So now we know why former Chrysler CEO Tom LaSorda was willing to punt BOTH of his turnaround plans, step aside for new CEO Bob Nardelli and share a co-presidency with ex-Toyota Prez Jim Press. According to The Wall Street Journal, Daimler's European accounts reveal that the Germans made the above payment (€10.4m) to Mr. LaSorda as a bonus for LaSorda's help liberating them from majority ownership of the American automaker. Yes, folks, that's on top of LaSorda's $3,223,116 (€2.13m) annual (which is to say ongoing) compensation package. Not to mention LaSorda's pension. Or health care. Or perks. And just in case you thought LaSorda's bonus and salary were performance related in the traditional sense of the term, Daimler's papers also show that Chrysler lost €1.94b ($2.9b) in an eight-week period last year. That's $51,785,714.29 a day. Hands-up anyone who thinks LaSorda gives a shit. [thanks to John for the link]

A survey by organizers of the British International Motor Show shows that Britons are more likely to remember their first car better than their first kiss. In fact, the survey shows that over 40% of the study group remembers the license plate number of their first car. The poll of 2,011 adults also shows that younger respondents anticipated getting their first car more than first kisses and 18th birthdays. Why the strong attraction to first cars? More than a third of respondents reported engaging in carnal acts in the back seat of their first car, and over half left home after securing their first set of wheels. "People develop powerful bonds with their cars, especially their first," says show organizer Kirsty Perkinson. "First cars represent an explosion of independence and a gateway to untold adventures, which is why they are so special." No word yet on whether carbon-hating London Mayor Ken Livingstone plans on challenging the results of this survey.

After calling global warming "a crock of shit," GM Car Czar Bob Lutz is using his fastlane blog to defend the remark that launched a thousand blogs. Instead of an apology, Maximum Bob declares himself– and you– an irrelevance. "Never mind what I said, or the context in which I said it. My thoughts on what has or hasn’t been the cause of climate change have nothing to do with the decisions I make to advance the cause of General Motors. My opinions on the subject — like anyone’s — are immaterial. Really." Bob then tells the tree-huggers to stop picking on him. "Instead of simply assailing me for expressing what I think, they should be looking at the big picture. What they should be doing, in earnest, is forming opinions not about me but about GM, and what this company is doing that is — and will continue to be — hugely beneficial to the very causes they so enthusiastically claim to support." I think that's what psychologists call "disassociation." But the best bit is here: "General Motors is dedicated to the removal of cars and trucks from the environmental equation, period. And, believe it or don’t: So am I! It’s the right thing to do, for us, for you and, yes, for the planet. My goal is to take the automotive industry out of the debate entirely." I guess he missed the irony of "taking GM out" of the equation. 

Ferdinand Piech is the Porsche family patriarch [still] pulling the strings at Volkswagen. Wendelin Wiedeking is the Porsche executive who would be king of VW– once Porsche takes control of the mass market motor maker. And Der Spiegel [via Just-auto, sub] is the magazine that says that Piech wants to kick Wiedeking out of the corporate jet, golden parachute and all. Motive: Piech believes that Wiedeking has become too powerful and autonomous. He wants to replace Wendy with Wolfgang Reitzle, the high-living executive who ran BMW well enough– and convinced Ford to lose billions creating its ill-fated Premier Automotive Group (Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo, Aston Martin and, latterly, Lincoln). Means: Piech's family still controls VW. Opportunity: VW's unions are unhappy at the prospect of surrendering board seats to the numerically inferior Porsche workers. All that said, VW moved to quash the rumor. "The report about a supposed contact between Piech and Reitzle with regard to the replacement of Wiedeking is nonsense and lacks any foundation," a Volkswagen spokesman told Reuters. "Piech has had no contact with Reitzle for years, and has none currently." Ah, but what of intermediaries…?

Bill Reinert was born in coal-miner's daughter country, worked in the engine rooms of Navy subs, survived a $6 pot bust and earned degrees in biopsychology and energy engineering from the University of Colorado. Reinert also serviced telephone towers in the Rockies, harnessing solar panels and windmills to charge batteries to conserve expensive, airlifted diesel fuel. After years of pitching his ideas to his [new] bosses at Toyota, Reinert helped design the Prius hybrid, and continues to work on hybrids for Toyota's US operation. As part of a lengthy "End of the Oil Age" feature on Bloomberg, Reinert reveals himself as a bit of a doomer, with well-worn predictions that we may descend into Mad Max territory. Framing Reinert's work, the Sierra Club complains that Toyota has moved backwards on being green. And the money men say trucks and SUVs are still ToMoCo's core business. "The company earns about $6,000 before taxes in the U.S. on an SUV," David Healy of Burnham Securities insists. "That compares with a $1,000 profit on a Corolla and a small loss on a Prius." Selling 181,221 hybrids may be impressive to outsiders, but if Toyota is losing money on each Prius… Is Reinert's baby still the way forward? That remains to be seen. 

Step into Ahmed Ibrahim's cab on Valentine's Day and you could get a lot more than a ride from A to B- you could also land a date, says the New York Daily News. The self-proclaimed "cupid cab driver" has spent years driving around the city looking for New Yorkers with lonely hearts, but only offers his services to a select group of passengers. Ibrahim listens to the conversations of his fares, asks them a few questions and then, if he thinks they are suitable, explains his matchmaking services and asks for their number and e-mail. "I want to know if they're the real deal or just a player," and "if you're a player, then forget about it," he says. Cab-rider Martin Karamon met a woman through Ibraham and says "When you live in New York City, nothing is bizarre, but it was a unique experience for sure." Still, cupid's love-arrows don't always hit their mark; Karamon says he might ride in Ibrahim's cab again "because I just broke up with my girlfriend." Oh, and they're still friends. That's nice. I mean who hasn't been through that routine? It's over, "but we can still be friends," she says. While most of us say something like, "oh, okay," what we're really thinking is "Go to Hell, you back-stabbing bitch!" Huh…oh, sorry, it's just an old emotional wound- I'll be okay. Happy Valentines Day, everyone! (You too… bitch.)

Claiming that America's economy is lurching ever more quickly from economic bubble to economic bubble, the founder of iTulip predicts a surge in alternative energy and infrastructure spending – sort of a green bubble. Writing for Harper's [sub], Eric Janszen defined the main economic drivers of "the cleantech bubble:" the need to recover from recession, weakness in the dollar, loss of petrodollar liquidity, loss of energy security and peak cheap oil. As a result, consumers will be faced with a bewildering array of fuels and vehicles: biofuels, electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids, hydrogen fuel cells, photovoltaics, wind turbines, ocean wave energy, geothermal energy, clean coal and even nukes. Janszen sees these technologies becoming the hot, overvalued commodities of the new bubble. At the same time, he predicts corporations will plan and (God forbid) implement the new energy infrastructure to power expensive new vehicles and public transit. Responding in the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas – USA , commentator Dave Cohen notes that venture capitalists (VC) are already looking to invest in what they call “the largest economic opportunity of the 21st century.” Fortunately for cutting edge companies like Tesla Motors, there's a VC born every minute.

“We wanted the MKT to be the Lear Jet of the road.” That’s how Ford's director of design for the Americas describes Lincoln’s concept car to the Pittsburg Post-Gazette. Brit-born Peter Horbury says Lincoln is on the mend. “As of now, we have had 14 consecutive months of sales growth at Lincoln. So once we established that the Lincoln brand was alive and kicking, we put together this Lincoln design vision for the future.” Yada X3. Things get more interesting when Horbury talks small. “The Verve is intended to very much indicate around the world where small cars from Ford are heading.” As to the resurgent popularity of small cars in the U.S., Horbury doesn’t see the price of gas or environmental concerns as the primary sales driver. “What changed things for small cars in this country was the popularity of the Mini Cooper. You can spend an awful lot of money optioning out a Mini. But more people want a car like that these days.” Then the capitalization-challenged reporter (MINI) Don Hammonds asks the question on our minds… lately: “What about Jill?” “Mercury will remain a Ford with extras, a new front end and new tail end, and different materials used inside and out. That approach seems to work very well.” Sure, just like anorexia suits the Olsen twins. 

The mainstream media may have forgotten that last week's Plastech parts embargo threatened to throw Chrysler into Chapter 11, and that the agreement saving the automaker from that fate expires this Friday. But we haven't. And neither has Crain's Detroit Business. According to the paper, a U.S. bankruptcy judge is set to hear arguments to [ultimately] determine who owns the tooling that makes the parts that Chrysler needs to survive. Chrysler says mine, mine, mine. "The automaker alleges that its right to the tools was gained through two prior bailout agreements. In those agreements Chrysler gave the supplier $6.9 million and sped payment of an additional $10.7 million." Plastech says bankruptcy obviates those claims. To wit: pulling the tooling from Plastech plants would hamstring their ability to secure life-sustaining, long-term financing. The most probable outcome is an extension of the interim agreement, but you never know. Meanwhile, here's a factoid that might explain Plastech's hang-tough strategy: the parts maker, owned by Vietnamese immigrant Julie Brown, is the largest minority owned company in the North American automotive supply chain.

When the President of Toyota's NA Ops tells his dealers that the good times "are temporarily on hiatus," you know the U.S. new car market is in BIG trouble. The AP [via the International Herald Tribune] paints a bleak picture: "Jim Lentz told the American International Automobile Dealers Association annual meeting that even strong Toyota dealers are reporting customer traffic down as much as 60 percent this year." Like his opposite numbers in Detroit, Lentz also believes– or at least says he believes– that the U.S. new car market will recover towards the fourth financial quarter, finishing the year at some 16m units. He also predicted that Toyota sales will rise regardless, continuing to buck the declining market. (Toyota sales rose three percent last year, despite a 2.5 percent decline in U.S. new car sales.) Thinking longer term, as Toyota tends to do, Lentz predicted good times ahead. "It is possible for the auto industry to hit 18 million sales annually sometime later in the next decade." 

The AP reports [via the Dallas Morning News] that Hugo Chavez has threatened to launch an “economic war” and cut off oil sales to the United States. “Take note, Mr. Bush, Mr. Danger,” the Venezuelan President intoned. Chavez is responding to Exxon Mobil’s attempts to seize billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets, to compensate for the South American country’s nationalization of the multi-billion dollar Orinoco oil project. "The outlaws of Exxon Mobil will never again rob us," Chavez promised. Meanwhile a British court has issued an injunction "freezing" as much as $12b of the assets of Petroleos de Venezuela SA, Venezuela’s state-run oil company. The U.S. imports some 12 percent (1.23m barrels per day) of its oil from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Oil prices are expected to spike on the news.

With tomorrow’s Super Bowl XLII looking to silence the web, ForbsAutos.com [via MSNBC] offers a guide to NFL players’ whips. To wit: Orpheus Roye, a 6’4”, 330-pound, defensive tackle with the Cleveland Browns, owns seven vehicles: a 2004 Mercedes-Benz CL-Class coupe, a 2005 Land Rover Range Rover Supercharged, a 2006 Bentley Flying Spur, a 2007 Mercedes S550 sedan, and a “massive” 2007 Maybach 57S. “The Maybach makes me feel like I’m a king," he says. Which vehicles are the most popular amongst the football elite? “Every player wants a Yukon, Tahoe, Denali, Escalade, or a Range Rover. You’re not a ball player if you don’t have one of those in the garage,” says Kevin Shuler, of Elite Auto Concierge in Atlanta, GA. [Sample Forbes' NFL players' automotive slideshow here.]

"If everything goes well in the rest of the world, we can take a couple hits in the U.S. and still be okay." Bob Lutz, GM Vice Chairman of Global Product Development. [via TTAC]. "Those emerging markets can't carry GM. We've got to get the job done in all markets." Fritz Henderson, GM Chief Financial Officer [via Automotive News, sub]. Given GM Car Czar maximum Bob Lutz' reputation for "shooting from the hip" (a.k.a. making shit up as he goes along), I'm going with Fritz' analysis. Oh wait, "Henderson also said the U.S. economy in general is faring better than the financial markets. He said he doesn't think the nation is in a recession, thanks to strength in certain sectors of the economy, such as exports." Holy Cruising Down Denial Batman! If anyone is in a recession– you know, other than the housing market– it's the U.S. automobile industry. On the other hand, Fritz also told the assembled car hacks "In terms of what we have to do — profits, cash flow, market cap — we're not the world's largest automaker." So he's down with that. But– "That's what I'm spending 100 percent of my time trying to figure out." Hmmm. Maybe it has something to do with, I dunno, product, or, I'm guessing here, branding. Anyway, if it's not a recession, what is it? Downturn? Market correction? Help Fritz out here guys; what euphemism should he use? 

According to Automotive News Europe, Porsche’s new holding company will increase its VW holdings after Sunday's state elections in Lower Saxony (whose government is VW's second-largest shareholder). Speaking at Porsche’s annual general meeting, the prospect had the automaker’s CEO all misty-eyed. "Barring the unexpected, we should once again achieve a result where it will be difficult to suppress tears of joy." Along the same line, Wendelin Wiedeking revealed that "The operating profit in our car business is developing according to plan and our hedging transactions in the context of our long-term VW strategy look good." What if the U.S. economy tanks? "Porsche is well prepared for a possible economic crisis in the USA, with inventories in the local market having been significantly reduced." Wiedeking also submitted his application for TTAC’s Bob Lutz Award (no really). "It would appear that the only way to escape the end of the world is to hop into those quaint little baby-cars from Italy and France." So much for a “unified” Europe, eh boys?

Would Rosa Parks have been able to hop a bus and escape New Orleans ahead of Hurricane Katrina if she'd been in town in 2005? It’s a pretty convoluted way to start a rant, but The Black Commentator guest columnist Meizhu Lui says Hurricane Katrina exposed the "internal combustion engine" divide. Forgetting the fact that Amtrak was deadheading [empty] trains out of town and that New Orleans had lots full of [empty] school buses, Lui flags the “alarming disparity in car ownership that literally was the difference between life and death for many Gulf Coast residents." The author then cites a “recent report” claiming that 24 percent of black households don’t own a car– as opposed to seven percent of white and 17 percent of Latino households. Rather than calling for expanded car ownership, Lui says there’s a better alternative. “Hurricane Katrina not only dramatically revealed the grotesque racial and class divisions in our country, but also pointed to some obvious causes, such as our car dependent economy. An inclusive and dependable public transportation system should be at the top of the list.”