Ever since one-time (and one time only) TTAC contributor Gary Witzenburg’s column appeared on Autobloggreen (ABG), we’ve been asking huh? Witzenberg is the Detroit apologist’s apologist; he wears his mountainous shoulder chip on his sleeve as a badge of honor. I guess Gazza lured ABG into giving him a job with promises to reveal “the truth” behind GM’s failed EV-1 program; during whose short and unhappy life the divine Mr. W served as GM spinmeister. That “truth” turned out to be, you guessed it, an apologist’s perspective. Since the series, which runs directly counter to the “Who Killed the Electric Car?” meme that ABG’s base holds sacred, Witzenburg has resumed his relentless campaign against the barbarians outside the gates of Fortress Detroit. This week’s magnum opus could well be his swan song, and quite the article it is too. If ever you wanted a round-up of all Motown’s mainstream defenders’ spurious arguments in favor of Detroit and its $64b and counting call on the public purse, well, here it is. I won’t bother to quote from Gary’s work, as we’ve skewered every one of these sacred [to him] cows before. Suffice it to say, it’s only a matter of time before Gary and ABG part company. He is a gas guzzler amongst hybrids, if you know what I mean.
Category: Media
You just know they’re going to get it wrong. And so they do. Number One: Full-Size Pickup Trucks. Huh? If any market segment is likely NOT to restore The Big 2.8 to glowing good health, it’s the PU segment. But no. I mean yes! “The Dodge Ram is new for 2009, as is the top-selling Ford F-150, while the Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra twins combine to sell more than any of them. With the Toyota Tundra in retreat and Nissan ready to surrender the segment (they’ll be getting their next generation of Titans from Dodge), cheap gas should keep buyers putting their money into these profit centers.” And if the housing market stays in the toilet, the market remains saturated with trucks or the price of gas goes up? * crickets chirping * No wait! Number Two: American Muscle. Huh? Talk about carving-up smaller pieces a decreasing pie. Nope. Fox is saying halo to the new Camaro, Challenger and Mustang. “Forget for a moment all of the goody two-shoes environmentally conscious cars Washington wants the Detroit 3 to build: These are the ones that look best in the commercials and get shoppers into showrooms. They may not sell in huge numbers, but you can’t pay for the kind of pride they bring to a brand’s image.” Apparently, you– I mean “we” can. Number Three…
Washington Post Harold Myerson’s column starts by presenting readers with a stark choice: nationalization or more rigid regulation. Things get interesting in a car-oriented sort of way when Myerson talks about Motown’s simmering antipathy towards the southern senators who almost denied them their $17.4b suckle on Uncle Sugar’s teat. “If Abraham Lincoln were still among the living as he prepared to turn 200 six weeks from now, he might detect in the congressional war over the automaker bailouts a strong echo of the war that defined his presidency. Now as then, the conflict centered on the rival labor systems of North and South. Now as then, the Southerners championed a low-wage, low-benefits system while the North favored a more generous one. And now as then, what sparked the conflict was the North’s fear of the Southern system becoming the national norm. Or, as Lincoln put it, a house divided against itself cannot stand… “But, just as Lincoln predicted, the United States was bound to have one labor system prevail, and the debate over the General Motors and Chrysler bailout was really a debate over which system — the United Auto Workers’ or the foreign transplant factories’ — that would be. Where the parallel between periods breaks down, of course, is in partisan alignment. Today’s congressional Republicans are hardly Lincoln’s heirs. If anything, they are descendants of Jefferson Davis’s Confederates.” That’s just WAY out there.
Lord love a duck, but sometimes the most idiotic things surface on the internet. And a certain piece favorably comparing Ferrari’s environmental impact to that of the Prius doesn’t have the excuse of coming from some blogspot-based Private Snafu in the Army of Davids. No, it comes from Car And Driver. Print Media. The Big Boys. Etcetera. And since they don’t have the decency to expose their own baldfaced disingenuousness and sensationalist ignorance-peddling until after the jump, we’ll return the favor. Car And Driver’s Steve Siler is an idiot, and that’s all we’ll say unless you bump our page views by hitting the jump.
The Chevy Aveo has been on TTAC’s Ten Worst List since we inaugurated the public service. In 2008, it remains at the top of the steaming pile, garnering a gong at the number three spoty. To quote from this year’s encapsulation: “The Aveo continues to offer a snap-crackle-pop interior, mediocre gas mileage, roly-poly handling and gutless onramp terror.” So how in the world could Detroit News carmudgeon Scott Burgess find anything nice to say about Chevy’s Korean American revolution, never mind a whole column’s worth? Let’s s-s-s-s-sample. “It’s roomy, peppy and comes with more personality than similarly priced competition.” Oh really? Vera, Fit, Yaris? “The hatch helps the Aveo5 stand out. It’s a good look, and it plays multiple utilitarian roles, such as making it extremely easy to park as well as load big things in the back. Few other exterior features add to its looks. It’s not like the designers had a lot of sheet metal to work with.” So… it’s a hatchback. Gotcha. “Chevy upgraded the interior materials, though there is a certain economical feel to this vehicle. Every part of the cabin feels well built, though it’s difficult to know how it will hold up over the long haul.” “Economical feel.” Is that a synonym for horrifically cheap?
So opens a guest commentary by Ira Lacher in today’s Des Moines Register. And if you believe the Detroit line, you might assume this voice from the middle American heartland would answer in the affirmative. You’d be wrong. Lacher describes his impression of American cars as being “designed and put together by committee – a bunch of parts cobbled together. The steering wheel felt as if it were just sticking out of the dashboard. The gas and brake pedals seemed mere appendages to the floor. The seats were uncomfortable frames covered with cheap cloth. This wasn’t a car; it was a homemade personal computer! By contrast, every rented Honda, Toyota, Mazda and Nissan seemed like a machine that functioned like one machine.” But when he recently purchased a Hyundai, Lacher clearly felt at least a few pangs of guilt.
Previously, on “We Can Confabulate the Managerial Incompetence Behind Motown’s Meltdown and Federal Cash Grab by Raising Issues About Race, Regionality, Class and (it’s coming) Religion,” Washington Post Carmudgeon Warren Brown argued for Motown bailout bucks as a “thank you” for the auto industry’s help to African Americans. The Detroit News said “amen” and added a little ditty about how black workers are more exposed to the Detroit “downturn” than their Caucasian union brothers. And now The New York Times is adding the official seal of approval of the “minorities need the bailout” meme, with “As Detroit Suffers, Black Workers Hurt.” Not surprisingly, Gray Lady scribe Mary M. Chapman follows DetN wordsmith Louis Aguilar’s template to the point of plagiarism– and beyond! Do these stats seem familiar? “By last month, nearly 20,000 African-American auto workers had lost jobs, a 13.9 percent decline in employment, since the recession began last December, according to government jobs data analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal Washington research firm. That compares with a 4.4 percent decline for all workers in manufacturing.” First of all, define “lost jobs.” Does that include workers who took a buyout? Jobs bank? Second, let’s compare apples to apples; what’s the differential between black workers auto industry layoff rate and that of white workers with the same jobs? The Times offers more misleading stats and insinuations, but my work here is done.
One evening, whilst dining at a Turkish restaurant in Mayfair, I watched my server nearly trip over another waiter’s leg. (The staff member whose appendage had caused the offense was kneeling by the desert cart.) The burly fellow who’d almost lost his balance looked at his compatriot with dagger-filled eyes. Waiter number two stared straight back. “Yes. I am trying to kill you,” he said with deadpan earnestness. Reading Scott Burgess’ review of the Shelby GT500KR, it seems pretty clear that the 540hp ‘Stang is equally intent on eliminating its driver. Which is to say not intentionally, but what difference does that make? “The 2008 Ford Shelby GT500 King of the Road scares me,” Burgess admits from the git-go. “The first ‘incident’ occurred along Gibraltar Road when I started to pass a minivan poking its way up the same straightaway. With no oncoming traffic and the lane open, I dropped the six-speed manual into third and kicked out to the left. The moment I mashed the pedal to the floor and listened to that supercharged whirl come from under the hood, the SVT light on the speedometer lit up and the back end of the KR jumped to the left and shuddered — full power, full torque ripping through the rear axle. ‘Oh, sassafras’ — that’s paraphrased — blurted out of my mouth.” Incident number two after the jump.
“Ezra, baby, we love your style! You’re the next P.J. Hunter Clarkson! But listen; we need something a little upbeat for the year’s end. A little sugar to sprinkle on top of all that rancid offal coming out of Motown. How about 2008 cars you love? Thanks… Uh, Ezra this is a list of muscle cars and sports cars. And they’re all powered by gas for Christ’s sake. This is the New York Times! Tell you what: write me a couple of hundred word intro on alt power stuff. What’s that battery-powered thing? Taser? Dazzler? Put that one in there. We’ll call it ‘Gas guzzling rocket ships are great but we can’t say that.” No, no. We’ll call it “Last Call for Horsepower.” You know, cake and eat it deal. Awesome. What’s that? Cars that suck? What do you think we are TTAC? Sigh. OK, list ’em at the end, be gentle and we’ll call it “not in my garage.” OK? And I’ll get back to you on the driving to Alaska in a Ferrari thing later. Love ya! [Ezra’s Reasons to be Cheerful Part One Through Eight after the jump]
I mean, milestone. I mean, it would be petty and vindictive of me to suggest that Chevrolet’s Project Driveway program was/is an enormous waste of GM’s precious development money. If we are to have a hydrogen economy– and why wouldn’t we (other than the cost of rebuilding a trillion dollar-plus infrastructure from the ground up)– we’re going to need fuel cell vehicles to, uh, get around. So you can’t help but applaud the fact GM now has more than 100 hydrogen fuel cell Chevy Equinox on the road, which have logged a combined total of 500k miles. “The vehicles are performing very well and we are learning a great deal about fuel cell robustness and how to make this program work for real customers,” Marybeth Stanek, GM’s director of fuel cell commercialization, opines [via press release]. “The amount of data we’ve collected over the past year is very valuable to us, and gives us insight into this important automotive technology.” Yes, yes. What exactly have we learned? *crickets chirping* Hey! Jay Leno has one! Been driving it since April. Or, you know, parking it in one of his aircraft hangers.
* Automobile Magazine – All Star Award
* Texas Auto Writers – Overall CUV of the Year
* Texas Auto Writers – Full Size CUV of the Year
* Canadian Auto Writers – CUV of the Year
* Society of Plastic Engineers – Team of the Year
* Popular Mechanics – Automotive Excellence Awards
* Autobytel – Best Family Car
* Autotropolis – 2009 Truck of the Year
* Autobytel – Utility Vehicle of the Year
* GQ Magazine – Best Stuff of the Year Awards
* SEMA Design Award from the Auto Writers – Most Accessory Friendly SUV
* Maxim Magazine – Hottest Cars of the Summer
* Kelley Blue Book – 10 Best Road Trip vehicle
* Maxim Magazine – Favorite new Color – Cinnamon
* Car and Driver – SEMA Show Surprisingly Good Canvas Award
* Maxim Magazine – Ultimate Road Trip Car
* Active Network – Active Lifestyle Vehicle of the Year
* Gay Men Magazine – Top Retro Flagship
Maximum Executive Bob Lutz is spreading the Christm, excuse me, Holiday cheer over at the GM Fastlane blog today. You see, Lutz is troubled by the amount of attention that his firm has attracted since going on the holiday handout dole. Yes, “the sheer volume of words written about the auto industry in the past month or two is enough to fill the Library of Congress (Yes, I’m employing irony),” writes Lutz, or some well-paid ghostwriter. “Some of the material generated has been ill-informed and off the mark. Some have used the same old and outdated anti-Detroit rhetoric and bias we’ve been seeing for years,” continues the man of maximum. And so, Lutz suggests a steady diet of Detroit appologia from the pantheon of bailout-backing pundits. Specifically…
Well, not the test itself. The video of the test, which clearly shows the Top Gear crew pushing the Roadster back to base after, apparently, running out of juice. Only it didn’t. Wired reports that “According to Top Gear’s spokeswoman, footage showing the Roadster being pushed into the garage was filmed to show what would happen if the car’s lithium ion battery went dead.” So Top Gear didn’t drain the upteen hundred li-ion cells after 55 miles of hard-charging? “Top Gear stands by the findings in this film and is content that it offers a fair representation of the Tesla’s performance on the day it was tested,” the BBC said in a statement. Clear as mud, as the Brits would say. Does that mean we can trust Clarkson’s assertion that the Roadster requires 16 hours to charge? Or, indeed, anything he says? I’m all for infotainment, but Top Gear gets its street cred from telling the truth about cars. This is a major hit to the brand’s core.
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