All this talk about the Porsche Panamera over the weekend (review to follow, eventually) had me thinking about automotive desirability. I reckon when you get to a certain price point, all rational considerations disappear in a cloud of Franklins. Anyone who buys a car for over $100,000 or so owns at least another two or five or twelve other vehicles. So they’re not bothered about any one car’s resale value or reliability. Vehicle choice is purely a question of taste. The higher up you go in this pistonhead pantheon, the more true this becomes. So, while anyone contemplating this choice of whips could probably buy both, I’m interested to see which way our Best and Brightest falls. If you had to put one of these in your garage, would you opt for the world’s fastest Bug or the gold-plated Big Mac?
Category: Media
A lot has been written about GM’s dysfunctional corporate culture, much of it here. Thanks to the mean meme, GM CEO Fritz Henderson has been forced to add a bizarre explanation of how a consummate GM insider can reform the sclerotic bureaucracy that vomited him forth. Up? Anyway, Fritz has been hard at it, deigning to dignify ex-Car Czar Bob Lutz’ in-house media mouthpiece (FastLane) with his presence. Yes, well, bully for him. But you have to wonder about the CEO’s promise to create a laser-like focus on New GM’s 34 (count ’em 34) nameplates when the company is creating and abandoning websites like a phishing scheme. Anyone remember GMNext?
After the GSA and Nancy Pelosi’s office turned down TTAC’s request for a breakdown of the vehicles purchased under the Recovery Act’s Energy-Efficient Federal Motor Vehicle Fleet Procurement program, we went all FOIA. The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has now released the info to us (as it should, transparency for the program is promised here). We’ve published the list after the jump, formatting the data by model, number purchased, country of assembly and fuel economy. Exactly 11,319 of the 17,205 vehicles purchased were assembled in the USA. [NB: I’ve provided fuel economy numbers for base versions with automatic transmissions, as per typical fleet practice.]
Our man Baruth has driven both the re-refreshed Taurus and the new Taurus SHO. I’ve got one word for his report: embargo. And another: Monday. Yes, TTAC now “respects” long-lead product-related embargoes. In other words, if a car maker invites us to test drive a new product, we’ll agree to stay schtum until they decide it’s OK to publish our review. Or the embargo breaks down. Galled as I am at our own collusion, I’m reversing our stance on the buff-book-protecting manufacturer–media conspiracy of silence for two reasons. First, it will have no impact on the content of our reviews. (We will always reveal the manufacturer’s contribution to our reviews.) Second, you WANT us on that junket. You NEED us on that junket.
When the Presidential Task Force on Automobiles (PTFOA) fired GM CEO Rick Wagoner, it should have ended any debate whether or not the Obama Administration was in complete control of the soon-to-be-nationalized American automaker. And yet the president and his minions continue to assert that the PTFOA’s ongoing interventions within GM’s administration jibe with their preposterous proclamations about a “hands-off” non-managment, management approach. Although the PTFOA left themselves a supertanker-sized loophole—we’ll only mess with “macro” decisions about GM’s corporate governance—evidence mounts that the 25-member government quango is, as the Brits would say, well in there mate. The latest proof of life arrives via our good friends at Autoline AfterHours. On John McElroy’s vidcast, GM’s VP of sales, service and marketing for North America offered fresh insight into the joys of federal ownership.
While GM works to convince its paymasters that it’s becoming a leaner organization—as opposed to, say, smaller—rest assured that TTAC is about as lean as you can get without chipping a bone. Full-time staff: myself and the ever-dependable Edward Niedermeyer. The rest of TTAC’s team consists of unpaid volunteers: writers and thinkers whose desire to tell the truth about cars supersedes the need for cold, hard cash. Of course, this description also encompasses you, our Best and Brightest. So thanks again for being the heart and soul of the site. And thanks for your e-mails (now to farago@ttac.com). I’ve received hundreds of tips, links and pieces of insider info. And that was just this week. Seriously. I try to answer every email, but stuff slips through the cracks. For that I apologize. And issue a global thank you for all your help (even as I finally delete ancient emails). Please remember I’m inundated, not indifferent. If it’s really important, multiple pings are encouraged. Meanwhile, thank you for your understanding.
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).
Ousted Tesla founder Martin Eberhart pens a paean to the blogosphere over at Tendo Communications‘ blog, arguing (among other things) that “blogging promotes transparency and builds credibility.”
“For blogging to ring true, it needs to be more than an exercise kept up for the sake of appearance. At Tesla, we began with my blog, which provided direct access to the company’s co-founder and CEO. From there, we expanded into a multi-channel approach until we had separate blogs for marketing/sales, engineering, and notable thought leaders/customers. So whether people had questions about the design of a component, the marketing of the Roadster, or what motivated folks to submit deposits, they could expect a straight answer right from the horse’s mouth.”
Unless your CEO happens to be a horse’s ass. Because if your CEO (Elon Musk) runs around spouting nonsense (via CNET) like “a Prius is not a true hybrid, really,” and “I’d like to take up some of [Detroit’s] manufacturing plants. When the mess gets sorted out I’d like to have a conversation with whoever’s in charge,” blogs and bloggers tend to not be so helpful in the “building credibility” department.
The New York Times reports that Buick is using your hard-earned taxes to try to get you to drive beautiful. The new campaign (also at buick.com) asks you to rethink the damaged brand because “[e]verything you thought about Buick just went boom.” Question: how long before Buick goes “poof”? Anyway, what do you make of the new tagline “Take a look at me now”? According Leo Burnett’s general director for advertising and promotion, Buick’s motto is completely unrelated to the Phil Collins song. Yeah, sure. I believe that. But speaking of guilt by association, did anyone at Buick or Leo Burnett actually listen to the song? Sample: “Ooh take a look at me now, well there’s just an empty space. And you coming back to me is against the odds and that’s what I’ve got to face.” Roger that. Just for fun, full lyrics after the jump.
We’ve been quite vocal in our opinion of “Car of the Year” awards such as those sold handed out every year by Motor Trend. Even worse are those awards bestowed by non-automotive rags where a COTY announcement ranks right up there with their pronouncements of the years trendiest sunglasses or the best place for killer mojitos. Yet, for whatever reason, Esquire has decided the world needs yet another of these useless (to everyone but their advertising department) awards.
The Truth About Cars wasn’t founded for the discussion of partisan politics. Thanks to the Motown Meltdown bailout buffet, it just turned out that way. While the intersection of automobiles and ideology has become both inevitable and unavoidable, the discussions centering on political ideology have recently spun OOC. In certain threads, we’re seeing the same endless rounds of right/left blunderbuss action. Even worse, it’s become nasty. As I was away from my desk for 35 seconds yesterday, I missed the onset of the flame wars and, thus, failed to extinguish them. By the time a couple of our Best and Brightest sent a heads-up email, more than a couple of commentators were burning down the house. This morning, I’m in retroactive delete and warn mode. TTAC’s flaming rule is simple: no flaming the website, its authors or fellow commentators. The corollary is this: please keep it as car-related as possible. If you can’t work your way back to the words “and that’s why I’m a Porsche/Corvette/Nissan/Ferrari guy,” you’ve probably gone too far.
This spot (which cribs the Allman Brothers tune that gearheads will recognize as the Top Gear theme) is part of what AdAge describes as the repair chain’s effort to attract customers from closing dealerships. After all, the service department is often where the real money is made at dealerships, and the race to snag shuttered dealerships’ business is on. Automotive News [sub] reports that CarsDirect is even offering free 60-day online listings for any dealership that is going out of business. “We hope this offer helps dealers sell more cars as they work to stay in business and remain fixtures in their communities during the transition,” says CarsDirect VP Ken Potter. Not to mention a little free publicity that comes with the charitable territory. Meanwhile, how are GM and Chrysler shoring up their PR after the nasty dealer shutdown debacle? According to a WaPo analysis, Chrysler is emphasizing product competitivity (huh?) and GM is emphasizing restructuring (why?). So much for putting the best foot forward.
I’m honored that the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has decided to publish my Op-Ed on GM’s political entanglement in tomorrow’s paper and online. [link here] I trust the piece will bring TTAC some fresh eyeballs. But it’s not the most important aspect of the deal. This website didn’t get to 1 million visits per month through powerful links (thanks, Instapundit), media showboating (shukran, Al-Jazeera) or celebrity journalism (oy, Yates). We did it by providing you, our Best and Brightest, with a steady diet of no-holds-barred automotive news, rants and reviews. The most thrilling bit of the WSJ publication: it will confer legitimacy on our collective mission. Meanwhile and in any case, thanks for your patience with our recent technical troubles. TTAC’s new owner, a Canadian outfit called VerticalScope, is gradually cleaning up some of the, uh, challenged back end software. Our new tech guy, Jonathon Marshall, is a creative, methodical and tenacious bastard. Kinda like us. And you. Cue the “Barney” song. Or better yet, not.
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