The weekend of October 24-25 was the third running of the 24 Hours of LeMons at Motorsport Ranch in Houston, TX. TTAC was there for the insanity.  And it was the fourth time our LeMons race car, a 1972 Datsun 240Z hit the track.  I was an honorary “penalty” judge this time ’round (props to Autoblog’s Jonny Lieberman and LeMon’s Founder Jay Lamm for that), so I did the best I could for my teammates when they got black flagged. But I’m no crooked judge, Jonny said I was too nice to other teams, too. No matter, it wasn’t enough for us to come close to victory. Then again, the Datsun Z is the butt of many a LeMon’s joke. What’s up with that?

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For politicians, the sphere of the personal shrinks as that of the political swells, until for some, the personal all but disappears. Then, even the choice of car becomes political. During the recent elections, one car loomed so large in the fleets of presidential aspirants that the manufacturer actually touted it as “The Candidates’ Choice” in advertisements that ran in Capitol Hill publications, such as Roll Call. Even more tellingly, the particular vehicle was unique to the left side of the aisle, and all were 2007 models, purchased after election season had begun.

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With apologies to Douglas Adams:

Stress and nervous tension are now serious social problems in all parts of the Galaxy, and it is in order that this situation should not in any way be exacerbated that the following facts will now be revealed in advance.

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I am that oddball of pistonhedonism who has never lusted for speed. In fact, caution genes run in my family. To wit: my parents installed seatbelts in the ‘57 Chevy in 1960, eight years before they became mandatory in new cars. Our ‘65 404 was probably the first Peugeot station wagon in all of France to have rear shoulder belts. My father, an academic economist, showed the men at the factory how to install them. I didn’t get tagged for speeding until I was just shy of 40, and that for doing all of 35 in Rock Creek Park. (Gail Wilensky, the Porsche driving head of Medicare under George H.W. Bush, was hitching a ride downtown with me in my then 16 year old Toyota Corolla with the busted window from a smash & grab, but that’s another story.)

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The Porsche GT3 RS with its wildly painted orange wheels was not going to let me past, despite my flashing headlights of protest. Why should he? I was in a mild-mannered Carrera S, devoid of any go fast wings or air ducts. I resigned myself to trying to gain momentum over him before we entered the Flugplatz, where the wider bit of road would provide a much safer passing zone and keep me from joining the purple Peugeot 206 we had just passed at Hatzenbach in the Armco barriers. I needn’t wait so long, as in my mirror, four “angel-eye” rings glared at me from the nefarious BMW M5 ‘Ring Taxi. I put on my right-turn signal, let her pass, and then squeezed the accelerator in order to whip past the Orange Swedish Porker. Let the games begin, for I was on my 100th lap, and it was time for a joust with Sabine Schmitz in our Deutsche Chariots of Terror.

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TTAC commentator greenblood has a question for the group:

Since our first child was born, we don’t have time for everything we used to do. So my wife has been taking her ’09 Escape to a Valvoline instant oil change location nearby. They have been pushing fuel injector cleaner every 3,000 miles. Although we aren’t dumb enough to pay the add’l labor charge to dump a 1/2 qt of cleaner in the fuel tank, I am wondering about the benefits of fuel injector cleaner in general and the need to use it periodically. Something tells me every 3k is ridiculous, but I would like to know what the Best & Brightest have would recommend.

It looks like the American taxpayer is going to be stuck with the bill for another unpopular struggle in the sand. This time, however, the “insurgents” don’t stand a chance. General Motors and Bob Lutz have cherrypicked the opponent for their CTS-V track showdown. Not only is Wes Siler a novice-level racetrack driver (and, I would add, a very charming fellow), the C63 AMG is far too short on power and tire to run head-to-head with Cadillac’s supersedan. Mr. Farago has informed me that General Motors will absolutely not permit TTAC to join the party. That’s a shame because I could win this race-that-isn’t. Here’s how.

In a wheel-to-wheel contest, I would take the inside line into Turn Two, abandon all pretense of making a clean pass, track out to the exit curb while matching Lutz’s speed on the brakes, and run the old man into the dirt at eighty miles per hour. Race won. We will assume, however, that this “race” will actually be a single timed lap from a rolling start.

Only a fool would agree to let Bob bring his own CTS-V. At a minimum, such a car would have a competition alignment, a blueprinted engine, and a rather enthusiastically-tuned ECU. Instead, I would insist on bringing a car from random dealer stock and observing GM’s final prep of the vehicle. When the event’s over, it could be returned under the General’s 60-day guarantee.

With a modicum of fairness assured, it would be time to choose and prep TTAC’s challenger. (That’s “challenger” with a small “c”; not only is the big Mopar a two-door and thus ineligible for this particular dog-and-pony show, it wouldn’t stand a chance.) We’re starting behind the eight-ball here, because the CTS-V very probably is faster around most racetracks than any other production sedan sold in this country. We need to come close enough for preparation and ability to close the gap.

We’ll begin by focusing on the three major factors that affect racetrack performance in otherwise similar cars: power-to-weight, tire width, and driveline layout.

The CTS-V generates 556 horsepower to push 4220 pounds, for a power-to-weight ratio of .131 hp/lb. It has exceptionally wide tires for the class at 255/40-19 front and 285/35-19 rear. With just these numbers, we can expect that Mr. Siler’s C63, which has 451 horsepower for 3920 pounds (.115 hp/lb) and tires which are 30mm narrower both front and rear, will find it impossible to keep up. The C63 also has a torque-converter automatic, which absorbs some of the engine’s power.

Given the chance, I would bring a 2010 BMW M5. The Bimmer offers 507 horsepower and a curb weight of 4012 pounds (.126 hp/lb). This is a non-trivial disadvantage, and the situation is worse than it sounds because acceleration above about 100mph is more a function of total horsepower and aero than power-to-weight. Much of Laguna Seca amounts to a series of drag races, and we’ll be playing catch-up.

To stay in the game, we will have to out-handle the Caddy by a significant margin. The M5 has exactly the same tire size as the Cadillac, which helps, and it has BMW’s usual 50/50-ish weight distribution. Still, that’s not enough. With equal drivers, in an equal situation, the CTS-V is still likely to come up on top.

The BMW does have one critical advantage: the SMG transmission. It’s garbage on the street, but around a racetrack, SMG is priceless. Not only does it eliminate shifting mistakes, which is useful in a high-pressure, single-lap situation, it allows us to left-foot brake for the entire track. Left-foot-braking can be worth up to a second a lap, which would go a long way towards fixing our power deficiency.

We can also prepare the car a bit. “Crash bolts” in the M5’s MacPherson struts will give us some camber to address the typical BMW understeer issues. A few minutes with an angle grinder can provide even more. We can put the best possible 140-or-higher treadwear tires on the car. We’ll align the car aggressively with plenty of toe-out in the rear wheels to aid rotation.

All of the above brings us close to winning. The rest has to be done at the track.

We’ll run the car for a few days at Seca and test alignment settings while preparing to drive as close to a perfect lap as possible. On the day of the event, we will load a Traqmate with our best lap and set it to “qualifying mode” to provide continuous real-time comparison with that lap. We will insist that Lutz drives first, which lets us know how hard we’ll have to run compared to our ideal lap. If he’s slow, we can use caution. If he’s fast . . . well, at that point it will be time for me to earn the Raikkonnen-esque salary Mr. Farago pays me.

Anything can happen once the flag waves, but I will say this: a bet on TTAC to win the “CTS-V Challenge” is a better one than the American taxpayer is making on GM.

James Dean was a moderately talented actor. You could say he made his best career move behind the wheel of a Porsche. After his fatal accident, Dean’s “live fast-die young” legend grew to Giant-size, propelling his life (and death) to legendary status. As for the car [not shown], many came to believe that the “Lil’ Bastard” was evil, citing both the actor’s death and the death and injury experienced by those who came into contact with the car or bits thereof. Steven King and Snopes will fill in the blanks on that one. But the truth is that celebrities aren’t that different from you and me. The basic causation for their car crashes is the same as it ever was: human error and a light dusting of equipment limitations or failure.

James Dean’s Porsche 550 Spyder was a limited edition race car. Dean fancied himself a bona-fide race car driver. In March 1955, Dean finished second in the Palm Springs Road Races and in May of that year, he placed third at Bakersfield. Later that month, Dean was running fourth at the Santa Monica Road Races, until he was sidelined with engine failure.

Even if one assumes that Dean had mad motoring skills, he was still destined to wear a toe tag at the end of the day on September 30, 1955. This one had bad driving and the cold reality of physics written all over it.

The lousy driving arrived courtesy a young man named Donald Turnipseed. Turnipseed (who blamed the light in his eye) made a poor judgment call when he turned left just in time to collide with the smaller Porsche’s driver’s side. The large 1950 Ford Custom Tudor coupe had a significant weight and mass advantage over the small race trimmed Porsche 550. To say the least. And state the obvious. The Porsche’s tubular race frame didn’t stand a chance.

The photos of the wreck proved this point. Dean was the unwilling recipient of a steering wheel and dash, while his luckier passenger was ejected from the car. Donald Turnupseed emerged virtually unscathed, outside of the emotional damage of Dean’s death by his boneheaded move.

Speaking of trauma, all of America has a “whoa” moment, when Jayne Mansfield lost her life in a collision with the trailer of a semi  on  June 29, 1967. Her 1966 Buick Electra land barge collided with a fog-obscured trailer. The collision killed all of the front seat occupants, including her dog. Mansfield’s children survived; the rear seat passengers were short enough to escape the trailer’s scythe-like effect.

The fatalities may have been avoided by slower speeds, but no former or current factory safety equipment would have prevented the Buick’s sudden transformation from hardtop to convertible. The urban myth about decapitation was false, but sudden head trauma certainly ushered Mansfield onto the Silver Screen in the Sky.

Gruesome pictures of the crash scene were so widely disseminated (this before the Internet) that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration soon mandated that all semi truck trailers had to be outfitted with a rear under-ride bar or bumper.

Not even one of the world’s safest automobiles—a Mercedes Benz S280—could save Princess Diana’s life. The Mercedes had every safety feature known to the auto industry, including a state-of-the-art passenger cell, traction control, air bags and braking systems. Once again, the driver was the weakest link.

While Prince Charles may have wished his wife dead several times an hour, the realization of that alleged desire was the simple result of impaired driving. Diana’s chauffeur was drunk and under the influence of pills when the crash occurred. Whether he was being chased or just plain stupid, Henri Paul over-cooked it, colliding with a concrete pillar in a Paris underpass.

Diana’s bodyguard survived the accident, but then he was wearing his seat belt and Princess Diana was not. A simple lesson often neglected in the flurry of conspiracy theories and speculation.

In fact, it’s too bad that the “teachable” moment is often lost (though not in the Mansfield crash) when celebrities die in car accidents. The public often focuses on the facts of the matter, and the star’s violently truncated career, instead of the causation. The truth is that celebrities face the same dangers on the road as you and I, only more so, as they have a tendency to intersect with fast cars, drugs and alcohol abuse. And, of course, hubris. For example . . .

In 1927, dancer and choreographer Isadora Duncan jumped into a friend’s Bugatti. As the driver began their destined-to-short journey, Duncan’s flowing scarf tangled in the car’s open-spoke rear wheel. It pulled taut, snapping her neck. The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes reports Duncan had “waved gaily to her friends, crying ‘Adieu, mes amis! Je vais a la gloire!'” Goodbye, my friends! I go to glory!

[For more of Jim Sutherland’s work, please visit mystarcollectorcar.com]

Victor Muller stands about six foot four, with dashing gray hair and glasses. He exudes the energy of a kid after five bags of Pop Rocks. Why shouldn’t he? Muller’s the co-founder of Spyker, one of the sexiest car companies to hit the scene since Lamborghini launched the Miura. Never mind that many collectors consider Spyker’s first gen cars beautifully crafted automobiles with all the chassis rigidity of a tin can. Spyker is the very definition of a boutique automaker, including the fact that they haven’t show a profit for nine years. If you want old school supercar exclusivity, Muller’s your man.

We met-up with Muller at the Spyker “booth” erected on Pebble Beach’s tent row. The stand was the first you’d encounter on an uphill walk from the Lodge—or the last one coming from the parking lot. Spyker parked four cars out front for test drives. The brand also showcased their race car and his latest model (on the stand). There was plenty of action in and around the cars, even though (because?) the booth area was roped off.  While I waited for our interview in the lounge area, Victor finished meetings, caught up with old friends and posed for picture. And then it was our turn.

MCM: How many cars have you manufactured to date?

Muller: We have sold 250. Cars numbered 251, 252 and 253 are out front.

MCM: Give me the helicopter view . . . why this company?

Victor: I was collecting Aston Martins, Ferraris and other sports cars (and still do). I felt there was a need for an exclusive car with old world craftsmanship, like they used to build. This type of car is represented in our five brand pillars: heritage, design, craftsmanship, performance and exclusivity. These are the five core elements that constitute the Spyker brand. The exclusive and the hand-built elements are very important when you compare to the mass-produced sports cars.

MCM: I was just at an interview with Henrik Fisker as he spoke about the Karma. Your thoughts?

Muller: I have tremendous respect for Henrik and what he is doing. He is a fantastic designer and pioneer in building hybrid electric cars.

MCM: What’s your view on Fisker’s manufacturing techniques; farming everything out while only having the overhead of a design, engineering and marketing organization in the U.S.? In a sense, you are both building something exclusive from scratch. Although Henrik plans on 15,000 units.

Muller: Everything is cyclical in manufacturing. This is a trend that I think we are seeing (he motions widely with his arm up and down). Right now we are seeing companies look to the outside to get manufacturing accomplished. But when you are tied to companies outside of your control, you are subjected to their unions and other demand that can impact your production. We will see this change and manufacturing will be brought in-house again to help maintain control.

MCM: You currently get your engine and suspension from outside sources. Are you giving-up control?

Muller: It would be impossible for us to engineer our own engines. The costs are tremendous to build the tooling for such a low volume of cars. The suspension comes from Lotus. They are the experts in handling and the recognized leader. We could not do a better job. The hand-crafted body panels are supplied by both Coventry Prototype Panels from the U.K. and Karmann from Germany. The chassis of the C8 is built from extruded box sections and folded sheet. We would like to take more of the body construction in house. That is our goal for the future.

MCM: Henrik Fisker says “they are an American car company.”

Muller: But they build their cars in Finland.

MCM: My point exactly.

[Victor gives a slight roll-the-eyes as we both chuckle a bit.]

MCM: Are you profitable? How are you financed?

Muller: No, we are not profitable. We are a public company listed on Amsterdam Exchanges with four major shareholders. About 25% of the stock is in the hands of government owned Abu Dhabi investment company Mubadala (which also has 5% of Ferrari). One is Vladimir Antonov, a new shareholder who came in at the end of last year. He’s a Russian banker who is very committed to the company and a keen car collector and financial investor. He has 30% of the stock. Another investment company, Gemini, has 10% and I also have 10%. So collectively, the major shareholders account for 75% of the company’s ownership. The rest is in free float.

MCM: When do expect to be profitable?

Victor: Sometime within the next next year, in 2010 or 2011.

MCM: What can we expect from Spyker in the future? Are you interested in hybrid technology?

Muller: We don’t believe that there will be the infrastructure to support electric cars for some time. What is going to happen if you want to drive through the desert? You are limited by a need to charge the vehicle. We have no plans to move from our current fuel based engines. We do plan to expand the line and are going to be launching an SUV, the D8 Peking-to-Paris . . .

You know, one of the things we are most excited about is our 5th place finish at the 24 Hours de LeMans this year. We finish ahead of all Porsches in our GT2 class. This is great achievement for us and we are really excited about it.

MCM: Congratulations on the fiinish.  Thank you for your time.

[read more of Paul’s work at motorcarmarket.com]

This is a tale from my youth, a very confusing period of my life, including the habit of drinking myself into a drunken stupor just for the fun of it, reckless driving of Jack Baruthian proportions, and generally excessive wanton behavior. In short, a day in the life of an average college kid, knee-deep in a period of Sturm-und-Drang. I was young, I was stupid and I had a death wish none of this world. I usually spent more time at the local café than in school, and I was out partying five days a week. I was twenty years old, I went to college, I had an apartment of my own, and I was the proud owner of a car, minus the driving license.

The car was a family hand-me-down, a Volvo P210 Station Wagon, of the 1968 vintage. It had remained in the family for some twenty years (eventually replaced as the family truckster by a certified pre-owned Toyota Hiace van). I was handed the keys on my eighteenth birthday, though the car usually stayed at the family residence. Again, I didn’t have the license to drive it. However, I took some artistic liberty in the use of the car, usually with the excuse that some friends of mine had a driving license. And on those occasions it was proudly parked outside my apartment. None the better for resisting temptations. I couldn’t help myself but to take it for a ride now and then, usually at night.

One night, I was playing games on my Commodore 64 (yes, it was that long ago) when I heard someone knocking at my door. It was my two friends Peter and Paul (names changed to protect the innocent). They asked me If I wasn’t perhaps in the mood for some partying? “Yes, well, of course,” I said. “And who’s gonna be there?” “Well, there’s you,” they replied, “and then the two of us.” “Sure,” I said, “why not.”

Paul wanted to party-crash his parents’ house out in the country. That meant we had to take my Volvo for a ride. Said and done, we arrived at his parents’ house some half an hour later.

It was a big and very flat house with overhanging roofs, built in the bungalow style. It was meant to be some fancy up-scale variant, with lots of white marble and tables of brass and smoked glass. Its moment had come and gone in 1983.

After a couple of hours of ransacking his father’s liquor cabinet, proving a point in a discussion I can’t remember (neither the discussion nor the point), Paul decided to fetch a cross-bow his uncle had in storage at his family’s other place. It seemed like a great idea. On our way out, we took Paul’s parent’s car, a late 70s euro-spec Ford Granada Station Wagon. I have never driven my parents’ car while intoxicated; Paul smiled in a smirky fashion. And we should have known better.

It was two o’clock in the middle of the night. There was no car in sight on the dark back roads of the Swedish countryside. Paul was up front, I was riding shotgun, and Peter was sitting in the back, right behind me.

Not long after we got started, we were lost. Paul decided to turn the car around. While backing the car into an exit, he missed it by several meters, and backed right into a ditch. It took us some time to get the car back up on the road again. If only we’d quit then . . .

Ten minutes later, we were driving on an avenue, with trees on both sides. The last time I looked at the speedometer, we were traveling in excess of 180 kilometers per hour. Suddenly, the avenue of trees made way for some open fields, the pavement made way for a gravel road, and a sharp turn to the right was advancing at an alarming speed. Paul cleared the turn to the right, but he lost control of the car. It made a violent return skid to the left, only to see the car exit the road to the field on the right.

There was a downward inclination of about a meter or so down to the ground,. The car hit a tree, two times, due to it being sideways and inclined. First the car hit the tree with the front left, then it bounced and hit the tree once again, on the left side. The tree made a man-sized indentation—on the side where no one was sitting.

After a moment of silence, we asked ourselves if we were okay. And we were, pretty much. Paul was in shock. Peter had a couple of broken ribs. I somehow managed to be completely unharmed, save a couple of minor scratches.  The big tire jack, formerly placed in the open back, was fifty meters away from the car, out on the field. Had it hit us on our heads on its way out, I wouldn’t have been here telling you this.

Paul, who always had been slightly criminally bent, started meddling the locks with a screwdriver, so it would look like the car had been stolen. And then we began our way back to the house, on foot. An hour later, we arrived back at Paul’s parents’ house. It was four o’clock in the morning, and we were almighty bruised and tired.

Paul immediately woke up his kid brother, who had been at the house all the time, sleeping and unknowing that we had been there before. Paul’s strategy was for us to swiftly move back to my place, making it look like we had never been there at all, with his kid brother as a witness of the non-existent events that had just taken place.

An hour or so later, we were back at my place in town. Kennedy-like, we immediately went to sleep. I crashed on my bed, the sofas were occupied, and the kid brother made use of the spare mattress in my tiny one room apartment.

Nine o’clock sharp, there was a loud knock on the door. I went up and opened the door. “This is the Police,” they said, “are you Mr. So-and-so?” “Yes,” I answered. “Good. We have orders to escort you out of town. Apparently, you have failed to show up at your military training, which was due this morning, and we will see to it that you get there.” “All right,” I said, “let me fetch my contact lenses, and we’ll be on our way.”

While the police waited, I’m sure they had a look around in the room, and I’m equally sure that all my friends were now widely awake, but hiding under their blankets. As I hadn’t cleaned in a very long time, the room was very untidy. Empty wine bottles lying around, records out of their sleeves, someone had puked in the kitchen sink, and there were fresh cigarette marks all over the carpet. It looked like we had partied like there was no tomorrow.

In the ride out of town, one of the plainclothes men asked me who it was in my apartment. “Oh, it was Mr. Paul and Peter so-and-so,” I said. “Yes, well, I thought I’d recognized them,” he replied. “We had a party last night,” I said. “Yes, we could see that,” he retorted dryly. And the rest of the ride they were silent.

As I had failed to show up for my military training five times in a row, in two years time of not making up my mind, I didn’t have to do the usual physical routine or intelligence tests, but had to go straight to the line to see the psychiatrist. I was very thankful for that, as my entire body ached, some tremendously.

After waiting for an hour, I was let into this room with this very nice lady, who looked at my papers and then looked at me and then looked at my papers again. “I can see that you don’t want to do this year in the military,” she smiled, “but what reason should we come up with?” I took that as my cue to tell her the long and tedious story of my life, exaggerating all the points that would make me unfit for my military duty. She slapped me on the wrist and let me go, with the written conclusion that I was “too individually minded to fit in the collective whole of the army.” I was handed my one and only daily wage from the military, some 38 Swedish kronor or about five dollars.

The young cadet in the counter smirked and called me a simulating SOB. I had left my wallet back home, but luckily for me, the bus fair home was 32 kronor. On the way back, I got myself contemplating and tried to grasp the absurdity of life. Back home, on the kitchen counter, there was a gift-wrapped bottle of Gordon’s London Dry Gin and a note from Paul’s girlfriend, thanking me for insisting that all in the car should wear seat belts. I laughed with the most uncanny laughter I’ve ever heard, went straight to my bed and slept for fifteen hours.

Never again.

kbb.com presents a top ten automotive list that is to PR what plastic worms are to bass: completely contrived and intermittently irresistible. “Ten Great Cars for 10 Different Jobs” is about vague and non-threatening a compendium as I’ve ever encountered in this genre. And you can’t fault them for adding the word “Different” “Ten Great Cars for the Same Damn Job” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Oh look! There’s a Ford F-150! Quel surprise! Only this is the Raptor version for bounty hunters who don’t find their man inside a bar or roach-infested apartment, and want to tear the miscreant into pieces and eat him, presumably. “The kbb.com list is sure to provide thought-provoking transportation options for those in various lines of work.” Me, I’m only in one line of work: automotive truth telling. Well, that and comedy. And you’re in this with me, you bastards. So make the jump for five more ideas for career-appropriate whips. Correct us if we’re wrong. (As if.) As always, we welcome your suggestions.

Coke dealer – Don’t think downmarket; the mostly Bolivian-sourced drug is repackaged for the financially-challenged and sold as something called “crack” (much to the chagrin of the Irish, but then heteros lost the word gay so there you go). Eddy reckons a de-badged, “murdered-out” BMW M3 is the answer to a question neither of us get asked, ever. Fo shizzle. It’s low-key, yet capable of outrunning anything save police radio. I’m good with the keeping it on the down-low approach. I’m thinking a Toyota Corolla XRS. They’re completely invisible, yet the extra performance. . . just kidding. Alternatively, candycaine providers could help society by driving a scissor-doored Chrysler 300C with a Bentley-esque mesh grill and one of those in-car LED displays with a crawl proclaiming “A R E S T M E I A M A C O K E D E E L E R.”

Antique Dealer – Once upon a time, Volvo station wagons were specifically designed by antique dealers, for antique dealers. Members of this profession are not dumb; they know that buying an estate from the dead-brand-walking Swedish brand today would be like paying top dollar for cracked Fiestaware. Eddy says Subaru Outback, but admits that everyone in his Portland locale drives a Subaru Outback—pot dealers, soccer moms, purveyors of Russian Samovars, everyone. (Biggest car joke in Oregon: “meet me at (X). I’m in the green Outback.”) I’ve always wondered why latter day Lovejoys don’t drive something delightfully old and quirky, like a 1957 Pontiac Safari Transcontinental. Probably because they want to get where they’re going the same day that they start going there, and don’t want die in a five-mile-per-hour shunt. So the Subie it is.

Accountant – Like a good pencil pushing number cruncher, you gotta think outside the law. I mean, box. An accountant who drives a Ferrari 430 Spider (as one of kid’s classmate’s father does) is telling the world that they’re successful at helping successful people become successful by helping them avoid paying, uh, you know. Better yet, an accountant who drive the world’s most expensive Italian toy (aside from a high maintenance mistress) says “I’m bulletproof baby. See this Ferrari IRS? Yeah I’m rich. Go on audit me, you bastards. I dare you.” Eddy says slap a company logo on that bad boy, and all the expensive maintenance is a write-off.

Tween Star – So easy to go for the Mercedes SL63 AMG. But the uber-SL’s throttle is way too twitchy for a teen tween queen, without or without an elevated blood alcohol level—as Lindsay Lohan has shown us time and time again. Yes, it’s the safest fuck-off-and-die-mobile money can buy, but is that really the message our highly-esteemed role models want to send to today’s Bratz? And here at TTAC we never, ever do anything nice (well, except for our positive post of the day and Eddy’s screwed that up more than once). Eddy can see Miley Cyrus in a Pepto-Pink LaCrosse; “thanks to a deal signed to attract younger buyers to the Buick brand.” But then they do have exceptional marijuana where Eddy lives [see: above]. Me, I’m with Hayden: Mercedes GL. I know she’s like totally old now, but the GL’s just like an SL only the logo’s WAY bigger and you can take your entourage and stuff and you can see the pop-o-Nazis from MILES away.

President of the United States – Lest we forget, The Commander-in-Chief commands General Motors. So the Prez can commandeer his pick from the entire range of GM models across the company’s eight brands. Oops! Four. No, wait, it IS eight. Hang on; we can’t include Opel, Vauxhall, Holden and Daewoo because American politicians MUST DRIVE AN AMERICAN CAR. Still, that still leaves, what 32 separate models, depending on what you call separate. Anyway, Eddy says Chevrolet Aveo. But he’s just being an asshole. I reckon The Leader of the Free World should drive a Chrysler 300C. Because it’s a free country and he’s free to drive whatever he wants and he’s a man who isn’t afraid to do so no matter how strenuously the green wing of his party protests or how cravenly PC his advisers may be. Oh wait . . .

On September 1, the Collier Collection of Naples, Florida, brought to Lime Rock its 1939 Mercedes-Benz W 154 Grand Prix car. (Yes, Collier’s is a collection, not a museum. Don’t bother looking for a website; visitors by invitation only.) The word from Lime Rock’s PR person: this would be the first time the engine had ever been started on a racetrack in 69 years and 363 days, having last run in anger at a minor street race in Yugoslavia on September 3, 1939, two days after the start of World War II. Two ringers from Stuttgart had been sent to Connecticut to help with this historic ignition, as had the British restorer who’d rebuilt the engine. The Collier guys also planned to run the car on the track briefly, which, it was said, would also be a 70-year first.

Legend has it that this car, the last of the 15 W 154s built, was one of two found in 1945 in Austria by the steamrollering Soviets, who put them on a train to be shipped back to Russia. The cars got as far as Romania, where the troops running the train traded them for liquor, food, local goods and probably a few cute Romanian girls.

I missed that phrase “on a racetrack” in my quick reading of the invitation to attend, so I hustled up in my nearly-as-ancient 911 to see and hear what I figured would be something as momentous as being present at the opening of King Tut’s tomb. Would it start? Would it grenade? Would they need a spritz of snowblower ether to bring it to life?

Well, it was fun but not quite as historic as I’d expected. Turns out the car had actually raced several times well after World War II, the last time in a hillclimb where it wrecked. And when the engine started with a brain-melting bark on the second turn of the crankshaft, it immediately became obvious that Mister W 154 had been run, after an extensive rebuild, plenty long enough to jet and tune its V12’s supercharged carburetors. Just not “on a racetrack.”

While dozens of us crowded around, snapped pictures and generally got in the way, plugs were pulled, a crystal-meth lab’s worth of fuel was poured, the engine was spun to build oil pressure, plugs were replaced (without a torque wrench in sight, by the way; these guys have calibrated wrists). A friend who was with me laughed and said, “I have to go through this every time I start my ’40 Fleet biplane, but nobody’s ever around.”

Came the big moment and instantly the air was filled with unbearable noise and the smell of a model-airplane meet. Emissions? You betcha: little did the tiny village of Lakeville, Connecticut, know that it had briefly become an EPA Superfund site. The engine burns a blend of methyl alcohol, nitrobenzene, acetone and sulphuric ether that would probably burn through concrete.

After five minutes of WHAP . . . WHAP . . . WHAP . . WHAP back and forth to 4,000 rpm (to keep the hot start-up plugs clear), the entire car was gently smoking as restorative paint melted here and there, asbestos wrapping burned off the two tailpipes and glycol began to bubble into the tray under the car.

In go the cold plugs, from a gray wooden box on a cradle fitted to the curve of the car’s cowling and lettered “von Brauchitsch,” who drove it at Belgrade that September day in 1939, starting on the pole and finishing second to Nuvolari in an Auto Union Type D.

The car is pushed to the end of the pit lane while a dozen well-heeled Lime Rock Park Club members wait impatiently for their turn at the track. One of them, trim in his tailored shorts and Ralph Lauren shirt, in an accent that we used to call Locust Valley lockjaw, had earlier asked me, “Are you here for the track day?” I told him, “No, I am a writer, waiting for the Mercedes.” “Yes, I figured,” he said as he eyed my stock Levi’s.

The W 154 did a few racketing but careful laps on its cold, skinny tires, the Mercedes Classic Center factory driver obviously well aware of the I’m-guessing $20 million value of the car. If you want to see this Silver Arrow do it again, go to the 27th Annual Lime Rock Park Vintage Festival this Labor Day weekend. It’ll be there. Bring earplugs. Or watch the video here.

[Read Part One here]

Like many American car buyers, I place reliability near the top of my “must have” list. Over on GM’s FastLane blog, I told GM they’d conquer [some] Toyota and Honda customers when the American automaker’s ten-year-old cars offered the same service as ten-year-old Toyotas and Hondas. Truth be told, New GM may not HAVE ten years. So it’s no surprise that they tried to wow me with tail fins and technology. When the speeches finally ended in the Proving Ground auditorium, I was invited to sample New GM in the “now.” Our PR handlers gave us a quick safety talk (don’t do anything stupid, obey the traffic wardens) and turned us loose.

GM’s Milford Proving Ground had two test tracks: “performance” and “city.” The urban track was the less popular of the two. I used it almost exclusively; I wanted to do as much driving and as little waiting as possible. The course was a mix of coned paths across extremely large parking lots and stretches of some of the Proving Grounds road system. It included a short slalom and some S-curves, so you could exercise the vehicles a bit.

My original intent: test only cars I might actually buy. Ordinarily, that would be the Chevrolet Aveo, Cobalt or Malibu. For some reason, the Aveo and Cobalt didn’t get invited to the event. Someone else grabbed the Malibu first, so I headed for the Buick LaCrosse.

Buick LaCrosse

A friendly-looking woman wearing slacks and a polo shirt stood alongside the Buick sedan. It was Jeanne Merchant, the LaCrosse’s Vehicle Line Director. I didn’t waste her time.

“Can I drive it?” I asked.

“Sure!”

If GM fails, I’m not going to shed a tear for Bob Lutz or Fritz Henderson. I’m going to hold them responsible for the automaker’s destruction. But there are hundreds if not thousands of other GM employees whose lives are more like mine, and I’m sympathetic to their plight. Even so, mismanaged businesses fail. It’s never pretty, but it’s a fact of life. The people who work for the competition have to eat, too.

Merchant’s sense of pride gave me reason to hope for GM’s troops. She was completely confident I was going to like the Buick LaCrosse.

I’d read Dan Neil’s review, favorably comparing the LaCrosse to a Lexus. I’m not qualified to judge the Buick against a Lexus; I drive a derivative of the 1996 Corolla. But the LaCrosse has a lot of inherent appeal; it’s nicely appointed with an extremely attractive interior. It provides comfortable seats, an equally comfortable ride and handles well enough for its intended mission.

The 3.0-liter engine offers sufficient power to move the car along without drama. Even with the 3.6-liter engine (sampled later), it’s no sports sedan; but as a quiet cruiser, it succeeds. If Buick can get people to try the LaCrosse, many of them are going to like it.

Chevrolet Malibu

I was not nearly as impressed by the Chevrolet Malibu. First, cars in my price range are never as impressive as cars above it. Second, the Toyota Camry is a better car.

The four-cylinder Camry is eager to get up and go, whereas the Malibu must be prodded into action. Equally important, the Camry quickly finds the right gear in every situation, where the Malibu can be caught out. The Camry’s handling isn’t anything to write home about, but it’s competent and straightforward. The Malibu I tested had more engine vibration and less poise.

I often hear people claim the Malibu is better looking than the Camry. I’m willing to bet that most of those people prefer the Malibu’s design because they want a reason to prefer a Chevy to a Toyota. Ditto the “appliance” condemnation of the Camry. The Malibu has four doors, a modest size engine and front wheel-drive. It’s the same kind of appliance as the Camry, only not as good.

Cadillac CTS Sport Wagon

The Aveo and Cobalt were unavailable so . . . why not?

Driving a CTS Sport Wagon is miles better than riding in the back of a CTS. Halfway through the course, I asked my GM handler if I could do a U-turn and go through the slalom again. The Sport Wagon offers easily controllable balance through the corners. It’s attractive, comfortable and goes like hell. What’s not to love?

On reflection, I don’t think the CTS Sports Wagon handles much better than the mid-90s BMW 3-Series I drove last year. That car felt much more nimble, with far better fuel economy. Of course, the CTS is a bigger machine and this one is bigger still, but I suppose that a contemporary, similarly-priced BMW wagon would be equally impressive.

On the positive side, the CTS Sport Wagon offers some practical features, such as a roof rack that completely disappears and rails with adjustable tie-down D rings in the wayback. I found myself wondering: if a CTS wagon is such a great idea, where’s my Cobalt or Malibu wagon?

Clean Diesel

I’m not the target market for a diesel automobile. If I have to take another three-day trip to Philmont with eight Scouts, three other adults and a trailer, I’d be happy to rent a fifteen passenger, diesel-powered passenger van. Otherwise, forget it. In fact, I can’t even remember if the vehicle was badged Chevy or GMC.

The van was about 7500 pounds, empty. My speed kept falling off. The oil burner had enough power, but the noise punished me for seeking higher rpm. The dynamics were predictably truck-like. The good news: GM says it’s now offering a 6.0-liter clean diesel engine with a urea-based system (not presented). I wrassled the van back to its parking spot, thanked the GM rep and went to look for something more my speed.

Cruze Control

Most of the Tweeters missed this one as well; they were “busy” queueing-up for the Cadillac CTS-V, and the Chevrolet Camaros and the Corvettes. The Cruze was parked by itself, with a lonely-looking Mike Danowski standing by it.

“Can I drive it?”

Mike looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, no.”

“Can I get in and look around?”

“Absolutely!”

The Cruze has an excellent interior. If the two-tone seats aren’t leather, they’re an excellent facsimile. The Cruze’s cabin is bright and airy, with good sight lines and readily managed controls. The Cruze has a lot of zing, which a the highly competent Corolla LE lacks. If the Chevy offers good performance and class-compliant fuel economy, prospective Corolla buyers may be tempted.

That’s a lot of ifs. Still, the Corolla has left the door open, a little. The 1.8-liter Corolla LE’s four-speed automatic could sure use another gear. Even if the Cruze offers a fifth gear, winning a Camry loyalist to a new Chevy is the definition of a tough sell.

The Cruze was GM’s only small car at the event, and it wasn’t driveable. GM had made no real effort to win me over with small cars.

Saturn Vue PHEV Hybrid (Soon to be the Buick Something PHEV Hybrid)

My friend Dave drove this proto-Buick. Dave doesn’t believe in CO2-induced Global Warming. He couldn’t care less how much CO2 is blown out the tailpipe. To Dave, hybrids are irrelevant.

When Dave mashed the pedal flat to the floor, the tester’s electric motor and the gas engine woke up and the vehicle leaped ahead. “Dave, the point of a hybrid is to save gas by allowing the gas and electric engines to cooperate and work appropriately with each other and . . . Oh, never mind.” As Dave hustled the gas – electric Vue through the S-curves, the vehicle managed to stay on battery power for at least a short time.

GM representative Carol Johnson admitted that the hybrid soon-to-be Buick CUV’s weight was an issue, along with battery cost. She indicated that GM would get some of the cargo room back, but the vehicle would lose its spare tire. Dave’s lead foot aside . . .

“Why have you got a V6 up there?”

Johnson said GM management believed that the vehicle’s cost, brand and market indicated a need for accelerative performance.

“But it’s the fuel economy that sells these things,” I countered. “Toyota sold 19,000 Priuses last month. It doesn’t have excellent performance.”

Carol looked at me, “I know.”

Of course she does.

HCCI Test Vehicle

The Tweeters also ignored GM’s Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) vehicle. It was parked near the Cruze, so I thought it was also a static display. Engineer Vijay Ramappan was happy to find someone curious about the technology. The last I knew, HCCI didn’t work.

“Can I drive it?”

“Sure!”

The car was equipped with a fire extinguisher. “Are we going to need that?” Dave asked. Vijay shook his head. “That’s just a safety regulation.”

Vijay’s laptop was wired into the car. An LCD display perched atop the center stack showed the engine’s operating zone. Danger! Checking the throttle’s effect on the display’s dots is far more interesting than watching the road ahead.

The HCCI car has the oomph of a regular 2.4-liter engine, perhaps bit more. There’s a tiny bit of diesel clatter and a very slight shudder at certain times. I attributed the sensation to the shift from spark to compression and back, but it might have been the transmission.

Vijay says GM’s put about 15,000 miles on the HCCI powerplant. He admitted that high-pressure fuel delivery and cylinder pressure sensors added to the engine’s expense. Unsurprisingly, he thought volume could drive costs down. Fuel economy would be significantly increased and the engine cost should eventually compare favorably with diesels. And you don’t have to use diesel; the HCCI powerplant should run well on E-85.

“Will you beat everybody else to market?” I asked.

Vijay frowned, just for a moment. “We don’t know. I think so.” He listed a few of the major manufacturers, what he knew about their programs and whether or not they seemed to be making announcements. Most of the others have been quiet, which could be a hopeful sign for GM. [ED: Or a sign that they don’t consider the technology commercially viable.] A new technology or capability can help sell a car to alienated customers.

Yukon Two-Mode Hybrid

Dave drove again and flogged the thing mercilessly. I couldn’t see the dash all that well from my seat, so I don’t know whether or not he was able to degrade fuel economy into the gallons-per-mile range. He was certainly trying his best.

The Yukon Hybrid was car-like and comfortable—and expensive. It’s over $50,000, roughly $15,000 more than a base Yukon and much more than an Acadia, which gets better highway fuel economy. Product Manager Tom Hughes revealed that GM sold about 600 two-mode hybrids last month.

Despite their failure in the marketplace, GM appears to be digging in. They claim they aren’t going to abandon the large-vehicle hybrid market. Hughes says improvements are on their way. A lower price would be the most useful improvement of all.

Greenhorn?

I appreciated the opportunity to talk to GM about their products. As the automaker can’t prove their new vehicles’ decadal reliability, or drop the price so low that reliability doesn’t matter, the junket was a suitable Plan B to put their products back on my menu. But was this junket simply a charm offensive aimed at eliminating the so-called “perception gap” or something more?

I talked to TTAC’s publisher about this. Farago assured me that GM employees (and auto industry types in general) are good people who always do their best. “No one wakes up in the morning and says, ‘I’m going to build a crap car,'” Farago said. “But GM’s culture is working against them. Most of their employees can’t even see it happening.”

Jeanne Merchant, Mike Danowski, Vijay Ramappan and their GM colleagues all had pride in their vehicles. After careful thought, I don’t think it’s misplaced. The real question: is it enough? It’s early days, but has New GM done enough to win over customers from rival brands? More to the point, did they win me over?

[Read Part 3 on Monday]

Regular readers will recall that this site’s denizens helped radio personality, car dealer and fellow commentator John Wolfe name his new CBS radio show. In exchange, Wolfe promised that he’d give me a guest shot. And . . . he’s given us permission to rip this glossary of dealer jargon from his “Real Deal” website. While you peruse the perfidy, I’m thinking turnabout is fair play. How about TTAC’s Best and Brightest invent some of its own terms for what car dealers do to us? Yeah, yeah, some dealers, not all dealers. Suggestions below please.

Hole in the Head

This is a sunroof package in an automobile. Also be referred to as a Sun, a Moon, or the Brains Blown Out.

Chicken Walk

Car dealer infomercial where the pitch man paces in front of the inventory.  Dealership employees witness the production of the commercial spot and refer to the speaker as doing ‘the chicken walk’ Tom Park and Clay Cooley are professional chicken walkers.

John Wayne or the Duke

This is all about the middle man paying the dealer/manager on the side for cars he normally would not have a shot at, also less than what they usually would bring elsewhere. He is a bad apple

Hand shaker / Bolt Action

This means it is a manual transmission. Also see: Hog Leg

A Horse

The horse is a seasoned vet salesman you can count on selling 25 plus cars month in and month out. These guys can get hired anywhere, anytime

Hog Leg

This is a manual transmission in a truck; the shifter is very long and crooked and comes from the floor. Aka John Holmes Edition

A Package

This is an aftermarket or custom additions to the factory options of an automobile. Body kits, custom wheels and paint would be considered a “package”. Lorinser, Regency, or Saleen are fine example of a package.

Ghetto Package: the distant cousin of “a package”, but with built with less quality material and often in poor taste.  Unfortunately half of the ghetto packages stall out in developmental stage and live their lives as half ghetto packages.

Half-Ghetto Package is an incomplete or unfinished ghetto package.

Urban Assault Vehicle

This is a version of the package but is exclusive to a gang member with gang art and colors. The low-rider has many variations, but demands the attention of a much smaller demographic.

Big Bad Bob

This customer is easily defused but can be tricky. He is on a mission for best price, demands he is being treated badly and needs the manager, then demands prices and attempts to confuse the dealer into a bargain. Dealers are prepared for BBB, use kindness skills to kill all of the tension he creates and sell him what he wants.

8:36 or Bill King

This is the customer we have all dealt with or have been at times. He will walk in at 8:36 knowing it is almost closing time and wants to browse through hours of time. The fact that sales staff have already been at the dealership for 13 hours already makes them very anxious to get on or get off  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSO-Uss1h6E).

Japanese Cadillac

Car dealer vernacular for the Lexus or Infiniti brand plate

OTDB

This is a reporting number. Dealers count customers to know exactly their budget spend in advertising per customer. Opportunity To Due Business is also known as a fresh up.

Duck on the Pond

There is always a customer not being helped on the lot, he is a duck on the pond somewhat lost but trying to avoid the pack of salespeople even though he wants to be assisted. Seasoned Vets usually know when one lands.

Fresh Up

This is a customer that has never been to the dealership before or has not yet been helped upon arrival.

Green Peas

Lots of dealers refer to the new guys as Green Peas, Green Horns, or newbie. This means they do not have skills developed quite yet and will not know the product very well. The need for people will create these salesmen faster than you can say fire sale.

Brass Hat Car

This vehicle is what most dealers call a program car; it was a corporate demo or a factory reps demo.

Blind Bid

This is an auto appraisal that is over the phone or a value is placed by the description sight un-seen. Bid is good upon delivery if it matches the description. John Clay Wolfe Blind-Bids all the cars on the Real Deal radio show.

Wholesaler

These individuals are all over the map. They buy from auction and sell to dealers, they buy from dealers and sell at auction, and any combination of the two; including trading with each other.  98% of wholesalers are addicted to gambling, chain smoking, and have a problem with the IRS. Typically the wholesaler has a relative that is in the bail-bonds business.  They either look like Magnum PI, Dog the Bounty Hunter, or the $30,000 millionaire.

King Pin Wholesaler

A banker to the wholesaler.  The King Pin kept his money, paid his taxes, and finances the transaction of the wholesaler.  He makes his money from charging wholesalers a ‘draft fee’ and plays the role as the house.  The King Pin rides in the deepest ride, lives in a McMansion, playmate material as a wife, girlfriend or combination of the two.  Manheim and Adesa auctions have made drastic attempts to terminate the business model of the king pin.

Seasoned Vet

The rare group of professional salespeople that know exactly how to deal with customers and they have better product knowledge and very high salesmanship skills and ability to sale. They can also be referred to as a Horse.

Ole Car Dog

This is the older grumpier car salesman we all have come to know as very negative from years of up and down sales. They are looking for shortcuts, time off and reasons to complain why the business is so slow. We all know them and they amuse us more than annoy. Smoking is a must for this species.

Oddball Split

Often confused as a billiard term, but in car industry is a closing tactic. You have a difference figure between the price of the car and the counter offer from the customer. Example: sale price is $20,000 and the counter offer $19,000. The salesman says “why don’t we split the difference and just say $19,800.” The customer perks up” that’s not a split, $19,500 is a split.” “Okay so $19,500 and it’s a deal?” This is a perfect trap because 90% of the time the customer wants to split the split:  that would be $19,250 which is $250 less than where we placed them. The salesmen simply bump them with the oddball number.

Lot Stretcher

The lot stretcher is a joke often played on the newly hired green peas. A Vet tells the pea in a hurry to go back and get the lot stretcher; we need more room or straightening up the lot. Green Peas always fall for this, the service guys send them to parts, and then back again looking for the lot stretcher. Sometimes they send peas to other dealerships and they will spin circles trying to locate who had it last. They ask what it is and we just tell them to hurry up we are all waiting. Similar to snipe hunting.

Closing Tool

The closing tool is a fictional item associated with the lot stretcher. Newbies are told to find the closing tool, bc they can not use the lot stretcher without the closing tool.

T/O or A Turn

When a car deal needs help from the sales manager he will do what we call a turn over or a T/O to the manager or floor manager. This makes sure all customers are taken care of properly and do not make mistakes and miss a potential car deal.

Tommy Turner

Often times a salesperson will have trouble with a deal and we send in a closer. This can be a floor manager or a seasoned vet. Staff pages on the intercome Tommy Turner meaning “need to send in the closer for a turn.’

Mr. Green

A fictitious dealership employee who’s name is placed in newspaper ads for bad credit customers.   “Bad Credit, Divorce, Bankruptcy WE CAN HELP just ask for Mr Green”  When the receptionist pages Mr. Green that a code word for request a customer credit application before quoting the price of a car in case the lending bank charges an Americredit.

Americredit

Is a lender that specializes in poor credit customers.  When they approve a deal for financing, often their approval is contingient on charging the selling dealer a large fee, sometimes in excess of $3,000, plus Austin as the interest rate.

Austin Rate

Austin is the state capital of Texas, the term Austin Rate is slang for the state cap lending rate, which is 26.26%

The Closer

This is the man always greeting you before you leave. He has selling on his mind and is there to make sure we exhaust every effort in selling you today not tomorrow. He can handle any objection and is very persuasive; some dealers may apply extreme pressure before you leave the lot.

Whistle Pisser

The whistle pisser is a funny name for a funny act. I was selling Lexus and my manager said look at this whistle pisser. He gets out of his Buick, goes over and stands as far away from the window sticker as possible trying to see the MSRP. He then whistles shaking his head and mentally pisses his pants. (Kyle Casey)

A Rabbit

This is a name for the guy bouncing all over the auction lane bidding on his own vehicle. He runs up the bidding and hops right off once it is in the money.

In the Money

Term used when a used car is bought for at or below current market pricing.   Also reffered to as ‘on the money’ ‘worth the money’ or ‘stolen’

Blue Sky

The value of a franchised car dealership.  Also reffered to simply as ‘Blue’ meaning the good will dollar amount added to the price of an ongoing business.  For instance your local Ford dealer sells his business for ten million dollars. 6 million of that is real and hard assets plus 4 million of goodwill or ‘blue’.

Skins

Tires are an important part of the value on many models. The effect on the value on a Corvette for example could be $1500 for a set of new skins.

Trap Trader

This is a rouge move that creates problems on top of problems. The dealer sells off a car he owns well above current market for a value higher than its worth, he does this to exchange with another dealer to do the same and buy their car for more than what it is worth. Typically floorplanning banks/lenders have a days in stock deadline to sell inventory. So trap trading is  two dealers trade their problem inventory to one another to start the clock over on the freshly traded unit, but in reality just postponing their financial woes.

Floor or Floorplan

This is the lifeline of a car dealer new or used.  A Floor is the credit facility provided by a lender to pay for a dealers stock of automobile inventory.  Most lenders charge 2 points over prime as the floor rate of interest.  The amount of floor a dealer has dictates how large the business operation can be.  A huge auto dealership typically has in excess of 15-20 million on the floor line.  A small new car dealer typically carries 2 million, and a small used dealer normally operates around the $250,000 inventory level.

Out of Business

This occurs immediately when a dealer looses their floorplan

Sale Fees

These are fees overlooked by KBB and Edmunds. The auction trade in value does not include all of the reconditioning of a car before it goes to auction and then has hundreds of dollars of sale fees. The average is sale fee is about $250 per car plus reconditioning and transporting to the auction that could be $700 to $1500. The dealer spends more than the book shows you and you will always be surprised on appraised value.

Hand Signals Lock it Up/Slam Down/Cut Heads /Hit the Gas/Smoke em’

The auction is a very loud place with thousands of vehicles running through lanes at a fast pace. Professional buyers have many hand gestures and signals that are used to talk back and forth just like the stock exchange. The auction block and ring man will recognize these buyers and and communicate in return accordingly.

Shoot it in the Head

This term is for a vehicle going to sell for less than ever expected. You may have a unit in stock for months that refuses to sell so you take your loss to a wholesaler or auction sale and “Shoot it in the Head”

Houston we have Problem

The hurricanes from the Gulf Coast bring many issues with vehicles being involved in flood damage. Dealers can tell because the trunks and under the hood you find sand and water marks. The cars never smell right and although the title was not affected by an insurance claim: many still know ‘Houston we have a problem’  Especially the selling dealeship once the customer realizes they purchased a washed title flood car

Re-Entry Burn

You may recognize one of the famous space shuttle like vehicles from the paint on the hood and roof appearing to be burned right off.

Exercise Package or Richard Simmons

This is the extreme entry model car also know as, the exercise package. The name comes from manually shifting forward and back, in and out the clutch, rolling the windows up and down, and reaching over to lock the passenger side. Quite a workout.

Katrina Edition

This is a full blown flood car with a soon to be bad title. The insurance claim brands the title flood or reconditioned salvage and the next registrant will get a dirty salvage title.

Gay Nice

Men that live an alternative lifestyle typically have the nicest, cleanest used cars on the market.  Dealer to dealer conversation: “If it’s Gay nice, then I’ll pay $500 more”

Gray Guts

The car has gray interior so it is known as gray guts, same goes for black red, tan, etc…

Ride for Five

This is the 60 month lease (five years), also known as a roach motel because once you sign up on the ride for five, you cannot get out.

Draft

This is similar to a check printed on the outside of a white envelope. This is traditionally the financial instrument used in a dealer to dealer auto transaction.   Similar to an oil/gas draft.

ACV

This means the actual cash value for your trade. The dealer over allows $10,000 but the ACV may be only $8,500. The ACV is the real value. Always refer to this figure because the reality of the car deal is in the ACV

Overallow

The difference between ACV and trade allowance on the contract in a car deal.

The Road Show

Is a staffed event sale, staged liquidation sale, tent sale, or mailer sale and has his own hit team to sell them.  Typically leave a huge wake.  He sends out a mass direct mailer just days before arrival to lure customers to the dealership, and charges the dealer 25% of the gross profit.  Sometimes roadshow sales work and create many additional sales the dealer typically would not have without the promotion.  Unfortunately, too often he leaves the dealer asking themselves “why we did this again.” We call it the road show.

The Hit Team

The auto business has an unfortunate way of bringing bad habits to the dinner table. The hit team or squad is a traveling circus of salespeople we will hire for big events that we know we need extra salesman because of the huge turnout of customers. They sell many cars and make people angry including the hosting dealership’s salespeople and customers. Very similar to gypsies; they leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth, and 9 times out of 10 have a substance abuse problem.  It is not uncommon for a member of a hit team to borrow money from customers or dealership staff members with a promise of immediate payback, never to be heard from again.  Hit team members are the always the stereotypical silver tongued devil salesmen.

Rats Roaches and Bandits

Customers credit fall into several categories. One of them is being a Rat, or a Roach and that means you will have trouble getting financed and may need a co-signer and an unusual amount of cash down.  ie “that guy was such a bandit he’d need a co-signer to pay cash”

Rocket Ship

If your credit score is over 750, you are known as a Rocket Ship, ready for immediate take off

Buried

When you owe much more on a car than it is worth, and you can not trade out until you pay down your loan.  Dealers can get buried in their inventory, just as customers get buried in their car loan.  This occurs more often in a trap trade scenario for both dealers and consumers.

Trade Difference

When you take the sale price and subtract the trade in value, you will have a trade difference. This is a way to negotiate but usually confuses customers. This figure does not include your payoff or T.T.&L.

Pencil

Is the written offer brought out from the managers office to the customer.   Salespeople hear customers always saying “tell him to sharpen his pencil”.  It’s called a pencil (versus a pen) because it is not a firm figure and can be erased and refigured.

Demo

Dealers call this the test drive, they also call the cars they drive home demos: usually only the managers get to drive inventory home and this would be considered a demo.  When a salesperson is landing a customer on the demo, too often they retreat to fibbing and claim “this demo was driven by the dealer wife, it was Mrs. Dealers personal car”

De-Horse Em’

This is when you are very close to your buying a car, there may be one thing needed such as show the wife or check with your bank. The dealer encourages you to take the new car overnight and keep the trade tucked away in back of the dealership. De horsing prevent the customer from effectively shopping  another dealership because the customer is without their trade in.

Kick the Trade

When you come to a deal and there is no way to roll in the negative equity of the trade because you are so buried, the Hail Mary closing tool is to convience the customer to  let trade-in repo and do the deal without it. Ugly but desperate customers and hyper aggressive dealers can cause this occurance.

Jumping the Trade

This occurs when customer gets so confused in the numbers, that the dealer literally trades for the customers car with at a zero value.  I have seen deals where trades are jumped with values upto ten thousand dollars.

TT&L

Tax, Title, and License of the car you’re buying.

The Ring man

The auction has auctioneers calling the numbers out; helping him with bidders down below in the lane you have the ring man. He corrals all the confusion into bids for the auctioneer. He is a very important part of the buying and selling and will know who is in or out with signals.

On the Block

The auction is in a warehouse with lanes running through one side to the other. The cars come in and stoop in front of a raised platform where the auctioneers and sellers will be watching the lanes activity. This is the auction block.

WAC

You will see this posted with any advertised payment or interest rate. An acronym for  “With Approved Credit”.

Tent Sale

The circus looking tents we place out in the parking lot to create a sense of excitement draws in crowds. I think if people would stop falling for this, dealers would stop doing it .

Slasher Sale

This is a fun sale and is not often used anymore. The prices will be placed on the windshields of all of the cars, then discount them on the windshield slashing the price lower and lower using a loud megaphone and it feels similar to an auction. Someone will raise there hand and buy the slashed price vehicle and pay the typical retail price in all the excitement

Fire Sale

When a dealer gets the news he is out of business, or the banks floor plan is full you will find a fire sale meaning everything is going, going, gone regardless of price or profit.

Smoking the Log

The log is an important part of keeping track of daily business and the pace outcome of the months profits and activity. There are a few weak managers that like to put deals that are not complete or not even real on the sales log to look better to the upper management. This is called Smoking the Log.

Accepting All Applications

You will see this advertised and it will sound like everyone will be approved. All it really means is we will accept your application for credit.

Re-Tread

Back in the days when tires had no tread left they would cut into the rubber and glue new tread back on the casing. Truckers still use these today. We call old car dogs re-treads because they leave and come back, again and again. Turnover is high because of inconsistent business and thus becomes a wheel of roaming salesman.

Pink Title Blue Title Brown Title

The color of a Texas title will be blue. The brown title will be a duplicate and is a good as the blue just reprinted. We always double check the brown titles for payoffs and liens they may have a loan placed against blue title. The pink title will be salvage. The green title usually is a re-conditioned salvage title or repaired wreckage.

Saab Story

The owners of a Saab will always have a sob story about the payoff being so high compared to the trade value. The lease was the Saab’s only way of keeping customers coming back, now they will have to figure out how to keep brand loyalty without the famous lease payment and security blanket of guaranteed lease end value.

Weasel Piss

The greasy shine placed on your tires after a dealer details your car is called weasel piss. You do not want to get it on you. Armor all is not the same this is the industrial grade.

Mop and Glow

This is the incredible new age wax that will protect your paint and interior, for the low, low price of $595. We also refer to this as snake oil. You buy a warranty with it so it does have some value. Many import dealers include this like it or not, pay up.

The August 6, 2009, issue of the Edmonton Journal ran a story about the hormonal boost for young males provided by high end performance vehicles. A Concordia University study determined that “endowing [yes, endowing] the men with a vehicle few people could afford tripped an endocrinological response—measured using saliva samples—mimicking the one elicited during competition for female mates.” As a guy who used to be young, I could have saved the academics a few bucks. Of course hot cars raise testosterone levels. That’s a fundamental part of a guy’s reason for life. It’s the selfish gene on wheels: hot cars > better babes > better babies. But all is not exactly as it seems . . .

The eggheads handed over a $150,000 Porsche to a study group of university students (median age 24.7 years) for an hour’s worth of driving in two separate environments: urban and rural.

Now one would think that a young guy behind the wheel of a high end German legend would experience a significant hormonal overload in the city world where a bountiful crop of hot city women would fawn over the hot wheels. If you aren’t responsible enough to own a cute little puppy, at least be rich enough to own a Porsche in the honorable pursuit of women. Both car and dog will attract female attention, thus an increase in testosterone would seem imminent.

Here’s the kicker in the Concordia study: Even a drive in the country well out of range of available women made the subject males horny. The Porsche raised these guys’ hormone levels well into the naked Jennifer Aniston range without a naked Jennifer Aniston. Now that’s a car!

This aspect of the study intrigues. It suggests that male happiness is not a warm Colt Mark IV Series 70. Nor is it a toasty Marissa Miller. It’s a smoking hot supercar. While you can’t share a hot tub and margaritas with a Ferrari, the study suggests you’d be better off with a high-strung Italian car than a high-maintenance Italian babe.

That said, the Concordia study is full of holes. For one thing, it fails to take into account the exotic car’s role vis à vis the average male’s basic philosophy. He may have spent half of his time behind the wheel on a deserted road with no available women, but he was worked-up by the knowledge that the Porsche gave him the potential to meet hot women. Now that’s a car!

The other half of the experiment involved an equal amount of time behind the wheel of a Toyota Camry with 180,000 miles on it. You guessed it: the net result was “a slight deflation in testosterone.”

This finding probably won’t find its way into a new Toyota ad campaign, but it makes perfect sense. Toyota built the Camry’s reputation upon reliability and practicality. Men with high testosterone levels tend to view the Camry as the kind of car guys own when they get married. When the supermodel dream is dead and buried.

Yes BUT—there are plenty of men who wouldn’t want a supermodel. I’ve got five words for you: bulimia, cocaine, prima donna, money. Anyway, natural selection says that if all men wanted supermodels that much all women would be supermodels.

By the same token, there’s an entire population of women who don’t want a bad boy/show off/fast driver to father their children. Sensibly enough, they seek sensible men who can assure their progeny’s long term safety, security and prosperity.

Bottom line: the Camry offers that driver access to a different class of genetic material. It’s neither good nor bad. It just is.

The study assumes that high testosterone levels are inherently positive, when, clearly, they’re not. From a Darwinian point-of-view, the chances that a Camry driver will take themselves out of the genetic pool by dangerous driving are far less than the those of the Porker pilot. In other words, the bad boy only gets the hot girl if he lives long enough to do so.

In any case, the choice of a Porsche for this study is a problem in and of itself. On one hand, Porsches keep the supermodel dream alive: $150,000 two-seaters capable of kissing 200 mph say, “I want to get there insanely fast and in style,” and, “If I can afford this I can afford to put our [future] children through Yale.”

On the other hand, Porsches are reliable (enough), easy to park and built to withstand massive accidents. It’s not for nothing that the 911’s known (at least amongst high testosterone males) as the “practical supercar.”

So a Porsche is a highly evolved supercar that sends a mixed message that appeals to both sides of a female’s genetic needs: high achiever and high security. And succeeds.

Now that’s a car!

[Click here for more of Jim Sutherland’s work @ mystarcollectorcar.com]