AutoNation boss Mike Jackson has long been the front runner to inherit Bob Lutz’s mantle as the most opinionated guy in the car business, and recently he’s been moving to lock up the distinction. Jackson recently gave the world the concept of the gas price “freak-out point” as well as delivering memorable quips on “green car” demand (while calling for higher gas prices), and has been outspoken about the industry’s struggles with “push” production, oversupply, fleet dependence and more. And now he’s laid out what may very well be the basis for a solid “car guy consensus” for political progress on safety issues. Autoobserver reports:

The main points of Jackson’s outline to improve road safety: 1) Make text-messaging illegal – and since that’s unlikely to make much difference, install technology to block text messages in moving vehicles; 2) Raise the gasoline tax to fund safety-enhancing and congestion-reducing traffic-management technology, including intelligent road signals and total automation of toll collection; 3) Get serious about lane discipline by restricting trucks to right-hand lanes and passing only in the left lane.

Can I get an “Amen”? Politics are one of the most divisive issues in American life, and TTAC struggles with the inevitable polarization caused by political topics every day… so hats off to Jackson for solidifying a non-partisan agenda that all (or at least most) car guys can get behind.

Who would be stupid enough to buy a brand-new “CUV” and then drive it across a four-foot-deep stream? Surely, dear readers, you already know the answer to that. My Freelander was actually a capable little fellow off-road despite being fundamentally a jacked-up 1994 Civic with a creeper first gear.

More importantly, who would be stupid enough to believe that Tata would retain all Jaguar and Land Rover production in Great Britain, when a limitless supply of cheap labor is just a continent away?

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When Nissan introduced a six-speed manual transmission for its Sentra SE-R, Chiat did a really cute ad campaign called Master Of The Sixth Speed to trumpet the fact. For many years, a “6” on the gearshift was the sign of a serious performance car (or the serious diesel pickup which towed it.) The original mass-market six-speeders were all serious business: the Viper, the autocross-conquering L98 Corvette, and, of course, the Porsche 964. The Viper would have been fine with four forward gears, as would the ‘Vette, but the relatively peaky 3.6 non-Varioram Porker did benefit from having the shorter spaces between ratios.

Now that base Hyundai Accents and Kia Rios offer their owners a chance to become “masters of the sixth speed”, however, Porsche has decided to up the ante.

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Though the auto bailout is being widely defended in the political realm as a jobs-saving measure, the industry sees the rescue’s value in precisely the opposite light, as industry and supplier execs rate “capacity rationalization” as the most positive effect of the bailout. And, reports Automotive News [sub], Ford and GM could still end up cutting as many as six more plants over the next few years as questions linger about volume recovery in the larger market. Of the three GM plants likely to be shut down, the former Saturn plant at Spring Hill, TN, is the most likely to survive as it includes a paint shop, a small engine plant and associated parts manufacturing facilities. In contrast, analysts note that GM’s Janesville, WI, plant is the firm’s oldest and is therefore far less likely to survive, and its Shreveport, LA, compact truck plant is part of “Old GM” and will likely be liquidated. Similarly, Ford’s Ranger plant in Minnesota, as well as its Avon, OH Econoline plant and its Flat Rock, MI Mustang plant could face shutdowns. Ranger is running out of production, Econoline has been losing share to Ford’s more-efficient Transit Connect, and Mustang has been losing market share to Camaro while facing a Mazda pullout from the Flat Rock plant.

Because GM is adding jobs at other plants, the net job loss from its three likely shutdowns (two of which are currently idle) could be relatively low, but then cost savings aren’t likely to match those accrued by past shutdowns either. Ford, meanwhile, is facing a bit more disruption if Mazda pulls out of Flat Rock, but could accrue more savings than GM as only the Ranger plant is scheduled to lose its production. In any case, the UAW will have to weigh its desire to keep plants open with its desire to mitigate the inequity of the two-tier wage system… as well as its desire to gain board seats. All of which could make the UAW’s upcoming bargaining session (not to mention the political debate about the auto bailout) much more interesting…

Volkswagen is thinking about moving production of its Tiguan trucklet to North America. Plans for the move are being discussed by Wolfsburg management, the German magazine Wirtschaftswoche reports. Read More >

About two months ago, we heard that Chrysler’s “prototype” Motor Village dealership in the Los Angeles area had been hit with a complaint [PDF] from the California New Car Dealer’s association, arguing that it violated state laws against manufacturer-owned dealerships. The store, a test bed for what Chrysler terms “new retail concepts,” is in fact a partnership between Chrysler and LaBrea ChryslerJeep, making it appear to fit a legal loophole allowing OEM partnerships in retail ventures. But the CNCDA argues that Chrysler is undercharging for rent on the dealership building which it owns, and according to Automotive News [sub], the California Department of Motor Vehicle’s New Motor Vehicle Board just voted unanimously to open a formal investigation into the situation. And the stakes couldn’t be much higher, as AN reports:

If the DMV finds that Chrysler violated state law, the automaker could have its business license in California suspended or revoked.

Ruh-Roh!

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“Based on the information we have, it looks like we will start up production tomorrow,” Saab spokeswoman Gunilla Gustavs told Reuters today. That’s called a double hedge in the propaganda business.

But based on the information TTAC has, it looks like production will indeed take place on Friday. On Friday, an important visitor will come to Trollhättan: Pangda Chief Executive Pang Qinghua, with entourage. Today, Pang is in Stockholm for a chit-chat with Enterprise Minister Maud Olofsson and the Swedish debt office. Their goodwill is needed to admit Pangda as an investor in Saab. And the Minister has a busy schedule … Read More >

The “B5” Passat, which signaled the beginning of Volkswagen’s brief but luminous arc of twenty-first-century success in the United States, was priced at $20,750 including destination charge. For that kind of money, the buyers, of which your humble author was one, received a 1.8T engine, full-sized interior room, German assembly, and a fabulous set of luxurious appointments which usually did not completely self-destruct until the car reached its fourth or fifth birthday. It was a gorgeous game-changer of a car and for many people the juice of the driving experience was worth the painful squeeze of frequent dealings with VW’s “service” departments.

Fourteen years later, the price is the same — $20,765 including destination — but the game has definitely changed.

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The release of A Road Forward: The Report of the Toyota North American Quality Advisory Panel [PDF], probably raised a few eyebrows around the industry this week, particularly at the headquarters of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers in Washington D.C… but not for any obvious reason. The report’s findings about Toyota’s internal reforms in the wake of last year’s recall scandal aren’t particularly mind-bending, and are well summarized in an introductory passage

First, the Panel believes Toyota needs to continue to adjust its balance between global and local control giving weight to local control in order to improve its communication and speed in responding to quality and safety issues. Second, the Panel believes that Toyota needs to ensure that it listens and responds as positively to negative external feedback as it does to negative internal feedback. Third, the Panel believes that Toyota must persist in more clearly distinguishing safety from quality and continue its efforts to enhance its safety practices and procedures.

In addition to identifying specific areas for improvement, the report places a heavy emphasis on “the leadership of Toyota’s top executives as they navigate the road forward, as well as the company’s leadership in the industry” as a way to avoid the traps it fell into prior to the recall scandal. And this emphasis on leadership could have some interesting effects…

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Those of you who are not stupid well-connected enough to have a bunch of autojournos in your Twitter and Facebook friend lists are missing out on all the, er, coverage coming from the “Midwestern NAMBLA pump n’ dump for morbidly obese auto journalists” track event going on today. Let me give you the precis. It turns out all these cars are ZOMG AEWSUM and track records are falling left and right as America’s finest drivers deliver Vic Elfordian levels of all-weather punishment upon them. No word on whether the Midwestern journo who cracked up a MINI at Autobahn and followed it up by driving off the first corner at MAMA’s event a few years back has caused his usual mayhem.

Expect this event to provide many tales of “pushing it to the limit” in the soul-crushing months to come. In the meantime, however, we’ve found an activity which is well-suited to the banzai buffet beasts out there: manned crash testing.

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Yesterday, Volkswagen finally inaugurated its new plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee and ended the 23 year hiatus since its New Stanton, Pennsylvania factory was closed in 1988. At the Chattanooga plant, more than 2,000 employees will be able to produce up to 150,000 vehicles per year. Read More >

Oh, BMW. You so crazy.

What’s a BMW 5-Series “GT” anyway? Apparently, it’s a stretched Five body, plus hatchback, on the basic platform of the 7 Series. It’s cheaper than a “Siebener” while being bigger and uglier than the Five. It also fails to provide much of a wagon’s utility. Nevertheless, the GT was supposed to be a hot-selling “segment buster” for BMW, along with the similarly offensive-looking X6.

Turns out that the GT isn’t selling, and the people who do buy it are Bimmer diehards choosing it over a purchase of the more expensive Seven. Meanwhile, there’s a real 5-Series wagon coming for the rest of the world. What should BMW do?

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The auto media has been receiving its advance copies of Bob Lutz’s forthcoming book “Car Guys versus Bean Counters” over the last few weeks, and have been leaking some of the more provocative statements and conclusions from it. I too requested a book and tore through it over the past week, enjoying Lutz’s direct voice and keen insights into his time at General Motors… as well as the attention-grabbing, politically-charged statements that the rest of the media seems so fixated upon. The bad news is that I won’t be able to write a full review until we get closer to its mid-June launch date, but the good news is that our forbearance has been rewarded: despite sideswiping yours truly in one passage, a brief but rewarding email conversation has generated more mutual respect, and Mr Lutz has agreed (in principle) to a TTAC interview to accompany our review at the time of the book’s release. Sometimes observing an embargo is worth it.

But fear not: just because the promise of an interview with one of the most influential figures in the industry has us delaying our review for another month or so, we’ve got more Lutz-related material with which to build up to what I expect to be a watershed interview for TTAC. Next week I’ll be publishing a review of Mr Maximum’s previous book “Guts,” and to kick of the coming months of Lutzmania, we’ve got a very special contest that is sure to stump even TTAC’s most well-versed Best and Brightest.

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The story goes that an English gentleman was sitting in his London club and noticed that the man reading next to him was David Brown, star-crossed industrialist and owner of Aston Martin.

“Say, old chap,” the fellow asked Brown, “I do quite fancy that motorcar of yours. Don’t suppose you could sell a fellow one of them, do you?”

“Be delighted to,” Brown responded. “Simply have your bank draft me a cheque for forty-two hundred pounds.” The gentleman cleared his throat.

“Well, old chap, since we are both members of the same club, one doesn’t suppose it could be done at cost?”

“I would be even more delighted to,” Brown responded. “Simply have your bank draft me a cheque for fifty-two hundred pounds.”

Feel free to file that story, along with the well-known tales of a young Prince of Wales absolutely dusting his personal bodyguards whilst caning his DBS-V8 through the leafy B-roads of Merrie Olde England, in the dumpster of history where they belong. Today, Aston is simply another reanimated wanna-be luxury brand chasing the favor of an international class of nouveaus whose breeding and taste make the miniature-giraffe Russian gangster from the Direct TV ads look like Lord Mountbatten. The V-12 Zagato is simply a gilded lure dangled before their nighmarish deep-sea mouths.

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The rise of the Chinese auto market, which only surpassed the US to become the world’s largest in recent years, has drawn considerable attention from China-watchers and industry insiders alike. China’s rampant sales growth has paid huge dividends for firms who gambled on the Chinese market, in turn spurring more investment as every global automaker scrambles for access to China’s rapidly-developing market. As a result of several years of this gold rush mentality, everyone is now looking for China to stumble, to show the first signs of a bubble ready to burst.And over at Forbes, Handel Jones (the author of Chinamerica: The uneasy partnership that will change the world), thinks he may have found these first signs of slowdown in China’s auto production numbers.

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