Bloomberg is reporting that GM CEO Fritz Henderson will meet with Toyota President Akio Toyoda this August, and that a GM rebadge of the Prius could be on the agenda. “Two people familiar with the plan” confirm the Prius angle, and with the death of the Pontiac Vibe, GM certainly has to figure out what it will do with its NUMMI capacity which it shares with Toyota. “Having a stronger line-up is an urgent matter for GM,” says Yoshihiro Okumura of Chiba-gin Asset Management Co. “Demand will continue to shift to small cars.” But neither automaker will even confirm that plans for an executive meeting of the minds is on the table. Moreover, as Jim Hall of 2953 Analytics points out, “Toyota is not normally in the practice of giving away the crown jewels.” On the other hand, GM has recently canceled its only hybrid car, the Malibu Hybrid, and the sale of Saturn to Penske will further cut into its hybrid offerings.

UPDATE: Our Frank Williams points out a GM press release that just hit the wires which says “As part of its long-term viability plan, General Motors has decided that its ownership stake in the New United Motor Manufacturing Incorporated (NUMMI) joint venture with Toyota will not be a part of the ‘New GM.’” The plot thickens.

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Aston Martin is thinking small. In what has to be the ne plus ultra in brand dilution, they will offer the “Cygnet” in 2010. And what, you ask, is a Cygnet? It’s a rebadged Toyota iQ. No, I really didn’t make that up. According to Bloomberg, James Bond’s favorite autobuilder will sell a “luxury commuter” based on Toyota’s three-seater one-liter city car. It’ll be built in Japan and sell (somewhere) for a yet-undisclosed price. Let’s just hope the Cygnet doesn’t mark Aston Martin Lagonda Ltd.’s swan song.

Ever since Porsche debuted the Cayenne, Porschephiles have heatedly debated where it fits into Porsche’s branding strategy—or if it should even exist. When SPEEDtv.com Editor in Chief Tom Jensen reviewed the Porsche Cayenne Turbo, he declared that the four-wheel-drive trucklet is a “true Porsche.” He states that “the Cayenne Turbo is absolutely faithful to Porsche’s core values of performance, quality and competency” and is therefore worthy of Porsche-hood. Despite its ungainly exterior, early reviews of the heavyweight four-door Porsche Panamera make the same claim. (Autoblog: “Not only is it painstakingly engineered and truly enjoyable to drive… most importantly, the all-new Panamera has earned the right to wear the Porsche badge.”) So what say you? What makes a Porsche a Porsche? With the “independent” sports car maker on the brink of losing its independence, has the fabled Porsche brand finally lost the plot?

GM is walking away from its Saturn Vue and Pontiac Torrent Theta-based CUVs, bringing its Thetan, uh, Theta CUV levels to just the Equinox and the SRX. And the just released GMC Terrain. And the forthcoming Saab 9-4X. And now a clay model of a Buick Theta CUV has surfaced on CBS’s Early Show, along with rumors of a 2012 launch (and dual-mode hybrid version). Assuming the Saturn Vue is sold for a few more years by the Penske boyz, and the Suzuki XL7 soldiers on a bit longer, we’re looking at the prospect of  seven versions of the same platform in one market.  Re:invention or déjà vu?

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According to the Freep, Fiat’s Sergio Marchionne is planning on running its Alfa Romeo right at the heart of the established import luxury market. With an LX-platform 169 sedan (still an acknowledged maybe) and a “GTX” version of the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee. This is in line with Global Insight‘s breakdown of the Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep/Fiat/Alfa-Romeo empire. Got brands?

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Why did 44 percent of “nearly 1,700” CarGurus respondents prefer Pontiac to other leading discontinued GM brands? Beats me. Save Hummer and merge it with Chrysler’s “Peapod Mobility,” say I. Call it a monument to the industry. It’s the only way things could become any more, well, weird. The results of the survey were published on Ad Age yesterday. And then today, while Fritz Henderson was performing his weekly new-media ablutions, he had to go and crush the dreams of (nearly) 7480 people. Ad Age’s Jean Halliday asked, “Why can’t Pontiac be sold? Why are you just eliminating it?” and Henderson replied, “we have had success in discussions with buyers re hummer, saab and saturn, but in the end we did not see the same potential to be honest for pontiac.” Ouch. To compound the weirdness, Henderson dismissed the notion that Pontiac’s G8 would be moved to another brand by saying, “I am not a fan of rebadging.” Unless it’s called “interbuildability.” Which would have, could have allowed the G8 to be a real American muscle car (no offense to the Aussies).

If we’ve learned anything from animated cats over the last several decades, it’s that opposites can attract (and that music video directors get all the good drugs). But if there are serious doubts among analysts about the Fiat-Chrysler hookup, imagine what they’re saying about the Saab-Koenigsegg deal. After all, the buying firm sells one-of-a-kind cars for a cool million dollars a pop while the purchased firm can’t sell reworked GM offerings at zero-percent interest. Is there something rotten in the state of Sweden?

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Swedish supercar firm Koenigsegg has signed a letter of intent to purchase Saab, reports Reuters. “Final negotiations about details on the deal will go on in the next months.” Meanwhile, imagine the synergies. On the one hand, 1,000 hp+ supercars, on the other the 9-5. High tech plutocrats and befuddled history professors shopping under one roof. How do you say schizophrenia in Swedish? Speaking of crazy, who else is dying to know how much Saab is being purchased for? Or is this one of those Marchionne-style, no-money-down deals?

The NYT Wheels blog has connected the dots between Fiat and Tata, and have concluded that the Nano could eventually be sold through Fiat at US Chrysler dealers. Tata and FIat have already discussed the possibility of selling the Nano in “markets where Fiat has already a strong presence.” Since the Nano is officially coming stateside in 2011, perhaps they decided that “where Chrysler has already a presence” is close enough. The Times mentions that Fiat’s Sergio Marchionne likes to talk about a Fiat budget brand, and suggests that Autobianchi might be a fun monikker to dust off. But why not just call it a Dodge or Chrysler? Since the 500 is going to be the only Fiat headed stateside, Tata’s volkswagen will either suit up in ChryCo colors or lock the dealer net into open competition with Roger Penske’s Wide World Of Cars. “Come on down folks! A car from every continent!” We now return you to the rescue of the American auto industry, already in progress.

Adding to the wild uncertainty surrounding Chrysler’s situation is the revalation that Fiat may can the firm’s eponymous brand. In a piece on Chrysler’d ad budget flexibility, Automotive News [sub] paraphrases a “source close to discussions” as saying that “Fiat is already studying whether to keep the Dodge, Jeep and Chrysler brands and might well eliminate the last.” A Chrysler spokeswoman reveals that “although she herself had heard that talk, it’s premature to speculate on whether it will happen.” Chrysler executives themselves considered killing off the Chrysler brand earlier this year but finally opted to keep it.

Automotive News [sub] reports that Tata plans on bringing a version of its Nano subcompact to the US market “in about two years.” About? “Maybe two years and six months,” equivocated Tata chairman Ratan Tata at the Cornell Global Forum on Sustainable Enterprise. But the Indian firm faces at least one major challenge: where to sell the thing. Jaguar/Land Rover North America spokesfolks say that “Tata will not use Jaguar Land Rover’s distribution network and vice versa.” For obvious reasons. The Nano boasts none of the small-but-premium appeal of BMW’s MINI or Chrysler’s forthcoming Fiat 500. So where will it sell? Roger Penske’s Saturn World Market? Global Vehicles U.S.A.’s 330-strong Mahindra distribution network? Wal-Mart?

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According to Chrysler’s bankruptcy papers, the Viper business was offered for $10 million and only drew a single $5.5 million bid. In short, “no offers meeting the Company’s basic requirements for the sale of Viper assets were submitted.” But Rep. Darrel Issa [R-CA] doesn’t buy (so to speak) the non-sale. In a letter to Chrysler, Issa reveals that a Michigan-based investor group offered $35 million for Viper this year and was negotiating terms before Chrysler’s bankruptcy. According to the Freep, these unnamed investors even entered discussions with the state of Louisiana. Now Issa is asking Chrysler to disclose all of its documents relating to the Viper business. Feistily. “If it is the case that Fiat used its ‘hard-fought’ superior bargaining position to establish as a condition of the merger a requirement that Chrysler allow the Viper brand to disappear in order to reduce competition for Ferrari, this too must be presented to the court.” Competition? Ferrari? $35 million? It’s hard to decide what part of this story is least plausible.

Automotive News [sub] cites two reports that Hummer will be puchased by Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co of Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China. Sichuan Tengzhong does not currently build cars or trucks, focusing on road and maintenance equipment. No word yet on the agreed-upon price. Meanwhile, GM tells the AP that it is currently entertaining offers from no fewer than 16 interested parties for its Saturn brand. Hey, I want Saturn too . . . better make that 17.

This from Fiat spokesfolks speaking with Automotive News [sub]. “The Fiat 500 — we see that, like the Mini[sic], as a sort of boutique car that we think we can sell in good numbers on the East and West coasts in the same way that Mini has been successful in the U.S.,” he tells AN. Interestingly though, the 500 will also be the only Fiat-badged vehicle in the new generation of Fiatsler products. But, says the Fiat source, “there is a misconception out there that Chrysler is going to build the Fiat Bravo, just stick a different badge on it. They will be Chrysler products. They will be specific to Chrysler. The vehicle architectures will be based on our stuff, and there will be some powertrains. The vehicles will be U.S. vehicles, designed for U.S. customers by a U.S. company.”