From the Lorinser press release:

While it was derided at first, the Smart has since evolved into a hip cult-car—even in “big block” USA. Its success story is no surprise: the defiant small car still embodies the principles of good economic and ecological sense while being completely free of a “piggy-bank look” and “everyman design.” Consequently it suits the times perfectly. So why is Sportservice Lorinser forecasting a dark future for the Smart? Because black is suiting the dynamic light metal alloys Speedy perfectly.

Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell (R) is proposing a budget that increases the financial burden on drivers by $171M in order to close the state’s growing $850m deficit. Rell’s plan increases license and registration fees, imposes freeway speed cameras and assesses new charges on speeding tickets. If implemented, the programs would represent a permanent and steadily increasing source of revenue for the state.

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Puh-lease. The idea that American motorists yearn for small, stylish, Italian cars is nuts. OK, maybe YOU do. But YOU are not the average American motorist. And this is not 1951. Or 1961. The U.S. market is saturated with strong brands selling first-class automobiles that cater to Joe Public’s every vehicular need, from stylish, miserly city runabouts to gas-guzzling, SUV cum blingmobiles. It’s worth noting that the market for new cars really, really sucks. What are the odds that consumers swimming backwards underwater will want to take a flyer on a completely untested brand selling a brand spanking new product? Did I say untested? See, now that’s funny. Fiat in the US? OK, sure, branding these [smoke a] joint ventures as Chryslers or Dodges will sort that little legacy issue right out. See that? Did it again! C’mon. You’re the Best and Brightest. Surely you know that this Fiat thing is a non-starter, from the non-start to the non-finish. Finnish! Didn’t Porsche build Boxster in Finland? I reckon a Finnish brand would have a better chance in the Land of the Free than Fiat. You?

An overview of what happened in other parts of the world while you were in bed. TTAC provides round-the-clock coverage of everything that has wheels. Or has its wheels coming off. WAS is being filed from Beijing until further notice.

GM/Opel ready to deal: As some kind of bankruptcy for GM becomes more likely by the minute, The General has signaled its readiness to consider some kind of a third party engagement in Opel. “If it makes sense and helps to make GM Europe and Opel successful, then the management is ready to entertain partnerships with or equity engagement of third parties,” GM Europe President, Carl-Peter Forster; Opel CEO, Hans Demant; and the Chairman of Opel’s Worker Council, Klaus Franz, said in a joint announcement, Automobilwoche [sub] reports. They did not elaborate whether this means an engagement by other manufacturers or an engagement by Germany’s state and central governments. In the meantime, Chancellor Angela Merkel is still waiting for Opel and GM to do their homework and hand in a viability plan: “Right now, the government cannot act because we don’t have the necessary concepts from Opel,” Frau Merkel said.

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“The submission of restructuring plans by GM and Chrysler represents the next step in what has been a difficult and disappointing chapter for the American economy, but I hope will become the transformation of our domestic automobile industry into a viable, technologically advanced, and globally competitive manufacturing force.

“In the coming weeks, the Obama Administration will review these plans and assess whether the shared sacrifice required of all stakeholders affected by the auto companies’ current conditions—workers, executives, bondholders, and shareholders—will result in reasonably restructured corporations, with good, high-paying jobs for the future.

“Congress looks forward to working with the Obama Administration on any future actions that may be needed to move our domestic automobile industry on a path of global competitiveness and advanced energy efficiency technologies, while ensuring accountability to the taxpayers.”

After watching my local news tonight (and stay tuned for Seinfeld, next, on Fox 5), and the 6^th-grade bailout coverage, I’m eager to hear what the mainstream media will say about the bailout plans tomorrow. During GM’s press conference, one intrepid reporter asked “How long will $4 billion last?” and the response was Fritz Henderson having a Coke and a Smile. The bailout itself has taken on such epic persona that it’s tough for the mainstreamers to capture. But it will be difficult, still, for them to understand the intricacies of the hogwash from Chrysler and GM’s reports. I mean, they’re so full of BS that I could do an entire between-the-lines editorial made up of 800 single-word sentences.

To those of you that read this before the morning portion of the 24-Hour Bemuse Cycle: What are they going to botch and how?

To those reading this after it’s covered by the big 3 cable news companies (CoNN; the media wing of the Conservative Party—known as FoxNews; and the alliance of Seattle-Boston-Chicago-New York-Ithaca-Burlington newsies (also known as MSNBC)), what did they say that you found flagrantly offensive and factually incorrect?

The Detroit Free Press is reporting that the United Auto Workers have reached a “tentative” agreement to modify its 2007 employment contract. But wait! “The UAW is withholding the terms of the tentative understanding pending completion of the VEBA discussions and ratification of the agreements,” says UAW boss Ron Gettelfinger. But give them the money anyway, is the clear subtext. Or, as the Freep puts it “the announcement by the UAW on Tuesday shows that the union and the companies are making significant progress.” When asked by the Freep, GM’s Rick Wagoner couldn’t even give a number just now. Wagoner claims that they went into talks with “ambitious” plans. And now there are now details. But everything’s peachy! GM’s take (from the viability plan): “As of February 17, the Company and the UAW have made significant progress on costs/work rules, which represent major steps in narrowing the 8 competitive gap. However, these revisions do not achieve all of the labor cost savings comprehended in the Company‘s financial projections.”

Full report now available at GM Media (pdf) (summary html).

Automotive News [sub] is reporting that GM’s new viability plan includes a request for an additional $22.5B in government funds. Without this money GM would run out of operating cash by sometime March. GM’s plan also calls for cutting 47,000 jobs globally by the end of 2009 and shuttering five unspecified US factories by 2012. GM CEO Rick Wagoner just thanked government officials “around the world” for “their openness.”

As Farago noted earlier, GM received tranche deux of its already-approved $13.4B loan today. They also request $4.6B per their December 2 request to round it all out to an even $18B. There’s also a request for $4.5B to pay of a revolving credit line that comes due in the fall of 2011. And then there’s the request for a $7.5B line of credit GM could tap “if” sales worsen over the next two years. This would bring GM’s taxpayer butcher’s bill to about $30B dollars. Incredibly, GM expects to begin repaying these loans by 2012.

GM also predicts that its North American operations will break even at an annual market rate of 11.5m to 12m units. Interesting. “The operating and balance sheet improvements outlined in GM’s viability plan are forecasted to result in a significant enterprise value and positive net present value, positive adjusted EBIT in 2010 and positive operating cash flow for its North American operations in the same year.”

Chrysler has just released its 177-page “Viability Plan.” It will no doubt take plenty of time to go through (and this, of course, was unintentional on Chrysler’s part). In the interim, some highlights:

—Chrysler wants $5 billion by the end of March for “working capital and other operating expenses.” This would mean a total bailout purse of $9 billion, an increase over the $7 billion requested in December.

—The theme is “pay us now or it’s going to cost you more money than you can possibly imagine— or print.” This sounds suspiciously like like some word I learned once. Axtortion? No. Extourtan? What was it?

—There’s plenty of bankruptcy and liquidation analysis, projecting what the costs would be if they went bust.

—The “Stand Alone” business plan includes a $600 million profit in 2010, followed by a loss of the same amount in 2011, then another loss of $600 million in 2012, then a break-even year in 2013, followed by a projected $1B in profits in 2014.

—24 product launches in 48 months. I can only assume they are counting different paint colors as individual product launches.

—Fiat could, in theory, take another 20% stake of Chrysler for a majority share of 55%.

—“No American taxpayer money would go to Fiat.” Semantics.

The following institutional investors bought into Cerberus Institutional Partners IV (CIP4). That’s the $1b – $1.5b Cerberus-controlled fund established to provide part of the initial $7.2b payment to Daimler for Chrysler. Obviously, this list is far from complete. We call on our elected representatives to require Cerberus to provide a full and complete accounting of all participants in this fund before U.S. taxpayers extend Chrysler any more federal loans.

LA Police & Fire Pension

Public teachers of PA (PSERB) – $200m  

PA state retirement workers [SERS] – $75m

NY Common Retirement Fund – $50m

Charles Schwab Institutional 

Univ of CA – $40m

Univ of Tex – $25m

Idaho state employees – $40m  

Allstate

Glenmede Trust Co. (PA)

Franklin Templeton Investments

[thanks to Full Deck Analytics for the help]

Audi has become the top premium brand in the European market, according to Auto Motor und Sport, selling 45,124 vehicles last year. This is no small achievement, as competition among Germany’s premium brands is fierce. Mercedes was the second best-selling premium brand in the market with 39,748 sales and BMW fell to third with 36,832 units sold. Only a year ago, Audi was in 3rd place with 3.9 percent of the market; now it boasts 5.1 percent. In the same period, BMW and Merc market share dropped by less than half of one percent. Audi marketing maven Peter Schwarzenbauer credits Audi’s young vehicle lineup, telling AM und S that new models like the A4 Allroad (above) would keep sales momentum moving.

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It’s been a while since we’ve been graced with a good emotionally-charged argument for a “moral obligation” to bail Detroit out. These canards were a dime a dozen during the initial bailout push, as every Michigan-based opinion writer spilled ink by the barrel describing the myriad ways in which America owed Detroit big time. From winning WWII to spearheading racial tolerance. From fighting for the rights of the proletariat to exercises in moral relativism. It seemed that Detroit backers had leveraged every possible emotionally-charged issue to clear the way to the federal teat. But just when we thought that the flow of intellectually dishonest bailout blackmail had slowed to a trickle, we found one of the best examples yet.

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