Get a bunch of car journalists together and a few conversations are inevitable. Stuff like, "What's the best car ever, period?" or "What's the dumbest car you've ever purchased?" The answers are full of variation (Porsche 959/McLaren F1, Citroen DS/BMW 750iL) and typically end with me asking, "Aren't you guys interested in anything besides cars?" Deaf ears and all that. My point? If the question of world's ugliest car were to come up, there can be no debate. Mitsuoka Orochi is the answer. All other suggestions are utterly wrong. And Motor Authority tells us that, like some latter-day Godzilla, left-hand drive examples of the Orochi are leaving Japan to fry eyeballs in Qatar, UAE, Thailand and Jordon. No, really — look at this monstrosity. What could be more awful? How an NSX-based sports car can make the Pontiac Aztek look like Jessica Biel is inconceivable, incomprehensible and totally unfathomable, but there you go. As for me, I'm stocking up on Raid.

CarDomain brings us the story of the Blade Runner , a battery-powered Hyundai Getz minicar which is the first vehicle recognized by Australia's Scientific and Industrial Research Organization as a domestically produced ZEV. For about $35k you get room for four, AC, powers steering, and a 62-mile range from pure electric power. The Blade Runner is the brainchild of Ross Blade from Harcourt Australia, whose Blade Electric Vehicles company strips the dirty gas-burning bits from the Getz and retrofits it with lithium iron phosphate batteries, regenerative braking and a 40kw electric engine. The Blade Runner even offers 880 lbs of towing capacity and a top speed of 75 mph, although the the 7 seconds to 62 kph (37 mph) must seem like an eternity when the kids are late for community gardening class. Still, the Blade Runner offers a peek at the burgeoning ZEV-retrofit industry, and a refreshing dose of reality in contrast to, say, the ZAP approach to bringing ZEVs to market.

That, my aspiring plug-in friends (2010), is a Hell of a lot of Priora. Nikkei English News [via Bloomberg] reports that Toyota's ramping (amping?) up Prius production at its two Japanese factories to increase overall output by a full 60 percent. ToMoCo's aiming to shift 450k gas – electric hybrids worldwide in '09. No word if and when (not to mention why) Toyota will expand the Prius into its own sub-brand, as rumored on the internets. And the U.S. market for Priora has suddenly gone soft. Although Toyota's sold 181,221 Priora in '07, and the model's up 8.5 percent year-to-date, February sales declined by 10.9 percent. Could we about to see another price cut to move the metal? It sure worked last time.

With the buff books claiming the Nissan GT-R does runs of 0 – 60 in only 12 parsecs (yes, I know a parsec is a measurement of distance, Han Solo) and over 470 horsepower on tap, it was only a matter of time until someone made their GT-R look like it went through a blender.. A member of the forums at Drift.Com.My, a Malaysian drifting community website, just posted a gallery of shots of a pile of metal that used to be called a GT-R. Posters there are saying the car appears to be from Singapore, although wherever it's from, it's hardly a car anymore. Just because you can afford it, doesn't mean you have enough brains to drive it responsibly. I'm not saying such a powerful beast should be illegal, just that its drivers should have to be chemically castrated and wear ankle GPS bracelets at all times and give up their search and seizure protections. In any case, here are the pictures of the wreckage [thanks to Autoblog for the tip]

I've been kvetching about the overcylinderization of BMWs M cars for a while now. The first M3 had an inline four. The next two gens holstered straight sixes. And now the M3 has a high-revving V8. BMW's mighty M5 went from two generations of straight sixes to a V8 to a high-revving V10. All this horsepower excuses BMW from having to lighten its cars and focus on improving dynamics. It seems that BMW CEO Norbert Reithofer is thinking along the same lines. Speaking to the German magazine Auto Motor Und Sport, Reithofer said he wants to trim down to fewer cylinder engines in the M cars and the rest of the BMW range. In particular, he said that BMW's diesel V8 (which is rather popular over in Europe) would be replaced with a twin turbocharged I6. And he indicated that the M range would also probably be downsized as well. Turbocharging, not displacement and cylinders, would be the path to improvements in M cars' horsepower and weight distribution. (Not to mention CO2 emissions.) Hey, if it works for the Nissan GT-R…

With the Olympics set to thrust The People's Republic of China into the world spotlight, the dictatorship's rulers have been attacking "environmental issues." Green Biz News reports the latest step in what the Chinese Communist Party terms "the scientific model of development:" a massive auto-parts recycling program. Three manufacturers and 11 parts suppliers have "agreed" to recycle engines, transmissions and electrical generators. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers estimates that four million old cars will be junked each year by 2010. They maintain that refurbished parts from dead cars cost only 60 percent of new components. Meanwhile, in the U.S., parts recycling companies like LKQ are making big money (even without government intervention). As automotive profits become harder to find in a sagging economy, reuse and recycling is getting a major shot in the proverbial arm. See how that works?

The Age reports that the last of the great V8 Interceptors… Hold on, that's not it. Right. The last Australian-built Mitsubishi will roll off the line at Tonsley Park this Thursday, ending 28 years of production Down Under. Since it took over a Chrysler plant in 1980, Mitsu has built over a million cars in Australia. Production peaked back in 1997, when the Japanese automaker built 58,391 Magna sedans for domestic and export markets. Mitsubishi imports have seen strong demand, but the domestically-built 380 sedan will soon be sleeping with the fishes. Although Mitsu's laying off a thousand workers, it's not a post-apocalyptic scenario. They're receiving what's being called "the best-ever redundancy package in the automotive industry:" up to two years of severance pay. 

The AP reports that Toyota is tackling slow Japanese sales with a new, 200-store and restaurant, auto-themed mall. The Tressa mall in Yokohama features car-shaped shopping carts, a model car store and musical robots. The mall's "anchors:" massive Toyota showrooms. A Toyota subsidiary has been operating an automall in Gifu prefecture since 1999. Despite the marketing razzmatazz, the root problems for Toyota– and Japanese car sales in general– remain. An analyst with Mizuho Investors Securities says that Japanese OEMs have ignored the competitive domestic market for too long in favor in favor of higher profits abroad. Atsushi Kawai says the neglect has created a cultural resistance to the enormous hassles of Japanese car ownership. "Domestic sales are a total disaster now," says Kawai. "A car used to symbolize a dream. People used to work hard to buy a car. These days, nobody is saying that. No one thinks a car is cool anymore."

Fiat has been talking-up a stateside launch for Alfa Romeo, and even suggested manufacturing in the US or Mexico. Now Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne tells the Financial Times that his company is seeking suitable partners for North American production. "Nobody making anything in Europe is going to make profits in the US," says Marchionne, indicating that the losses on imported cars would be acceptable as long as a production partner could be found. Although the Financial Times makes much of Detroit's recent downsizing of North American operations, and stresses that The Big 2.8 have "overcapacity," other reports indicate that BMW is also a likely candidate for a FIAT partnership. For now, Marchionne is staying mum on the partner search, but makes it clear that BMW is on their radar… as competition. "We need to replicate the [BMW-owned] Mini phenomenon in the US," says the Fiat CEO. And yes, he does mean by bringing the popular Fiat 500 to the states. Toppolino!

When you gotta drive, you gotta drive. Unless you're Leonid Stadnyk, the world's tallest man. In that case you're eight feet five inches tall, still growing and can't actually fit in cars. Or buses. In fact, the former veterinarian is so dang tall he never even bothered with a driver's license. The AP reports all of that changed yesterday when the 37-year-old giant received a specially modified car from none other than Mr. Orange Revolution himself, Viktor Yushchenko. Actually, Stadnyk was tired of walking everywhere, so he wrote President Yushchenko a letter, explaining his plight. Turns out that Viktor Yushchenko is a pretty cool dude; he enlisted the help of engineers at ZAZ in Zaporizhia to retrofit an Autozaz-Daewoo for a 2.55 meter tall driver with European size 64 feet (around size 25 in the U.S.). Actually, the Zaz boys did the passenger seat too, as Stadnyk can't drive. Yet. For as Stadnyk puts it, "I will resolve the question of a driver's license soon." Where will the reality TV crew sit? 

VP Dick Cheney may have been a little off on WMD, but oil is his thang. So when, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, Dick assured us  that our friends the Saudis are producing oil as fast as they can, you've just gotta believe him. Or look for the loophole. Last week, Cheney said crude oil prices in excess of $100 a barrel reflect the reality in the marketplace. "There's just not a lot out there, and some of that excess capacity represents high sulfur crude for example, it's not very attractive and not easily marketed." That's correct; KSA oil minister Ali al-Naimi has been complaining about a lack of buyers for excess Saudi sour crude for several years. The most reasonable conclusion: the U.S. is finally desperate enough to take the second-class sticky stuff off our allies' hands. Now that's the sort of speculation that will affect the price of oil.

Trading Markets reports that Kia shares dropped five percent yesterday after news emerged that its CEO would be stepping down. Unnamed analysts assure us that Chung Eui-sun left his position due to "poor earnings." But it's more likely a PR move for the Chung family. Ei-sun's father Chung Mong-koo narrowly held onto his position as Chairman of Hyundai-Kia after an embezzlement conviction and stockholder revolt. The Kia presidency is likely seen as an acceptable loss in exchange for some public goodwill, as Chung Ei-sun was widely expected to succeed his father at the top of the Hyundai-Kia food chain. Regardless of the weird Korean nepotism angles, Kia is in some financial trouble at the moment. Just before the announcement of Chung's resignation, Goldman Sachs released warnings about Kia's productivity and profitability. Is it me or would this make a terrific TV series?

For the second time in a week (clock analogy again), Bob Lutz made an accurate prediction. GM's Car Czar told journalists he'd like to put a 200 horse turbocharged four in a big car, tuned for torque and fuel economy. Sounds like a good idea. So good, Audi's doing it… The current Audi A4 has a great engine– the 2.0T–  that's most useful with either a manual transmission or DSG. But since some 80 percent or more of the A4 2.0T sold in America have a slushbox (six-speed or CVT), acceleration is less than idea (i.e. slow). So Audi's boffins bumped-up the horsepower (from 200 to 211) and added scads 'o torque (from 207 lb ft now to 258 ft.-lbs.). That's more torque than Audi's 3.2-liter V6 provides. If Audi really wanted to test the turbocharged waters for Maximum Bob's dream (nightmare?) of big ass cars with 200 horses, Ingolstadt should offer Yanks the revised 2.0T in the A6. You can just hear the bankers whining. "I'm not spending 55 grand on a car with four cylinder engine!"

We Americans like to think that much of our industrial and economic success is a result of a free market and private ownership. Russia's experience with unbridled capitalism has engendered more mixed feelings, and with them a Kremlin-centric approach to economic development. The Wall Street Journal documents the decline of Russian automaker AvtoVAZ into corruption, kleptomania and crime under free-market conditions in the 1990's, and the government intervention which attracted Renault's recent purchase of 25 percent of the company. These government takeovers not only tend to make Russian companies more efficient and less crime-ridden (although this assertion may be suspect), they also serve the political ends of eliminating wealthy oligarchs who could pose a challenge to President Putin's growing authoritarianism. With "plans to float stakes in a raft of companies it has taken over," the Kremlin may just be headed toward yet another radical economic experiment for the country that has witnessed more than its fair share of experimental economics. But will western companies and authoritarian state-run companies mesh over the long-term?

With Toyota set to begin selling hybrids in South Korea this year, Hyundai is fighting back by announcing it will begin mass-producing its own hybrids. Donga reports that the announcement of a liquid petroleum gas (LPG/LNG)-electric hybrid and gas-electric hybrid versions of the Avante (Elantra) sedan coincided with Chairman Chung Mong-koo's visit to a Kia factory over the weekend. The automaker has already provided hybrid cars to the Korean government, but this announcement heralds Hyundai's first attempt to go after the commercial market. The LPG-hybrid will be available in 2009, followed by a standard hybrid and larger LPG-hybrid models in 2010. Also planned are fuel-cell models to go on sale in 2012. No word yet on whether these models will be available in the States, but since Hyundai cites the projected million-unit hybrid market of 2010 as rationale for this move, one has to assume that we'll be seeing these gas-sippers at some point.