When Harry Zekelman died suddenly in 1986, his sons assumed control of their father’s Ontario-based steel tube company. In the course of two decades, Barry Zekelman and his brothers built Atlas Tube into the largest manufacturer of steel tubing in the world. In 2006, the Zekelman boys sold a majority stake in Atlas to the huge Carlyle Group, which then merged Atlas with its other steel company, John Maneely Company. Barry Zekelman became the CEO of the combined firm. In 2008, OAO Novolipetsk Steel, part of a Russian conglomerate, agreed to buy Maneely and the Zekelmans’ remaining interest in Atlas. In the financial turmoil of the past year, the deal fell through. Even without it, Zekelman’s not going to miss his next mortgage payment. He and his brothers made about $1.5 billion on the original agreement with Carlyle.

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kbb.com presents a top ten automotive list that is to PR what plastic worms are to bass: completely contrived and intermittently irresistible. “Ten Great Cars for 10 Different Jobs” is about vague and non-threatening a compendium as I’ve ever encountered in this genre. And you can’t fault them for adding the word “Different” “Ten Great Cars for the Same Damn Job” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Oh look! There’s a Ford F-150! Quel surprise! Only this is the Raptor version for bounty hunters who don’t find their man inside a bar or roach-infested apartment, and want to tear the miscreant into pieces and eat him, presumably. “The kbb.com list is sure to provide thought-provoking transportation options for those in various lines of work.” Me, I’m only in one line of work: automotive truth telling. Well, that and comedy. And you’re in this with me, you bastards. So make the jump for five more ideas for career-appropriate whips. Correct us if we’re wrong. (As if.) As always, we welcome your suggestions.

Coke dealer – Don’t think downmarket; the mostly Bolivian-sourced drug is repackaged for the financially-challenged and sold as something called “crack” (much to the chagrin of the Irish, but then heteros lost the word gay so there you go). Eddy reckons a de-badged, “murdered-out” BMW M3 is the answer to a question neither of us get asked, ever. Fo shizzle. It’s low-key, yet capable of outrunning anything save police radio. I’m good with the keeping it on the down-low approach. I’m thinking a Toyota Corolla XRS. They’re completely invisible, yet the extra performance. . . just kidding. Alternatively, candycaine providers could help society by driving a scissor-doored Chrysler 300C with a Bentley-esque mesh grill and one of those in-car LED displays with a crawl proclaiming “A R E S T M E I A M A C O K E D E E L E R.”

Antique Dealer – Once upon a time, Volvo station wagons were specifically designed by antique dealers, for antique dealers. Members of this profession are not dumb; they know that buying an estate from the dead-brand-walking Swedish brand today would be like paying top dollar for cracked Fiestaware. Eddy says Subaru Outback, but admits that everyone in his Portland locale drives a Subaru Outback—pot dealers, soccer moms, purveyors of Russian Samovars, everyone. (Biggest car joke in Oregon: “meet me at (X). I’m in the green Outback.”) I’ve always wondered why latter day Lovejoys don’t drive something delightfully old and quirky, like a 1957 Pontiac Safari Transcontinental. Probably because they want to get where they’re going the same day that they start going there, and don’t want die in a five-mile-per-hour shunt. So the Subie it is.

Accountant – Like a good pencil pushing number cruncher, you gotta think outside the law. I mean, box. An accountant who drives a Ferrari 430 Spider (as one of kid’s classmate’s father does) is telling the world that they’re successful at helping successful people become successful by helping them avoid paying, uh, you know. Better yet, an accountant who drive the world’s most expensive Italian toy (aside from a high maintenance mistress) says “I’m bulletproof baby. See this Ferrari IRS? Yeah I’m rich. Go on audit me, you bastards. I dare you.” Eddy says slap a company logo on that bad boy, and all the expensive maintenance is a write-off.

Tween Star – So easy to go for the Mercedes SL63 AMG. But the uber-SL’s throttle is way too twitchy for a teen tween queen, without or without an elevated blood alcohol level—as Lindsay Lohan has shown us time and time again. Yes, it’s the safest fuck-off-and-die-mobile money can buy, but is that really the message our highly-esteemed role models want to send to today’s Bratz? And here at TTAC we never, ever do anything nice (well, except for our positive post of the day and Eddy’s screwed that up more than once). Eddy can see Miley Cyrus in a Pepto-Pink LaCrosse; “thanks to a deal signed to attract younger buyers to the Buick brand.” But then they do have exceptional marijuana where Eddy lives [see: above]. Me, I’m with Hayden: Mercedes GL. I know she’s like totally old now, but the GL’s just like an SL only the logo’s WAY bigger and you can take your entourage and stuff and you can see the pop-o-Nazis from MILES away.

President of the United States – Lest we forget, The Commander-in-Chief commands General Motors. So the Prez can commandeer his pick from the entire range of GM models across the company’s eight brands. Oops! Four. No, wait, it IS eight. Hang on; we can’t include Opel, Vauxhall, Holden and Daewoo because American politicians MUST DRIVE AN AMERICAN CAR. Still, that still leaves, what 32 separate models, depending on what you call separate. Anyway, Eddy says Chevrolet Aveo. But he’s just being an asshole. I reckon The Leader of the Free World should drive a Chrysler 300C. Because it’s a free country and he’s free to drive whatever he wants and he’s a man who isn’t afraid to do so no matter how strenuously the green wing of his party protests or how cravenly PC his advisers may be. Oh wait . . .

Audi of America’s Johann De Nysschen calls the Volt “a car for idiots,” in an MSN interview. “No one is going to pay a $15,000 premium for a car that competes with a (Toyota) Corolla,” he tells Lawrence Ullrich. “So there are not enough idiots who will buy it.” And you have to admit that the guy has a point. For all the Volt’s hype, GM has offered little in the way of an explanation of the Volt’s potential appeal to people who don’t merely “want to show what enlightened souls they are,” as De Nysschen puts it. But don’t worry, GM has a meme for that! Specifically, that deep down the Volt isn’t an overpriced hair shirt . . . it’s a performance car!

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Omnicom Group Inc.’s BBDO is Chrysler’s ad agency.  At least for now. The Wall Street Journal reports the ailing automaker “has grown dissatisfied with the agency’s creative output.” The semi-nationalized automaker’s looking elsewhere for someone who wants to take on the sisyphean task of convincing Americans they need to buy cars from a bankrupt automaker with stale inventory that’s owned by another automaker with the one of the worst reliability ratings on the globe. Of course, marketing being what it is, all that’s needed is a catchy slogan akin to Toyota’s “What a feeling,” VW’s “Think small,” or Chevy’s “Like a rock,” right? That’s where you come in. What slogan or catch phrase would convince you to buy a Chrysler product? “Most smartly different?” Or what?

Daily selling rates are playing silly buggers with some of this month’s sales results, but the numbers in the headline reflect Automotive News [sub]’s calculations on a pure monthly basis. Since both Toyota and Honda‘s official numbers are based on DSR though, they come out a bit higher. Either way, both firms saw increases in popular Cash For Clunker models, while trucks and luxury brands continued to sell slowly.

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China’s recent decisions to allow defaults on commodity future contracts and subsidize raw material imports are seriously messing with the commodities markets, giving voice to paranoia in every sector of the economy. In the auto industry, that means the now-familiar cries from those who worry far too much about the availability of raw materials for battery making. Automotive News [sub] reports that worldwide demand for 15 “rare earth” elements will exceed demand by 40k tons “in the next few years,” raising challenges for the nascent hybrid and battery electric segments.

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Autocar reports that BMW is considering licensing Toyota’s iQ city car platform for its long–rumored neo-Isetta EV. In return, Toyota would reportedly get access to BMW’s MINI platform. It’s understandable that BMW would want to trade for a city car platform (they all look/drive the same anyway), but why would Toyota want a platform that could be mooted by improving the Yaris’s underpinnings? Also, is BMW not aware that Aston is doing its own iQ re-skin? How did the Bavarians not pick up on the scornful reception that news elicited? Meanwhile, Toyota is also in platform-sharing talks with Daimler. When did Toyota become the new Fiat?

The LA Times interviews AC Propulsion’s Tom Gage, and sheds some light on what an actual, honest-to-god profitable EV firm looks and thinks like. The short version? Think of the exact opposite of Tesla and you’ll be getting close.

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Volkswagen’s BlueSport is still in concept form, but that didn’t stop Autobild from taking it out and comparing it to Mazda’s Miata, the industry standard for affordable fun. “Not bad, truly not bad,” is how the BlueSport’s creator Marco Fabiano describes the Miata, his concept’s intended prey. Which means the BlueSport will have to be “damn good, truly damn good” to break Mazda’s 20-year stranglehold on the entry-roadster market. At least VW is clear on that much going into the project.

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The “Toyota is the new GM” meme is a provocative one. After all, prior to GM’s decades-long unraveling its dominance of the industry put Toyota’s tentative top-dog status to shame. GM’s decline proved once and for all that no make, model or brand can coast on being “number one” alone. Which is why I want to believe that Lexus is shaping up to be the new Buick, as Mark Phelan insists at the Freep.

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There ain’t nothing stock about a stock car. Nowadays, there ain’t nothing standard about a “standard” transmission. How long has it been since you’ve heard that quaint sobriquet for a clutch-and-stick setup? More than ninety percent of new cars sold in the United States are self-shifters. Our oh-so-superior friends in Europe and Japan aren’t as far behind in the trend towards PRNDL hegemony as they would have us believe. Combine the weight of marketplace preference with the increasing difficulty involved in making a stick-shift meet emissions regulations, and it becomes easy to understand why manufacturers are making automatic transmissions the only choice for everything besides specialty cars. A clutch pedal is perilously close to becoming an actual luxury item in today’s market. Does that turn this twenty-two-grand base-ish Fusion into a luxury car? Hell no.

According to CBS News, an ex-lawyer for Toyota of North America has filed a racketeering suit against his former employer. ToMoCo’s former managing counsel Dimitrios P. Biller accused the automaker of illegally withholding evidence in hundreds of rollover death and injury cases, in a “ruthless conspiracy” to suppress evidence of its vehicles “structural shortcomings.” Further, “Biller’s 75-page complaint [download pdf here] says that when he came to Toyota after nearly 15 years in private practice, he was ‘surprised and alarmed’ to discover that the company was not producing e-mails and other electronically stored information to plaintiffs as he said was required. According to the lawsuit, Biller repeatedly complained to supervisors that the company was illegally withholding evidence. The lawsuit further states that the resulting conflicts ultimately caused Biller to suffer a mental breakdown and led to his forced resignation in September 2007. He left with a $3.7 million severance agreement, court records show.” [thanks to Dennis for the link]

Why a duck? Why no chicken? Hey, Ford asked the question. And by God, Ford’s answered it. On nationwide TV, the most compelling rational for sending your hard-earned money in Dearborn’s direction proffered is: “Why not?” [NB: “most compelling” does not necessarily equal “compelling”.] On the Why website, the Glass House Gang has another go. Why Ford. “Ford has the most fuel-efficient mid-sized sedans in America with quality that Toyota and Honda can’t beat.” Why Mercury. “Mercury Milan is the most fuel-efficient mid-sized sedan in America and Mariner Hybrid, the most fuel-efficient SUV on the planet.” Why Lincoln. “Lincoln has the luxury vehicles you want with the technology you need.” Like . . . an engine. Brakes. Rear window power sunshade. A 10GB hard-drive for photo storage. That sort of thing. So now I ask you, our Best and Brightest, to grade their answers and, perhaps, provide alternatives.

No. Really. GM’s top execs [not shown] stood up in front of their Midwestern dealers at the Rock Financial Showplace and told them that new car sales will rebound by 15 percent next year, ascending to an annual tally of 12.5 million vehicles. That’s fantastic news. But the real shocker: our mole reports that the suits only said the word “faster” once. The company’s new mantra: our costs are less, so we can charge you less. No, wait; that’s a local Toyota’s dealer’s come-on. I mean, our costs are less, so we can keep our jobs longer. Or make a profit. Or something. Meanwhile, Automotive News [sub] reports that GM has formed a special task force to “try to retain 3 million ‘free agents’ — customers that have lost their favorite brand, nameplate or dealership this year.” Interesting use of the word “favorite” . . .

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