I’ve just received this email from a reputable member of our Best and Brightest. I will attempt to contact Fisker today for the official take.

TTAC doesn’t normally report recalls, no matter how major. As our Best and Brightest has pointed out, it’s not fair to blog one manufacturer’s product recalls without blogging them all. Of course, there are exceptions that prove (test) the rule. This is one of them. Autoblog reports: “Sporadic reports have begun popping up in the Camaro5 forums about issues with V8-powered SS models equipped with the manual transmission. It seems that doing a hard launch or using the launch control system occasionally results in a broken output shaft, a serious failure that will most likely leave the car immobile and in need of repair . . . a factory hold has been put on deliveries of manual transmission V8 Camaros while Chevrolet engineering teams investigate the problem.” I have to ask: where’s the evidence that New GM is/will be any better at building cars than old GM? As reinstated Car Czar Maximum Bob is all about “perception gaps” and marketing, what chance does this company have against its competition?

[Comment From Guest ]

What is your number one priority in your new role and please be as specific as possible?

Bob Lutz

Until I know more about the job I won’t be as specific as possible because i might have to recant next month when i know what i’m doing.

“A state trooper waited at least four days after a traffic stop to issue speeding tickets to a fellow trooper and a Gahanna police officer who authorities say were going almost 150 mph on westbound I-70.” So begins an article in The Columbus Dispatch. Of course, the more you read, the better/worse it gets. “Lt. Shawn Davis, a patrol spokesman, said the delay was to allow Trooper Bryan D. Lee, 25, of the Granville post, to consult a supervisor before issuing the tickets. Waiting for clarification is not uncommon, Davis said, and officers technically have six months to issue a minor-misdemeanor citation under Ohio law. ‘It happens all the time,’ Davis said. ‘I’m sure for a young trooper the fact that it involved two police officers weighed on his decision to seek supervision.'” Ain’t THAT the truth.

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Before the worldwide auto industry meltdown, most analysts reckoned carmakers had burdened themselves with 40 percent production over-capacity. After the new car market shrunk by 40 percent, well, you do the math. Only there’s an anomaly: inventory levels. While we’ve got a pretty good idea of how many day’s supply of vehicles are lingering in dealer lots, what about all those ’08s and ’09s stored on vast parking lots, ships, airfields, etc.? [NB: above pic is from Mother Russia] The story got lots of play at the beginning of the cartaclysm, but slipped off the radar since then. Are we to believe that the lots were slowly emptied, as manufacturers shut down their plants? Or are there still hundreds of thousands of cars out there . . . somewhere? If so, we’re still in a price-inflated market, as those cars have to be sold sometime to someone. Anyone have any anecdotal or objective evidence one way or the other?

I’ve taken a lot of heat in these parts for predicting that Ford’s bankruptcy bound. Having watched GM and Chrysler’s long march to Chapter 11, the signs seem pretty obvious to me: lousy branding, excess nameplates, non-competitive models, a pegged BS meter and a proven inability to take in more money than they spend. Yes, there are differences; his name is Alan Mulally. But, as The Detroit Free Press finally reports, The Blue Oval Boyz are burning down the house. Or, to put it more politely, “Even if Ford Motor Co. reaches all of its targets by 2011, the Dearborn automaker’s growing debt load could end up weighing the company down.” As far as euphemisms go, that one just went.

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Life inside Chrysler Financial hasn’t been a bowl of cherries ever since Cerberus coveted the auto lender’s carnacopia of profits. And then the auto bubble burst, but good. Cerberus sidled sideways, sidestepping the pile of excrement that their investment in “new” Chrysler had become—but hanging onto its raison d’etre: the financial side of the biz. Our inside sources report there’s a certain . . . Captain Queegness to the company these days. Or is that Don Corleone? No matter how you look at CEO Tom Gilman, the industry vet is taking no prisoners. We’ve been reporting for some time that GM has been using GMAC to force dealers out of biz, though usurious rates and excess hoop-jumping. No surprise, then, that Chrysler Financial is hoeing (ho’ ing?) the same road. Automotive News [sub] reports that “Chrysler Financial is asking many of [dealers] to pay large sums to handle possible loan losses. The money — ranging typically from $75,000 to $250,000, dealers say — is designed to cover such risks as early loans payoffs and defaults of consumer loans.” Too right too! Early loan payoffs are . . . un-American! Loan defaults, however, are the new zero percent financing.

It’s bad enough that New GM thinks their shit doesn’t stink [paraphrasing], but now that GM has become New GM, the mainstream media has resumed its cheerleading. The Detroit News‘ month of living realistically has ended. Tom Walsh: “President Barack Obama has every reason to boast and preen about the Detroit auto industry bailout when he comes to town Tuesday.” Talk about premature recapitulation . . .

A brand is a promise to a consumer. When a brand’s products fail to live up to the consumer’s expectations (i.e. the promise in THEIR mind), they are right never to trust it again. Why should a screwed customer give GM another chance? We’re not talking about sewing machines here. An automobile is the average consumer’s second most expensive purchase (after their house). They have every right—indeed an obligation to the people who depend on them—to err on the side of caution. To AVOID risking the money upon which their family relies. I repeat: if they’re satisfied with their current car company, they would do their family a disservice to put their money at risk.

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Webchatting on the FastLane blog, GM Reinventor-in-Chief Fritz Henderson wanted the world to know GM dealers don’t need no stinkin’ reinvention.

[Comment From Alfred ]

Mr. Henderson: what changes can we expect to see when we walk into a New GM dealer? What guarantees can you give us that customers won’t be mistreated and abused as before?

[Henderson]

I think our dealers do a fine job taking care of customers, and if you personally had a bad experience, you can let me know and I would ask that you look at another fine gm dealer. most research that we see indicate that gm dealers are by and large a real competitve advantage.

When TTAC received a copy of GM’s letter to dealers “asking” them to lobby against the dealer cull rollback bill, we blogged it as a “loyalty oath.” More than a few commentators said pish-posh [paraphrasing]; H.R. 2743 was nothing more than an SOP lobbying campaign. The fact that the letter told dealers to cc GM’s National Dealer Council Chairman Duane Paddock left little doubt in our (OK my) mind that New GM’s dealers were being told in no uncertain terms to toe the New company line (i.e. shiv their former colleagues). Automotive News [AN, sub] reports that “General Motors executives have been pressuring individual dealers to sign a statement saying they oppose legislation that would restore terminated dealerships’ rights, according to a U.S. senator, a dealers group and dealer representatives.” Point counterpoint after the jump.

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Apparently, there’s no word for “yes” in Japanese. “Hai” means “I heard what you just said” not “I agree completely and will act accordingly.” By the same token, the word “no” lacks the Western sense of finality. So when Toyota used the opportunity of New GM’s birth to signal the media that it may close its GM joint venture in California, that means it may close its GM joint venture in California. Which is more than saying it definitely won’t shutter the UAW-staffed NUMMI plant, and less than saying it definitely will shutter the UAW-staffed NUMMI plant. Let’s check the official inscrutability index: “GM’s decision to abandon NUMMI and discontinue its production of the Pontiac Vibe have prompted a set of difficult and complex decisions for Toyota,” the Japan-based automaker said in a news release. “Under the current business circumstances, Toyota regrettably must also consider taking necessary steps to dissolve the joint venture.” Reading between the lines, NUMMI is toast. Unless Toyota decides otherwise.

“The last time we looked at [the G8], we decided that we would continue to import it as a Chevrolet,” Lutz told Automobile magazine. “It is kind of too good to waste.”

Frank Williams sent me the link to this Vanity Fair Maserati Quattroporte review. A small sample of Mr. Berk’s purple prose: “These guys were clearly not worthy of my Maser, and yet, there they were, all up inside him. I worried that maybe I’d come on too strong, or crossed a line with all those off-color jokes about his equipment. I tried to distract myself with a series of high-end tricks: a Benz, a Bentley, and even a Rolls. But I couldn’t stop thinking about my Italian. I felt like Dirk Bogarde in Visconti’s Death in Venice, but without the pedophilia, the moustache, or the bad white suit.” OK B&B, I’m trusting you here (with the usual vigilance and verification). No gay bashing comments allowed. And the usual strictures about flaming the website, its authors or fellow commentators apply. All that said, why does VF’s carmudgeon consider the Maserati Quattroporte a gay car? Mazda Miata, sure. But isn’t this review a gay take on . . . a car?