And that $60m does NOT include Bill Ford's deferred tens of millions. Anyway, United Auto Workers (UAW) Boss Big Ron Gettelfinger is not well pleased with Ford suits' '07 compensation– given his members' buyouts, two-tier wage deals and all. Automotive News [sub] gives the inside skinny on FoMoCo exec compensation for their five top talents and it certainly seems a touch… generous. Ford CEO Al Mulally is the conductor on the bank laughter express, pulling down $21.7m including "salary, bonuses, company-recognized expense for stock options and other stock awards, plus other compensation such as vehicle and travel expenses. CFO Don Leclair was Ford's second-highest paid executive, earning $11.7 million in total compensation… Americas President Mark [Tool Time] Fields was paid a total of $8.4 million. That included $1.3 million in salary and $2.9 million in incentive bonus awards." Apparently, Gettelfinger considers the pay-outs "excessive and unjustified." Well, The Blue Oval Boyz did lose $2.7b during the payment period. 

Bloomberg reports parts maker Delphi's exit from bankruptcy has hit a snag. Appaloosa Management, one of the six investors working to get the former GM parts division out of Chapter 11, backed out of the deal. In the termination notice, Appaloosa claimed Delphi didn't meet the conditions of the $2.55b deal. Oh, and they asked for a $82.5m "breakup fee." It's not an entirely unexpected development; Appaloose had not been happy with GM's expanded role in the Delphi's exit strategy. They felt the automaker would have too much power as a result. When GM offered even more money to help cover Delphi's $3.8b pension fund shortfall, it was the proverbial straw/camel thing. Appaloosa indicated that they're still open to investing, but "in a capacity different than currently envisioned by the agreement." 

UPDATE – General Motors released a statement on this matter: "GM is disappointed in the decision by Appaloosa and the plan investors to withdraw their support for Delphi. There has been a tremendous amount of effort and progress made to establish the foundation that would enable Delphi to emerge from Chapter 11. GM will continue to work with the involved parties to facilitate Delphi’s efforts to emerge from bankruptcy." Meanwhile, the lawyers…

Auto Motor Und Sport reports that Toyota boss Katsuaki Watanabe has told German TV that his company will decide by the end of the year whether or not to introduce an entry-level model for the developing world. Watanabe revealed that Toyota has been working for two years now on development of the entry-level model, but that more work has yet to take place. "Success in developing markets like Brazil, Russia, India and China are the keys to growth for the entire industry," says Watanabe-san. He sees developing markets as an issue of decisive importance to the industry on par with the environment, energy and safety. The "interplay of cost and quality" is the major unresolved issue in the proposed entry-level car, meaning we don't yet know if ToMoCo has the Tata Nano in its sights, or if it is aiming higher to protect the brand's reputation for quality. We'll be watching.

Plastech is working on bankruptcy financing to keep the company afloat through the summer. However, instead of going to traditional lenders, they're going hat-in-hand to their customers for an $80m line of credit. The Detroit Free Press reports Johnson Controls, Inc. (JCI), GM, FoMoCo and Chrysler are expected to share the pain to ensure a steady flow of plastic parts to their assembly plants through the summer. Experts say the loans are a smart move, as the cost of the loan would be less than the cost of stopping an assembly line due to a parts shortage. At the same time, some of Plastech's other lenders are talking with JCI about the possibility of them buying Plastech's interior component operations. Plastech is preparing its customers for the possibility they could go out of business by building a bank of parts. Watch this space as the continuing soap opera unfolds.

GM must have a lot more cash laying around than they're letting on. The Wall Street Journal [sub]  reports The General is thinking seriously about taking on more of Delphi's pension liabilities on top of the $1.5b they've already agreed to assume. In an SEC filing last month, Delphi stated their pension fund is short about $3.8b; how much of that extra $2.3b GM is thinking about taking on is anyone's guess. However, experts say getting the pension money from their sugar daddy will grease the skids for six major investors who had planned to pump $2.55 into the company. The investors are threatening to take their money and run if Delphi can't get everything straightened out by Friday, so expect GM to act quickly. Then all Delphi has to do is come up with $6.1b in debt financing to exit Chapter 11. Piece o' cake!

A recent survey of U.S. auto industry executives by law firm Dykema Gossett and reported in the Detroit News shows that the corporate office boys prefer John McCain for president. Seventy percent of the 46 executives polled chose McCain, although no candidate was seen as "pro-automotive." "Respondents do not broadly point to McCain as having a solid pro-automotive record," says the report. "Instead they tend to emphasize the anti-automotive and anti-business messages they associate with Clinton and Obama." The "most important issues" list is topped by energy policy, followed by tax increases and the green movement. Curiously, only 11 percent of respondents said state-by-state attempts to exceed federal automotive regulations were their top concern, although for many that may have fallen under the nebulous "green movement" issue. The most telling stat of all? Not a single respondent was optimistic about prospects for the industry, with a whopping 87 percent expressing a negative outlook. At least you can't call them completely oblivious.

In February, we told you Chrysler was outsourcing some of its IT to Tata Consultantcy Services (yep, relation!). At that time, Chrysler Chief Information Officer Jan Bertsch promised to "keep [the employees] apprised of the outcomes of our efforts." Well, now the Detroit Free Press tells the rest of us what some of those "outcomes" are: people got fired. Everyone knew it was the plan, but now it's happened.  Chrysler is outsourcing 200 of its full-time employees, some 20 percent of its IT workforce. Ms Bertsch explains: "we thought a year ago that rather than try to cost-cut continually over time, we wanted to step back and look at our business and say, 'Where do we really need to move to service our customers better?'" Without over-analyzing that little insight into the Chrysler management paradigm, this means that recently-signed contracts with Tata and Computer Sciences Corp will eliminate the need for in-house mainframe and computer technology service. No word on how much Chrysler is saving, but Ms Bertsch assures us that "We would have never embarked on this scale of a project had the savings not been substantial." Not to worry though. "Some people will stay, some people will leave and some people will be interviewing with the new provider and perhaps be offered a position with them," purrs the "Chief (Orwellian) Information Officer." Aw.

The International Herald Tribune quotes unnamed sources who are "not authorized to comment publicly on the matter" as saying that ToMoCo may double its stake in Fuji Heavy Industries, makers of Subaru vehicles. Toyota currently owns 8.7 percent of Fuji, and would be looking to spend some $295m to raise its stake to 17 percent. "Toyota wants to mitigate the risk of building new plants by utilizing Fuji Heavy's facilities both in Japan and the United States," says Seiji Sugiura, an analyst at HSBC Securities. "Other automakers would also want to reduce risks for each other by boosting ties, even if that wouldn't amount to mergers and acquisitions." According to reports from the Nikkei business daily, Toyota may be looking to subcontract its subcompacts (say that ten times fast) to a Japanese Fuji plant, and jointly develop a sports car and environmentally-friendly technologies. Toyota has said it will not increase its stake in Fuji beyond 20 percent, keeping the relationship with Fuji as a partner rather than a subsidiary.

David Kiley of Business Week (via MSNBC) dives into the CAFE issue, and in the process rounded up a wild-and-woolly collection of quotables from some of the biz' top bosses. The biggest news comes from Chrysler's Jim Press, who claims that that when he was at Toyota "the Japanese government paid for 100% of the development of the battery and hybrid system that went into the Toyota Prius." Although the revelation reeks of Japan Inc. business/government collusion, let's remember that our own government funneled over a billion to U.S. automakers at around the same time through the Partnership For A New Generation of Vehicles. The fact that the American people got little more than three concept cars is hardly the fault of the Japanese government or Toyota. Still, Press' revelation does shed some light on Toyota's current dominance of the hybrid market. Meanwhile, Bob Lutz continues to symbolize America's inability to meet the new demand for efficiency. In the same piece, Lutz unveiled the next generation of "Maximum Sticker Shock" for the forthcoming Chevy Volt: a cool $48k. Get some perspective on that number here.

It's one of those stories that makes you remember it's April Fools Day. The Free Press is reporting that Chrysler has cut life insurance to 14,000 white-collar retirees, offering a one-time pension increase in return. Chrysler will pay out $1k-4k to its non-union retirees, depending on time of service and length of time since retirement. Chrysler VP for Compensation, Benefits and Corporate Services (oxymoron, anyone?) Thomas Hadrych explains that Chrysler looked at the practices of other Forbes 1,000 companies and found that only 60 percent offered retiree life insurance. "This is in part a reaction to kind of our own internal situation, but it's also a reaction to what the competitive landscape across the full spectrum of companies in America offers," says Hadrych. As if this weren't a compelling enough reason to pull the rug out from under retirees, Hadrych also has an upcoming UAW payout to blame. Hell, he even made a call to MetLife on behalf of the recently-cut-off. "The company has made arrangements with MetLife to provide current retirees with a one-time opportunity to purchase life insurance at special group rates through the MetLife Voluntary Retiree Life Insurance Plan," says Hadrych, suggesting retirees use their one-time payout to buy insurance there. As cold-blooded as this all sounds, it's obvious that Chrysler has to cut somewhere. The fact that retirees don't build cars might be a sign that Chrysler actually does care more about cars than PR.

GM may have hit their breaking point in the UAW-American Axle strike. Automotive News [sub] reports The General is moving "a small but important parts contract" from American Axle (AA) to Dana Holding Corp. The contract is for 30k prop shafts for light trucks which Dana says they can start supplying "in a matter of weeks." Given the volume of parts GM needs to keep their factories running, a contract for 30k items doesn't sound like much and in the grand scheme of things, it isn't. But it does represent a warning shot across AA's bow, letting them know their biggest customer isn't happy and they aren't the only parts supplier in town. Now that AA stands to lose contracts because of the strike, you can bet CEO Dick Dauch will take action, most likely shifting more production to Mexican plants.

As the "R"-word unfolds and American car demand plummets, Nissan will be idling Mexican production of its Versa and Sentra models. Reuters reports that the Nissan factory at Aguascalientes was shuttered last Friday, and will remain offline for seven days this month. The plant built an average of 26,000 vehicles per month last year, but will scale back work relative to American demand. Automobile manufacture is a mainstay of Mexico's industrial sector, and weakness in American car sales are expected to have a major impact on the Mexican economy. Although Mexican production grew rapidly in the first quarter of this year despite sluggish demand, plant idlings can be expected throughout the rest of the year, as the American economy goes through what is expected to be a particularly rough patch. Of course, if you own a '98 model year vehicle, you might still be able to get a factory trade-in…

Human Resource Executive Online points out that the new Detroit "easy-fix" of buying out workers with pension-fund money might not be the greatest strategy ever. Chrysler and GM have both recently offered worker buyout packages, with money from overfunded pension accounts. The strategy is attractive, as workers can defer taxes on pension fund payouts to their 401k accounts, and corporate can keep their cash position intact. But overfunded pension accounts never stay overfunded for long, and observers say that intense market volatility makes now a bad time to risk underfunded pension liabilities. "The [Chrysler] fund is probably overfunded because of the over-inflated value of the stock or securities that have been invested," says Gerald Myers, business professor at the University of Michigan and former chairman of American Motors. "Now that the stock market and the real estate market is [sic] going down, it's not unlikely [the pension fund] will be underfunded in short order." Meanwhile, labor relations consultant Bill Adams of Adams, Nash, Haskell & Sheridan believes that buyouts in general merely mask major workforce problems. "The automaker is stomping on the ants, and the bears are walking off with the picnic," says Adams. "They can't dump the relationship with the UAW [so] they're going out of business and delaying the inevitable." Man does that truth hurt sometimes.

Fact: Jaguar sold 54k cars last year. Fact: Jaguar sold 70k cars in 2006. Fact: Just-auto [via Motor Authority] says Jaguar sales "could potentially double within the next couple of years." How's that? "Forecasts compiled by just-auto map out Jag's production future for its four main models – the X-type, XF, XK and XJ – and foresee volume rising to a more sustainable number closer to the magical 100,000 mark." Sorry, but no fucking way. But wait, there's more! "Possible new models in the Jag product plan, which await the green light from Tata, could further lift this figure towards 150,000 by 2012/2013" The XJ is an albatross and the X-type is the brand's cancerous Achilles Heel. I'm just going to start playing it their way. I'm predicting that Chrysler is going to launch an unspecified new model at some future date and they will sell more cars than Toyota. Like, lots more. In the future. Lamborghini, too. Man, this is fun. Hey Farago, where's my check?