Is $2.00 gas killing the Middle East economy? Strolling through a Mercedes dealership in Abu Dhabi revealed this SLR Roadster priced at 2.44 million Dirhams. Think the exchange rate will help? Nope, try $667,000. Talk about mark-ups! When the salesman was asked about the tremendous mark-up, he suddenly forgot how to speak English and walked off. (That, or it was my Innova rental in the parking lot.) Still for this kind of money buyers get a red checkered top that looks like it was stolen off a pimp, and black wheels previously seen in a Tire Rack ad. Even if I was ultra rich, I may just have to pick up another vacation home and a Gallardo instead.

Motorists who passed by speed cameras and red light cameras yesterday in the province of Caserta, Italy were greeted by the sight of the devices shrouded in black plastic trash bags. They were not vandalized. The carabinieri — a national police force — affixed official warning notices explaining that the cameras were in “protective custody under Article 321.” An investigation is underway into possible fraudulent conduct on the part of local officials in thirty-three municipalities as well as fourteen private companies who operated the equipment under contract. In addition to seizing camera equipment, documents were taken from the offices of both photo enforcement companies and local police chiefs and mayors.

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Bob from The Land Down Under writes:

G’day Sajeev, here is a question for you. In my ML320 (2001) the accelerator pedal has broken and for the life of me I cannot remove the pedal assembly from the bulkhead of the car. I have undone the two bolts I can see but it refuses to budge. No one in the Mercedes Benz forums can/will answer my question. Plus the actual workshop manual is held by Mercedes Benz, who will not part with it unless an inordinate amount of money crosses their palms. (The last time I checked they wanted about $400 Australian for the manual on DVD and I thought movie DVD’s were expensive!)

Thanks for the help, oh master of the wrenches, mystic diviner of the oil sludge.

Bob (from Oz)

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The Toyota Corolla has overtaken the Ford Focus as the first choice for American consumers trading their government-approved clunker for a federally subsidized new whip. According to Department of Transportation stats, ToMoCo has now captured three of the top five slots on the Cash for Clunkers (a.k.a. C.A.R.S.) hit list (previous version here) : Toyota Corolla, Ford Focus, Honda Civic, Toyota Prius, and Toyota Camry. Or as, the official release puts it, “Four of the top ten selling vehicles are manufactured by the Big Three. Of non-Big Three purchases, preliminary analysis suggests that well over half of these new vehicles were manufactured in the United States.” Did they mention that the “foreign nameplates” are produced in the U.S.? They did not. Nor did they offer a similar analysis of the country of origin for the trade-ins. Guess what percentage of the Cash for Clunkers trade-ins are American brands?

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GM will receive some $241 million of the government’s $2.4 billion electric vehicle (EV) stimulus grants, most of it for the “on-time and under-budget” Chevy Volt program. Other grant recipients were Chrysler ($70m), Ford ($92.7m), JCI ($299m), A123 ($249m), Compact Power ($151.4m, on behalf of LG Chem, the South Korean supplier of Chevy Volt batteries), and the National Fire Protection Association ($4.4m). Full breakdown in PDF format here. But what makes this otherwise routine subsidizing of particular interest, it’s that GM is spending its non-Volt money on . . . get this . . .

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The Pebble Beach Concorso Italiano is promoting the fact that they will assemble a world record number of Ferrari 288 GTOs (more than 12). It got me thinking: what happened to the good ol’ days of driving fast for no good reason to set a Guinness world record? Or for that matter driving fast after having a few Guinnesses. Don’t answer the latter, I think I know the answer to that one. Whoo, whoooooo. That’s me making siren noises. Anyway, here’s the correct answer.

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Call it tall poppy syndrome. Even as the world’s largest automaker’s fell into the U.S. new car sales quagmire, Toyota’s critics slated the brand’s quality “issues.” The Detroit News [sub] reports that freshly-minted CEO Akio Toyoda has ticked all the boxes in his efforts to reassure his stakeholders (as opposed to steak holders) and say the right thing to everyone about everything. “Toyoda emphasized the company’s core principles, including the need to produce clean vehicles for the benefit of society. But, he said, ‘we must do it in a way that’s affordable to today’s customers.’ That is the key challenge for the industry, which is ‘at a point where we must re-invent the automobile.’ But Toyoda, a racing enthusiast, said one of his objectives as head of the company was to inject excitement into the lineup. He said Toyota planned to develop an affordable, fun-to-drive sports car in the next few years but did not elaborate.” So green, affordable, [somewhat] exciting, affordable and . . . what was that again? High quality. How come the DetN didn’t put that in a direct quote?

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that TTAC received the press release for National Stop Red Light Running Week arrived in the middle of same (August 2 – 8)? Equally strangely, the PR flack writing this tardy tiresome tirade seems to see red. “While the message is sound, this particular safety campaign is unlike traditional safety programs like ‘Click It or Ticket.’ The ‘Stop on Red Week’ program has a decidedly corporate slant. The big push behind this week appears to be coming from the photo enforcement industry. These are the companies that install red light cameras. Photo enforcement is right in the middle of the ‘safety vs. revenue’ debate taking place nationwide. It’s likely this campaign is mostly about telling the public how necessary photo enforcement is and encouraging towns to install such cameras.” How long before THAT gets pulled? Meanwhile, how about some common sense tips on how not to run a red light? Seriously.

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The second tranche of cash-for-clunker money could be approved as early as today, reports Automotive News [sub]. Not that there’s any suspense about how the vote will turn out. Whether it passes today or tomorrow, pass it will. The NHTSA’s program feels enough like a success to guarantee a re-up. And as psychologically motivated as markets are, sometimes feeling like a success is enough. But congress can’t be motivated by a mere uptick in overall dealer traffic alone. After all, our government is no longer a passive proponent of American industry as a whole: we’ve picked sides. And the teams we picked, namely GM and Chrysler, aren’t seeing any real benefit out of the CARS program. And remember, if the $3 billion worth of clunker culling doesn’t help our inept wards of the state, we’ll be looking at pouring at least that much directly into them. Again.

Automotive News [sub] reports that Chrysler’s unsecured creditors have requested permission to sue Daimler for gutting Chrysler’s “most valuable assets” during its sale of the company. The request alleges that “unidentified assets” were lost in Daimler’s 2007 sale of Chrysler to Cerberus Capital Management, for which creditors are seeking $3 billion in compensation. If granted, the damages would eclipse the $2 billion granted to secured debtors during Chrysler’s bankruptcy sale. “This is completely without merit and we intend to defend ourselves vigorously,” say Daimler spokespeople, and we can’t help but feel that they have a point. What mythical assets were present for Daimler to squirrel away by the time they sold to Cerberus? Did Daimler mismanage Chrysler? Sure. Did they loot assets? For that to happen, there would have to have been valuable assets in place to begin with. Best of luck with that, Chrysler creditors.

Cruising through this morning’s autoblogoshpere, I clicked on an Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association (AAIA) report on telematics. In case you didn’t know, telematics is “the science of measuring, sending, receiving and storing information via telecommunication devices. In automotive terms—it is the ability to establish two-way connection with a moving vehicle.” Like, a cell phone? Yes, but better! “Did you ever drive your dad’s car somewhere you weren’t supposed to be, or faster than you were supposed to go? With skypatrol, your dad would have received an e-mail or text message telling him you were traveling outside of your assigned geofence [!] or moving faster than the speed limit . . . With skypatrol, you can use GPS travel histories to analyze your route planning to maximize your effectiveness.” Question: can we make a rule that the “you” in question is always the “you” who owns the vehicle—and no one else? Just askin’.

The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA)—the ethanol producer’s bestest best friend—is in a fight for its life. As the Wall Street Journal [sub] reports “The Environmental Protection Agency dealt a big blow to the ethanol industry earlier this year when it decreed that the corn-based fuel doesn’t have a much better carbon footprint than gasoline made with crude oil.” While the RFA lobbies the hell out of congress to subvert/get an exemption from the EPA’s final decree on the subject, they’re “counting the angels on the head of a pin” (quoth RFA CEO Bob Dinneen). Less poetically, what if peak oilers are right? If the supply of easily-extracted light sweet crude dries up, then it’s oil shale for us! And if you compare corn/theoretical sawgrass for fuel, well, then, huzzah! The RFA just happens to have a study that proves that ethanol beats the snot out of shale, carbon footprint-wise [download pdf here]. Unless you count the carbon needed to produce the tires of the tractor harvesting the corn. Unwind that!

You think Volkswagen/Porsche was a soap opera? The sequel could be right out of Tom Clancy’s word processor: People at Volkswagen in Wolfsburg and at Porsche in Zuffenhausen cast worried eyes toward Qatar. If they don’t, they should.

Their new sugar daddy, the Sheik of Qatar just narrowly escaped a coup attempt, if Stratfor [expensive sub] is to be believed. Read More >

Daimler’s mob have filed a patent with the IPO re: a three-seater smart [download German language pdf here]. CNET connects the [dipping] dots: “Obviously drawing inspiration from the McLaren F1 supercar, the rumored Smart will feature a 1+2 layout with a centrally positioned driver’s seat flanked by two passenger seats mounted slightly behind. To facilitate easy entrance and egress, the driver’s seat looks like it should be able to rotate slightly and slide on rails toward the door. Also, depicted in the patent drawings is a trick fold-flat pedal, which should clear the footwell when seats start sliding.” Yes, well, who wants a three-seater anything? McLaren amusement park ride or not (anyone remember the UK accident where a test drive turned fatal?), are we looking at TWO backseat drivers?