This terse encapsulation Ford’s alleged brand values comes courtesy of The Blue Oval’s perennially amusing crowdsourced marketing site, The Ford Story.

Picture above are the base-model prices for the cheapest sedan and hatchback variants of the new Ford Fiesta. As you can see, the cheapest Fiesta hatch is priced $1,800 more than the cheapest sedan. In part, that’s because Ford won’t offer an S trim Fiesta hatchback, but even in the best apples-to-apples comparison, the SE trim hatch costs $800 more than an SE sedan. Compare that to last month’s subcompact segment sales leader, the Nissan Versa. Like Ford, Nissan makes its lowest-cost models sedan-only; in fact you can’t buy a Versa hatch with the base 1.6-liter engine. By that measure, the $9,990 “base” 1.6 sedan is a whole lot cheaper than the lowest-cost Versa hatch, the $13,150 1.8 S. But compared apples-to-apples to a 1.8 S sedan, the cheapest Versa hatch carries a mere $50 premium over the sedan. As a hatchback lover, I want to damn Ford for not offering a hatchback Fiesta for less than $15k. On the other hand, with so few hatchback options on the market, I can understand why Ford would want to squeeze more cash out of weirdos like me who crave hatches possibly because nobody else does. But has Ford taken the hatchback premium too far?

I was watching the classic British gangster film “The Long Good Friday” the other day. For those not in the know, it’s a story about how Harold Shand, the kingpin gangster of London, struggles to keep his grip in the London underworld when the IRA try to muscle in on his patch. I won’t spoil it for you, but suffice to say, it isn’t pretty. Shortly after watching the film, I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal detailing yet another Toyota quality problem. From Floormatgate to the 110,000 Tundras which allegedly rust prematurely, to this most recent headline, “Corolla and Matrix face U.S safety probe,” there’s clearly something rotten in Toyota City. Much like the aforementioned Harold Shand, Toyota built an empire on the foundation of quality and reliability, but now, subsidence and rot are affecting that foundation. The question for the Best and Brightest is this: Are Toyota in danger of losing their crown of quality and reliability in the minds of consumers? Or are these recent cases statistical outliers that car buyers take for granted?

If there’s a word to describe the feeling inside GM right now, it would be “nervous.” Though nobody was surprised that Fritz Henderson would leave at some point, it’s clear that his ouster was strangely timed and indicative of Ed Whitacre’s desire for rapid results. In an instant, Whitacre public image went from Iacocca-wannabe-pitchman to hard-charging Texas executive, seemingly defined by (get this) his penchant for killing rattlesnakes by pinning them with a stick and crushing their heads with a rock. So vivid is this metaphor, that according to Businesweek‘s David Welch, a number of GM executives actually offered their resignations to Whitacre immediately following the Henderson’s canning. Though Whitacre declined to let the bloodletting continue, a number of commentators now appear to believe that Whitacre wants to run GM himself. Though pay caps will be the easy excuse for not finding a new CEO, the board of director’s activism in clashing with Henderson over the Opel sale could discourage other executives from even considering the job. Moreover, Whitacre’s history of taking over companies and molding them in his image is well-established from his time at SBC/AT&T. So, will Ed Whitacre drop the pretense and the word “interim” from his title, or is he really just clearing the way for someone else?

As I noted yesterday, the intersection of automobiles and politics is a difficult area of analysis. In the United States, where motorists don’t face the daily challenges they do in Russia, discussions of politics in an automotive forum too often gets overwhelmed by larger political battles. Before you know it, a conversation about the future of electric cars can turn into a debate on military and foreign policy, and an auto-industry bailout can be justified by virtue of its small size relative to the bank bailout. In short, everything happens within a context, and politics is all about context. TTAC has always waded into political issues based on their relevance to cars, motorists, consumers and the industry, and we’ve held some fascinating explorations of political topics ranging from red-light and speed cameras and foreign oil dependence to anthropogenic climate change, bailouts and pay-per-mile tax schemes. In the interest of providing the right balance of big-picture and street-level issues in our coverage, we’re curious: what car-related political issues fascinate, concern or perplex you most?

After the 1 series, BMW pretty much committed themselves to the smallest car, because it was the smallest number, they were going to make under the BMW marque. Or did they? You see, there is actually another number lower than 1 and BMW plan to release a series of cars based on that number. Now we’ve known this for some time, but Car-Chat.info put forward a very real scenario. Since the 0 series will be smaller than the 1 series, that means it will go head to head with BMW’s other marque, the Mini. Now, one could be optimistic and say that 2 cars under different brands could grab a bigger slice of the market or, one could be realistic and say that cannibalisation is afoot. BMW aren’t stupid, which brings forward the very real possibility that BMW could phase out the Mini brand. At top production rates, Mini produce 240000 vehicles a year. That’s niche levels. And who wouldn’t want a BMW badge instead of a Mini? Yes, there may be a few “Italian Job” fans upset and a couple of “Germans kill iconic brand” headlines in the UK gutter press, but when you think about it, it kind of makes sense. At least as long as a front-wheel drive BMW doesn’t strike you as too blasphemous (and BMW doesn’t seem to have a problem crossing that Rubicon). So now TTAC posits a question to the B&B: Does the world really need Mini? Are we hanging onto a brand which doesn’t fit viably in the today’s market?  Or is an FWD BMW the real mistake?

As you may have noticed, we’ve been enduring one or two technical challenges since our redesign launched. Rest assured our tech team is working hard to fix them all, and we appreciate your patience as they work to bring back TTAC’s smooth ride and responsive handling. In the meantime, you can help them by reporting specific malfunctions here. And if you need a laugh to lighten your mood, jump over to former TTACer Justin Berkowitz’s hilarious site Metacars (tagline: the most omnipotent name in internet auto news) for a quick giggle. Just come on back real soon now, y’hear?

As in Shiva, The Destroyer. It strikes me—has for some time—that nothing short of Chapter 7 could possibly “save” GM. (The title of GM Death Watch 1: “GM Must Die.”) The underlying idea is simple enough: capitalism is creative destruction. When something sucks, blow it up, start again. If the RenCen Mothership had been allowed to implode, its constituent parts (i.e. the brands, facilities dealers and talent worth saving) would have had a better chance of survival. As it stands now, with Fritz “The Lifer” Henderson and Ed “Everything Looks Like A Nail” Whitacre in charge, New GM is on a bear hunt (stumble trip, stumble trip, stumble trip) and they’re going to catch a big one (total dissolution). Alternatively, it’s like watching an endless, frame-by-frame version of MTV’s Scarred. With apologies to anyone who connects this video to “Buda’s wagon,” my question to TTAC’s Best and Brightest: what else needs blowing-up in the auto industry? The dealer experience is an obvious candidate. I nominate lapdog journalism. You?

Times are tough. Margins are tight. Carmakers are looking for savings anywhere they can. As mechanical work performed by a dealer under a manufacturer’s warranty comes straight off the automaker’s bottom line, it’s not all that surprisingly that we’re getting reports that certain manufacturers (cough Chrysler cough) are dragging their heels on paying for warranty work. In specific, we’re hearing that owners of Cummins diesel-powered Rams are having to stump-up for the cost of engine repairs, as the mothership blames “issues” on driver negligence, poor operating conditions and the knock-out punch “contaminated fuel.” Are you having any trouble getting warranty work on your vehicle(s)?

Ryv asks:

Whenever I read a TTAC car review or read comments I see nothing but complaints of hard plastics and ill fits. It made me wonder, is there some ideal vehicle interior out there being held as the standard to all others? I sat in a Lamborghini Gallardo at last years NAIAS and thought the suede covered dash looked ridiculous – but thats probably the opposite of the hard plastics people complain about. Maybe I am just interior challenged that I don’t notice these things but unless my dash is peeling, and as long as it’s pretty intuitive control wise, it’s appealing. So what is the benchmark interior, the standard that all interiors should strive towards?

There’s a backlash a brewing over Chrysler’s decision to axe its EV and hybrid program. The move makes sense from an business point-of-view; the company doesn’t have enough money to chase sky pie. Politically, it’s all kind of nuts. Lest we forget—and even the normally automotively absent-minded USA Today doesn’t—ChryCo trotted-out alt power vehicles to secure some $12.5 billion (plus) in federal bailout bucks. And while the zombie car company will import the fuel-efficient Fiat 500 to trigger a hidden-at-the-time clause which surrenders more ChryCo control to Fiat upon selling a new, high mileage vehicle in the U.S., that precious little jewel is NOT what the democratic party’s four-wheeled-oriented tree huggers had in mind. Surely pretending to continue develop the battery-powered vaporware would have been the better bet. That way, when Chrysler returns to the federal trough, they could have played the green card. Now? Fuhgeddaboutit. Which only leaves the jobs card, vs. popular sentiment against more bailout bucks. Methinks the move to kill the ENVI program means that Chrysler is doomederer than before. You?

Ford’s announcement today that the new global Ranger won’t be coming to the US sure seems like a head-scratcher. Though Automotive News [sub] quotes Ford’s Alan Mulally as saying the Ford Ka won’t be sold stateside because “our view is that Fiesta is about the smallest vehicle that we think will be a real success in the United States,” there’s no similar reason given for the absence of a modern compact pickup from Ford’s lineup. Or anyone else’s lineup, for that matter. The Canyon/Colorado are going out of production since the Shreveport, LA, plant is part of Old GM liquidation Corp. The Dodge, er, make that Ram Dakota will die next year according to the new plans at Chrysler. The Tacoma is no longer properly compact, and Volkswagen’s Brazilian “Robust” won’t be coming here either. Hell, even the latter-day El Camino was stillborn. But if my flu-addled memory serves me correctly, didn’t compact pickups help pull the US market out of one of its last great downturns? Why is it that nobody is giving this segment the time of day?

Last week Toyota followed the lead of Renault, Honda and BMW and bid adieu to Formula 1 racing. The Financial Times pins Toyota’s decision not only on financial belt tightening, and on the notion that racing just doesn’t move the metal in times of increasing environmental concern. When Leonardo DiCapro becomes the inspiration for an electric car and NASCAR talks about moving from carburetors to fuel injection to save some gas , you know something is afoot. Automakers and part suppliers have been backing away from the racing for many months now. Earlier this year both Subaru and Suzuki exited World Rally Championship racing and Bridgestone recently announced it’s giving up being Formula 1’s exclusive tire supplier.

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