Cars! Cars! Cars!

But Officer, I Had to Go to the Bathroom!

Heh, heh. Like we all haven't been there before. Heck, we're literally there most of the time. In fact, while our bowels twist inside us, we spend more time thinking of excuses for running lights, stop signs, school buses, old-folk crossings and Amish buggy-doin's than we do paying attention to the road. Forgive us, we cramp.

So, this NYTimes (dreaded registration required) piece If You Think You've Heard It All, Take a Left and Hit Traffic Court really hit home with us. We're surprised they didn't use our interview... it was chock full of scatological references, turds and diarrhea. And poop. Oh, lots of lots of poop. Why isn't everything lactose free? Would make the lives of everyone better... us lactose intolerant folk and you, the lactose-friendly. It would make you safer because we wouldn't accidently mow you down on the rush home!

And, speaking of that, why aren't car seats just made by American Standard? Think of the problems that would be eliminated! And instead of a cigarette lighter, a Charmin dispenser! In fact, if Chrysler really wanted to make a difference in the minivan game, chuck out that third row of disappearing seats and plop down a hopper! Now we're talking! We'll leave it up to you to name the new hopper-included minivan. But based on our eating habits, Dodge could leave the name, Magnum, in tact.

Fiat Wins!

Okay, again, everyone beat us to the punch with the Fiat and GM dealie. And everyone is saying, Poor Fiat (are they? we haven't read anything about it... stupid register for this, register for that, "Hey, you have to pay for the newspaper after you dribble jelly from your sweet, delicious donut on it... Mmmm, donut.")

Anyway, if Fiat is smart, they'll cash that $2 billion check, drop a few lines that aren't selling and just start over. It's okay. And, besides, Fiat... have you seen the cars coming off the GM production line? Chevy Monte Carlo? Pontiac GTO? And the car that actually put a representative of Guiness Book of World Records (researching ugliest car) into a coma: Pontiac Aztek?"

Fiat, be glad you didn't have to go through a divorce. A pre-nup saved your keister.

Upside Down

Ugh. @#$% WTF and all that!

Okay, every other state, don't do this: Don't punish alternative fueled vehicles. We've covered this before but no one's listening (surprise).

Here's the Cars! Cars! Cars! take on it: Better fuel economy is generating less money for road repair. So states are considering taxing you based on how much you drive. It almost makes sense, really.

But, it doesn't. Cars like the Toyota Prius use less fuel, pollute less, weigh less (and therefore do less damage on the road) so why are they being punished?

Also, how does the government track your mileage? GPS in all cars. Right! The goverment knows where you are at any given moment. Or your car, anyway. How long before they, say, put little strips of tracking material in our money? Or inject you at birth with some new drug to help babies cope with being outside the womb ("You sure you're supposed to inject my newborn with something called Trackalot?").

RIP: Bonneville

Right, Pontiac is killing the Bonneville. Pontiac and GM cite the reason of, "shifts in consumer tastes." That's right. As in shifting away from liking suck.

You know, we had planned to do big ol' "predictions" for 2005. But then it snowed and we just haven't gotten over that. We also had a contest here involving many, many beers. Simon won.

We still think:

Sales up for: Imports, Same or less for domestic.
Gas will hit near $3 in summer (anything over $2.70 counts!)
Hybrid sales will level off or go slightly higher
Cost of hybrid will go higher

Saturn is going to be hurtin'
Lincoln is going to have their worst year, ever. Ever, ever.
Phaeton will be killed
Jaguar will expand line of cars but sales will be lower and it will diminish brand. Hey Jaguar, kill off the X-type and hire a slick marketing guy to boost XJ sales, it's a great car.

Honda will continue to rock, Toyota will continue to be perfect but make snoozy cars and Subarus will get more and more expensive (and better looking). We're not sure what Nissan is doing but they are doing it better than Detroit.

And, finally, Pontiac will kill off the GTO because of poor sal... uh, it's a crappy ca... uh, shifting consumer tastes.

Thanks to all our fellow car bloggers for mentioning the Bonneville's demise before we managed to mention it.

Freakin' Snow!: The Answers

We would have posted these results earlier but, oh who we kiddin' -- this is the earliest any of you could have expected the results. In order:

One: VW Jetta wagon
Two: Chevrolet Impala
Three: Ford Taurus wagon
Four: Volvo XC70
Five: BMW 330ci
Six: VW Golf
Seven: Infiniti J30
Eight: Chevrolet Cavalier