The “barn find” of a 1937 Bugatti Type 57S Atalante, that was thought to fetch $8.7m, finally went under the hammer at Bonham’s in Paris. According to the BBC, “it eventually sold for 3,417,500 euros.” At today’s rate, that’s $4.4m . . . about half. Even barn finds don’t keep their residual value as much as they used to.
A dealer writes:
Say I order a pickup truck from the Chrysler mothership: an ’09 Dodge Mega Cab Cummins 4×4. MSRP: $59k. Invoice: $53k. Hold back: $2,400. Chrysler bills my bank for invoice ($53k). My bank gets the title and pays for truck. [ED: this is also known as floor-planning or flooring.] I take delivery of the truck, I sell the truck. Two weeks later, my floor-planning bank transfers the funds to Chrysler. First, I have to pay off the flooring liability: the Ram’s invoice price ($53k). Then I wait for the factory rebate money. That’s why it costs so much to operate a franchise dealership: the operating capital requirment is huge. We are fronting the manufacturer’s cash flow by overpaying for the units when we (the dealer) buy them from factory.
Just kidding. It’s a safety car thingie used to test collision avoidance without having to repair hundreds of rear bumpers. Although that would certainly give a bunch of Ford’s idled UAW workers something constructive to do. You do know I mean the car on the right, yes? Good. Quick! What’s the name of the one on the left, MKS, MKZ, MKT, MKWTF, MKLOL or MKF? Other than that, I got nothing. Hat-wearing Detroit News cheerleader Scott Burgess, on the other hand, has a whole article on FoMoCo’s new, automatic, stop-you-from-crashing-into-shit-when-you-get-old-enough-to-mistake-a-blinged-out-Fusion-for-a-genuine-luxury-car technology. And a video! The fact that we’ve already seen this techno-geekfest via Volvo seems to have slipped his mind. That’s understandable. Volvo has fallen off just about everybody’s radar these days. Still, its sad to see The Blue Oval Boys usurp the Swedes’ unique selling point for a car as sad as the MK… wait, don’t tell me…
As regular readers know, The Truth About Cars is working hard to try to find out who owns Chrysler—now that [ex] President Bush has provided $3b worth of no to low-interest loans to the technically bankrupt automaker. And now that this selfsame beneficiary of our government’s largess is looking for another $4b loan. And the rest. In our pursuit of this information, we are aided by members of our Best and Brightest who also believe that we should know exactly whom we are subsidizing. Are they the “retirees, teachers, municipal workers and ordinary citizens” that Cerberus claims? Or are the 100 or so unnamed investors members of hedge funds, perhaps from abroad?
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 Tokyo this week. There will be no WAS on Sunday while we re-locate to Beijing.
Isuzu sees red: Isuzu posted net losses for the October-December quarter due to weak domestic truck sales, a stronger yen and higher material costs, the Nikkei [sub] reports. Net losses were ¥11.7b in the three months ended Dec. 31, down from a profit of ¥24.4b a year earlier. Sales dropped 21 percent to ¥340.4b in the quarter, down from ¥430b a year ago. On an operating basis, Isuzu lost ¥1.6b, compared with a ¥28b profit in the quarter a year before. For the full fiscal year ending March, Isuzu lowered its outlook to a loss of ¥15b.
Yen for govt. yen: Japanese auto makers are scrambling to raise cash before the end of the fiscal year in March, the Nikkei [sub] says. Nissan is considering applying for the low-interest funds, Isuzu said Friday that it may do the same to raise several tens of billions of yen. Mitsubishi Motors is also considering tapping the Japanese government program.
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Cerberus owns Chrysler. OK, perhaps “controls” is a better word. Cerberus bought Chrysler from Daimler by convincing a group of investors that the ailing American automaker was, one way or another, a money spinner. Well, it sure didn’t turn out that way. The U.S. taxpayer is now keeping ChryCo in business. Or not. On Monday, nine days before its next visit to the federal bailout buffet, Chrysler will close its Conner Ave. plant (MI) and “idle” Sterling Heights, MI; Brampton, ON; and Belvidere, IL. “The shutdowns will last for at least a week,” wxyz.com reports. “With the company evaluating whether or not to reopen them on a weekly basis.” Flip a coin? Meanwhile, we, the people footing the bill, don’t know whose investment we’re protecting with our tax dollars. Foreign nationals? Bailout banks? Former government officials? Current government officials? Other, more profitable automakers? I’ve made dozens of phone calls. Nothing. Not a word. So I’ve called Senator Corker’s office for help. Nothing. Not a word. [E-mail here.] Meanwhile, Cerberus may yet be forced into the open, thanks to a new exec pay limitation clause on the next round of bailout bucks (not retroactive for some reason). So, how much does CEO Bob Nardelli make?
“442,241 vehicles were built last month, compared with 1,170,816 in January 2008. The previous smallest month took place during a UAW strike at Delphi Automotive Systems Corp. in July 1998. That month, North American automakers produced 667,074 vehicles. Total U.S. vehicle output plunged 65.6 percent; Canada fell 58.0 percent; and Mexico shriveled by 49.8 percent.” What else do you need to know?
According to SEMA, legislation has been introduced in the Oregon House of Representatives at the request of Governor Ted Kulongoski to ban aftermarket parts if alternatives are available that “decrease greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.” In reality, Oregon H.B. 2186 (pdf) merely states that the “Environmental Quality Commission may adopt by rule the following to help this state achieve the greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals.” The specific option that SEMA is steamed about states that “Restrictions and prohibitions on the sale and distribution of after-market motor vehicle parts, including but not limited to tires, if alternatives are available that decrease greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles,” may be enacted.
It’s T minus 11 days before Congress does the thumbs-up thumbs-down thing on the artist formerly known as the world’s largest automaker. GM is up shit creek without a paddle. The United Auto Workers aren’t going to agree to parity with the transplant assembly workers, as required. The bondholders aren’t going to exchange debt for equity, as required. The company doesn’t have a clue what to do about its brands or products, as required. There is no way whatsoever for GM to prove to your elected officials that it has a hope in hell of repaying the $13.4b loans already made—never mind the $100b or so needed to keep the ailing American automaker in business for another year. So GM CEO Rick Wagoner is doing the only thing he knows how to do, that he can do: cutting expenses. This time, it’s white collar workers for one simple reason: that’s all that’s left. Bloomberg tells of the $14m per year CEO’s decision to throw his remaining management to the wolves . . .
The marching orders from TTAC Central were clear: get my hands on a Pontiac G8 GXP and give the B&B a story. Locally, there were nine manually-transmission’d prospects in GM’s online inventory locator. But as Mr. Karesh later warned me, the hi-performance, rear wheel-drive muscle cars I found were nothing but a time sensitive mirage.
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G’day! The Sydney Morning Herald is first up with news that Ford will have to stump-up $4b for a 2008 pension shortfall. “The collapsing stock market left the fund with a $4.1 billion deficit for its projected obligations, after 2007’s $3 billion surplus, Ford said in its fourth-quarter financial results. That may force an infusion of money starting next year, according to the viability plan filed with Congress in December.”
While Honda preps a beefed-up, AWD Venza-alike for the US market, this is the Accord Wagon that Europeans get to look forward to. The Type S comes with a 2.2 liter turbodiesel that makes 180 hp and pulls 280 factotums of torque [Ed. ha ha] at 2k RPM. Not your typical Honda screamer, eh? Anyway, while Europe yawns at the coming of the Acura brand and the US version of the Euro Accord gets the dismal reception it deserves, Honda seems set on playing me-too with a crossoverized version of the Accord wagon. To which I say fiddlesticks. Even if a diesel isn’t in the cards for the US, just bring us this freaking wagon. Have you seen Acura’s CUV sales?
Car designers are not the best people to choose the most beautiful car in the world (MBCITW). Carmaking is a collaborative art and car designers work within a . . . Wait. Did I say art? Business. Making cars is a business. Anyone who ascends to the pinnacle of a car company’s design department did so as much by their political savvy as their aesthetic sensibilities. As a result, you’d be hard pressed to find a more pretentious group of people. Their every word is weighed, calculated and delivered to strengthen their reputation for intelligence and good taste. So, anyway, I decided to call photographer Michael Furman to get his take on this hot topic. Michael has snapped thousands of cars from every era. “There are plenty of gorgeous women in the world,” Michael opines. “With most of them, the feeling you get when you first see them eventually wanes. Only the most beautiful get more beautiful over time.” The 1938 Bentley Embiricos [above] is Michael’s second choice for MBCITW. His first? The 1938 Alfa Romeo 2900D MM. Which he’s photographing next week, and will share with us soon thereafter. [Question: should we ask other industry types to name their MBCITW and make this into a series?]
Ford has released a study (via PR Newswire) that shows its proprietary (for now) SYNC system reducing the amount of time spent looking away from the road while performing tasks that probably shouldn’t be done while driving anyway. Want to find a new song on your iPod while doing 65 on the freeway? Ford says that without SYNC this task can take 25 seconds of crash risking attention from the road. With SYNC, the task is done in a mere two seconds. Reading a text can take 11 seconds, but Ford claims that SYNC’s text-to-speech output can reduce the task to two seconds. “We know people want to stay connected in their vehicles, so Ford is continuing to deliver that connectivity for them responsibly and safely, says Susan Cischke, Ford’s group vice president of Sustainability, Environment and Safety Engineering. But unfortunately, their study used subjects who were already regular SYNC users. If you’re still getting used to the system, fiddling with it could return your in-car cell phone use to DUI-levels of danger. After all, how hard is it to wait for a light (or heaven forbid, suffer through a song you don’t like) before messing with your iPod? Luckily, if you do crash while playing with SYNC on the go, Ford has added an Onstar-like 911 feature to rush rescuers to your mangled Focus. Or if you want OnStar-like features from a non-Detroit OEM, that might be in the cards as GM is in talks to license its in-car Big Brother.
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