This one is dumber than a box of hair. While my countless hours spent trolling have come up with some really crappy, world class pieces of junk, this is crazy on a new level. The Hyundai Excel was one of the worst cars sold in America in the last 30 years. It’s so bad, in fact, that we used to say it Excelled only at breaking down. So when I saw this one on eBay with 195,000 miles, I was positively shocked. I never thought an Excel could survive for so long. But then the part that really floored me: the seller – a Chevy dealership – is asking $2799 for it. I think the Kelly Blue Book value of $1500 is about $1250 too high, so this dealership is riding off into the sunset of delusional country.

General Motors and Chrysler have both retained “hot shot” law firms to advise them on bankruptcy matters. Want to know what their legal bills will look like?

GM has retained a firm named Weil, Gotshal & Manges, a huge organization that specializes in pretty much everything big business, including bankruptcy law. They represented Enron, WorldCom, and Lehman Brothers in all of their bankruptcy proceedings. The Lehman proceeding was just this past October, so the rates are current. As far as I know, Weil’s rates are standard for the market – expect Chrysler’s firm Jones Day to be very similar. For the Lehman matter, Weil billed at:

$650-$950/hour for partners and counsel
$355-$595/hour for associates (keep in mind that $355 gets you a fresh out of law school kid)
$155-$295/hour for paralegals

Bloomberg estimated that Weil’s total bill for the Lehman Bankruptcy could be as high as $906 million. While Lehman was worth a lot more than GM, there was also much less work to do. I’d guess that a GM bankruptcy could cost $1 billion just in legal fees. And that’s not counting the collateral damage – suppliers, contractors, dealers.

British Leyland 2.0? Nope. But that’s what the London Times might like us to think, at least based on the headline: “Vauxhall in Secret Cash Plea to Save 5000 Jobs.” Oh, well that’s pretty dispositive, isn’t it? Until the next paragraph, which actually tells us “last week along with other carmakers, to urge the Government to give guarantees offering financial comfort to its car-part suppliers and dealerships.” And then later on, we learn that Ford and Honda attended the meeting too, as they also manufacture cars in the UK. Why wasn’t that in the headline? Right. Meanwhile, the British government is already paranoid about a British Leyland repeat, and has had enough of a headache with the recent nationalization of the Northern Rock bank. The concern raised by the Times could, eventually, have some merit. Vauxhall and Opel (which are distinguished only by a brand name and steering wheel placement) are totally screwed as GM accelerates its disintegration. The US Congress isn’t going to bail them out, and if I were betting I’d say GM Europe and Saab will be spun off in the next six-to-twelve months.

I don’t know how many times we’ve pointed out that the blame for GM’s descent into bankruptcy ultimately lies deeply and completely with the automakers’ Board of Bystanders. Yes, GM CEO (and Chairman of the Board) Rick Wagoner drove the artist formerly known as the world’s largest automaker into a wall. But the Board threw him the keys, patted him on the back, walked back inside the house and played Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. To wit: “In an interview with The Detroit News, [BoD member] Kathryn Marinello ruled out the ‘fantasy’ of a prepackaged bankruptcy, which requires advance agreements with stakeholders before a filing, something that has never been attempted on such a large scale.” After reading our own Richard Tilton’s treatise on the matter,  I disagree completely. But hey, it sounds reasonable. This however… “She strongly defended GM Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner, calling him ‘the mailman,’ because ‘he always delivers. He is the only person that can keep the automotive industry alive in America,” said Marinello, chairman and CEO of Ceridian Corp., an information services company based in Minneapolis. ‘Not just keep it alive, but make it the technology and green leader.'” That’s incredible.

Chicks Dig it or Don't Dig It Part 2

TTAC’s Edward Niedermeyer called it in yesterday’s round-up: Congress will fork-out bailout bucks to “tide” Chrysler, Ford and GM over until… later. Reuters dots a few i’s and crosses a few t’s: “Congressional Democrats and the White House have reached agreement on emergency aid for U.S. automakers of between $15 billion and $17 billion, two senior congressional aides said on Friday.” How Congress will apportion the money between the three supplicants is something of a mystery. But look for GM to get the lion’s share, Chrysler to get some and Ford to get a token amount (“token” as in more money than its workforce earned in the last ten years). Congressfolk are working through the weekend to attach strings to the money– likely to include an oversight board and a deadline for Round Three (March?). So from whence cometh this largesse? From your taxes obviously. More specifically…

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Just a quick reminder that we’re still accepting nominations for TTAC’s Ten Worst Awards. As a pro and anti-Toyota Prius debate hijacked the original thread– unquashed due the passion and quality of the kerfuffle– I’ve decided to open a new post to allow more nominations in a cleaner, fresher, kindler and gentler commentarium. So if you haven’t chimed-in with your favorite worst vehicle sold in American (as new during calendar year 2008), please do so below. Again, please make your comments as pithy as poss, as we will be quoting the best in our list of final nominees. To refresh your memory, I suggest a cup of Clover-brewed Ethiopian Sulawesi. Woo-hoo! Sorry, what I meant to say: here’s the complete timetable via our dearly-departed though-not-dead-by-any-means Frank Williams. Note: we reserve the right to screw it up.

Thursday Dec 4:  Nominations start
Sunday Dec 7  Nominations close at 12 PM
Monday Dec 8:  List to writers to select semifinalists
Wed Dec 10:  Writers have their selections back by midnight
Thurs Dec 11 : Voting on finalists starts as soon as I can get the poll built
Sunday Dec 14: Voting closes at midnight;
Monday Dec 15;  Winners sent to writers for comments
Thursday Dec 19: Writers have comments back
Friday Dec 20:  Winners announced

Thank God that week is over! Any bets the next will be worse? TTAC provides round-the-clock coverage of everything that has wheels. Or has its wheels coming off. The night that WAS, week-end edition.

DC turns on drip for Detroit: Congressional Democrats and the White House have reached agreement on emergency aid for US carmakers of between $15bn and $17bn, two senior congressional aides said to Financial Times. “Congressional Democrats and the White House have reached an agreement,” a senior congressional aide said. Another source said negotiators had “agreed in principle to moving ahead but details have to be worked out.” The amount is far less than the $34bn requested this week by GM, Ford, and Chrysler, but it will keep them going into next year.

Going down? BMW and Daimler plummet: Both Daimler’s Zetsche and BMW’s Reithofer definitely said “it was nice having you” to their 2008 targets, Automobilwoche (sub) reports. BMW’s worldwide November sales dropped 25.4 percent. Mercedes-Banz did even worse: 28 percent down in November. BMW had been doing O.K. for most of the year, Jan-Nov they only lost 1.8 percent. Same at Daimler: Jan-Nov minus 4 percent, then the November shock. Worst markets for Daimler are Japan (minus 46 percent,) USA (minus 30 percent,) Europe West (minus 25 percent.) Even in the Chinese growth market Daimler lost more than 10 percent. The November numbers don’t bode well for 2009.

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The National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey (short form here) is a landmark study. It’s first time the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) has tackled the issue head-on (so to speak) in nearly 30 years. According to the final report, “traveling too fast” was the “critical pre-crash event” in only five percent of the 6,949 cases studied. In fact, in 12.2 percent of crashes, the vehicle was “stopped.” “Turning or crossing at intersection” was the number one critical pre-crash event (36 percent), followed by “Off the edge of the road” (22 percent). That said, NHTSA found “driving too fast for conditions” [NB: not necessarily over the speed limit] and “too fast for curve” were the number one and two “decision errors.” But top of the pile only means they accounted for 8.4 percent and 4.9 percent of “Critical Reasons for Pre-Crash Event Attributed to Drivers.” The major culprit after the jump.

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Chrysler has been battered in the last two days of congressional hearings. If there’s one thing that everyone in congress seems to agree on, it’s that Chrysler isn’t worth the hassle. Not only is it the smallest of the three automakers, but the Cerberus issue has loomed large as well. Today alone Nardelli told representatives at least twice that as far as he was aware, Cerberus didn’t have the funds to revitalize Chrysler. Needless to say this didn’t go over particularly well (private equity is deliciously easy to demonize), and Nardelli was looking increasingly stressed as the hearings dragged on. Probably aware that it’s about to become a sacrificial lamb (or, in a last-ditch sympathy ploy), Chrysler has reportedly hired law firm Jones Day as bankruptcy counsel, according to the Wall Street Journal. Neither side has confirmed or denied the move, but since the WSJ is quoting “people familiar with the matter” it must be true. Corinne Ball, who previously worked on the Dana Corp reorganization, GM’s Daewoo acquisition and “many cases involving the United Auto Workers union,” is said to be handling the case.

NADA Guides is one of the most objective and impartial consumer advocates within the automotive industry– providing you redfine the words “objective” and “impartial” to mean “your ass is mine.” National Automobile Dealers Association? ‘Nuff said. (As if.) Working for the dark side, NADA has primo access to primo product; their blog is, as of late, extremely Aston friendly. Yes, of course we’re bitter and twisted; it’s our m.o. But we gotta give NADA G [some] credit. Even though they provide no insight into their selection process whatsoever, their choice for Top Luxury Car of 2009 is both prescient (2009?) and, I reckon, accurate. The Audi A8 L is one Hell of a rig.

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James Malackowski penned an editorial in today’s Detroit News, improbably arguing that “much of the privately funded green and energy innovation in the United States will stall or likely never come to fruition if the domestic automobile industry fails.” Malackowski reaches this conclusion by comparing the Detroit 3’s patent portfolio in four areas (emission control, hydrogen fuel cells, hybrid/electric tech, and “emerging related technologies developed by these same firms including solar, wind and other green inventions”) with those of 15 other large automakers. His conclusions, presented without sourcing, are that “GM has higher average quality and newer green technology and patents than the other 14 automakers combined”; “Ford and GM together hold approximately a third of all green technology patents and the related value”; “GM has 70 percent of the patents in the emerging technology category. This domestic share increases to 85 percent if Ford is added”; and “Ford owns 30 percent of all patents with a similar related value measure in emission control innovation.” Unfortunately for Malackowski’s argument, comparing the number of held patents is meaningless considering that these innovations are simply not reflected in these firms’ products.

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Dear oh dear. Now that The Big 2.8 have slashed their advertising budgets, now that the Congress has their CEOs in their sights, the MSM news nets have grown a pair. In today’s House action (Eddy’s on the bridge), a few pols have poked and prodded Detroit’s opposition to state emissions laws and federal corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards. But it’s nothing compared to this slam at Motown’s lobbying efforts. “Nobody is placing bets on whether Congress will end up giving the car companies a bailout. But if investments in Washington politicians count as leverage, then the auto industry has plenty of clout.” Iron fist in a velvet glove? The times they are a changin’.

On Wednesday, Arizona state police arrested a man suspected of whacking a speed camera with a pickaxe. The incident took place in the city of Glendale just before midnight near the 59th Street overpass on the Loop 101 freeway. Police estimate the camera was hit at least six times in an attack quite similar to one that took place in the Czech Republic last month. Arizona Department of Public Safety officials wasted no time in exploiting the incident to discourage anti-camera activism. “From criminal damage charges to charges related to interfering with judicial proceedings that can carry lengthy jail terms and hefty fines, the ramifications a person could face for tampering with a photo enforcement site are extremely serious,” DPS Director Roger Vanderpool said in a statement. “DPS Officers will continue to be vigilant at all hours of the day and night and stand ready to respond quickly to reports or first hand observances of persons tampering with or vandalizing photo enforcement sites in any manner.”

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