bills, cliff face depreciation, uncontrollable oversteer, towering monthly payments and long, expensive separations.  No wait; that was after I bought it.  Before the F355B graced my drive, my obsession had no hard edges– or time limits.  In fact, it got to the point where I considered taking out a no contact order on my imagination. So I understand Dave Plews' plight.  The London-based web designer wants a Veyron so bad he's gone a bit loopy. He's set up a website to try and raise money to buy the big Bug, selling lottery tickets to cars he doesn't have and mechandise I don't think you'd want. I called Dave to try to get a handle on the logistics of this enterprise, and discovered a man possessed is a man prevaricating. Still, TTAC wishes "Supa Dave" luck. If he succeeds, I'll gladly chip in for one of those pine tree air fresheners. 

My favorite car name of all time is the Honda Life Dunk.  But I can fully appreciate pistonheads whose taste in automotive monikers runs more towards the aggressive (Mercury Marauder, Plymouth Fury, Aston Martin Vaquish), animistic (Dodge Viper, Pontiac Firebird, Ford Mustang, Reliant Kitten) or snoberific (Buick Regal, Dodge St. Regis, Buick Park Avenue, Chrysler LeBaron).  As Chris Paukert noted in a previous TTAC editorial, automakers have submerged the [formerly] mission-critical name game into a watery alphanumeric soup.  The inanity of this approach is exemplified by Ford's decision to rename the Lincoln Zephyr the Lincoln MKX, and instruct its dealers (as of today) that the vehicle is not to be called a "Mark X" but an "em kay ex."  Are car names inherently better than simple numerical designations? What's your favorite and least favorite car name? Would a Ferrari F430 or Jaguar XK120 by any other other name be any more or less memorable or desirable?  

I’ve looked at this TTAC paid subscription thing seven ways to Sunday.  After more than four months, I still can't make it work.  According to the vast majority of web-savvy TTAC’ers, this is no bad thing.  Your advice has been steadfast: accept advertising.  So when Federated Media Publishing offered to run TTAC’s advertising business for 40% of gross, I looked into it.  My contact, Bill Brazell, assured me that TTAC’s editorial independence would be sacrosanct.  Yeah, right.  And then I read the fine print…

With only 750 American gas stations providing the corn juice for flex-fuel vehicles, there's more E85 hype than E85.  Which is the point collegiate road tripper Mark Pike and his cohorts over at kicktheoilhabit.org decided to make by attempting an E85-only trek across the North American landmass in flex-fuel Crown Vic supplied by the bad mo fo's at FoMoCo.  In the PR sense, the trip's a hit.  Pike's Vic has garnered a bushel of free publicity for the supporters of fuel coming from Billy Ford's "heartland."  Of course, the socio-polticial issues surrounding E85 production, transportation and provision are only slightly less complex than the home assembly instructions for a Bowflex Versatrainer. [Read Mark Hasty's post on E85 economics on tomorrow's TTAC.]  A quick call to Mr. Pike revealed that the flex-fuel campaigner is a bit of a piker in terms of the fine print, but props are due.  The most socially responsible thing I ever did during my college vacation was making sure that my empties were placed in a proper trash receptacle. 

Why in the world would General Motors want to hitch their wagon to Renault – Nissan?  Synergy?  Don't make me laugh.  I reckon the answer is simple: GM's Board of Bystanders and CEO Rabid Rick Wagoner aren't interested in hooking-up with Carlos "The Jackal" Ghosn's mob.  They gotta pretend to be interested on account a due diligence.  Lest we forget, Kirk "The Quiet Lion" Kerkorian launched this whole cockamamie scheme to inflate GM's stock price so he could recoup his $1b loss.  Done.  But now Nissan says it ain't giving GM a dime, no matter what.  Which takes the deal from dumb to dumberer ('cause the one thing GM could use from the Franco-Japanese conglomerate is cash money.)  OK, great.  But here's my question: why did Nissan – Renault play along with Kirk in the first place?  Do we really believe Carlos' claim that he wants to bulk-up against Toyota?  Did Kirk promise him a shot at running the world's largest potential bankruptcy?  I'd appreciate a little help parsing this bastard.  Your thoughts? 

According to BMW’s ad for its M products, “history and compromise cannot be made at the same time.”  Huh?  What about The Missouri Compromise, the Camp David accord and The SALT treaty?  The headline’s patent absurdity is capped by the copy’s intellectual inanity.  “Nothing about our M cars is a compromise.”  Anyone familiar with automaking knows it’s nothing but compromise: design vs. packaging vs. performance vs. technology vs. price vs. regulations vs. cost vs. time vs. internal and external resources.  To suggest otherwise isn’t just wrong, it’s nuts.  A very strange kind of nuts… 

A new TTAC podcast feature is born: a conversation with a car salesman about what's going down on the front line.  We begin with my go-to Porsche guy, Kirk Stingle.  Kirk's been selling Porkers for 10 years, establishing a large fan base of devoted buyers down in Southern New England.  When the Cayman S first arrived at the permanent construction site known as Inskip Porsche, Kirk told us that the mid-engined tin top confused a lot of Boxster and 911 buyers. According to the man with the million dollar smile, there's still a bit of a bun fight amongst the models.  And it's getting worse, what with a smaller-engined Cayman and bigger engined Boxster due soon.  But who cares?  Sales are up across the board. You pays your money, you gets your Porsche. 

On the same day TTAC published Sajeev Mehta's less than flattering review of the Lucerne, a Buick spinmeister emailed the site to offer a cross-Canada jaunt in said sedan.  To their credit, GM's Zen division (Beyond Precision?) weren't daunted by the Divine Mr. M's mauling of their quiet tuned car.  The offer stood.  So Sajeev gathered-up his wits– and his Mom– and flew off to sample the Moonie-like millieu known as a GM junket.  Sajeev's willingness to confront his, um, confrontees illustrates the writer's spirit of adventure and his dedication to the truth.  That's one of the key reasons the Houston-based writer has quickly become one of TTAC's core reviewers. The other is… style.  Time to meet and greet the man who rolls in American splendor.    

Watching the reveal on Pimp My Overhaulin' American Hot Rod, I was amazed to see an olde school muscle car receive a 700hp engine implant.  As was the new/old owner.  "Man, I only go 80mph on the highway, tops."  Am I the only one who thinks it peculiar that our current fascination with CAFE standards, tailpipe emissions and street legal golf carts coincides with the widespread dissemination of massive horsepower?  The new GTO made 400 the new 300, while the new M5 makes 500 the new 400.  And so it goes.  Yesterday, octogenarian musclehead Carroll Shelby predicted that the current horsepower wars will end at 600 – 700hp.  “The insurance companies will be the deciding factor, as well as the EPA, the government and so forth.”  Where/when/how do you think Musclemania II will cease?  Or will it?  Even if high hp whips leave the scene, will "clean" diesels and hybrids keep the torque times flowing?  Is all this power safe for most drivers? Your thoughts please…