Morning News: Prowler, SEMA, GM Death Watch

Volvo Builds a Plymouth
Autoblog reports: Volvo T6 hand-built hotrod. We like to think of ex-Volvo employee Leif Tufvesson as Adam Webber (the character played by Brendan Fraiser in the movie Blast from the Past). Along comes Leif after being stuck in some 20-year-long Scandinavian blizzard of death only to emerge with a single thought, "I will build it!" It being a total rip-off of the Plymouth Prowler. Now, of course, this new T6 dealie is cool. It's cooler than hell. How cool? Well, if we were classified as cool, the T6 is so cool that the T6 makes us look like we really do before we were cool. Which is how we are now. Which is uncool. Speaking of uncool, how fucked up is it that we couldn't remember Brendan Fraiser's name or any of his movies so we had to work backwards from that shitty Encino Man?... and even then we didn't remember the name of that shitty movie... all we could remember was Pauly Shore was it in. Brendan, buddy, you gotta go out and do some shit like Tom Cruise or something. Go get busy with Nicole Kidman so you can get back in the news and we remember you. We remembered Pauly Shore over you, for cryin' out loud! So, pardon us while we go stick our head in a blender and set it to "Hey Buuuuuuuuudy!"

SEMA Is Important
CNN/Money reports: Toyota to unveil cars at 'tuner' show. So lots of manufacturers are taking the auto parts industry seriously. Except Delphi because they make parts but are suckin'. How can a company that makes parts for the biggest auto maker suck? Is this even the same thing? We don't really care because in the next day or so there are gonna be hundreds of pics of car booth attendants showing off their products. Thanks to AUTOEXTREMIST.COM for the pic.... It is a wonderful, wonderful site.

Bankruptcy Is Bad
The Detroit News reports: Delphi's economic toll: $10 billion. Man, reading this article tells us one thing. Move away from Michigan. When these folks start losing their houses... gonna be a crappy place. On the flip side, it's probably a good time to open a liquor store or be a beer distributor. The Delphi mess is going to have a cascading affect for a long time as people earn less and therefore spend less. Or spend the same amount and then declare bankruptcy. But since people aren't companies, the whole bankruptcy is more difficult than ever, so, essentially, the common worker is screwed. Oh, as a friendly reminder, the Christmas shopping season is rapidly approaching and a carton of cigarettes can count as a gift. Light 'em up!

Uh-oh, Some Dirty Dealins
The Car Connection reports: Oil For Food Scandal Hits Automakers. Seems like some companies weren't on the up and up.

Investigators probing the United Nations' oil-for-food program in Iraq, which operated under U.N. auspices from 1996 to 2003, have accused hundreds of companies, including several prominent global enterprises, of paying bribes to the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Several automotive companies or companies with links to the automotive industry - including DaimlerChrysler, Daewoo, Kia, Fiat, Peugeot, and Renault - turned up on the lengthy list of companies that paid bribes or kickbacks to the fallen Hussein regime.

Two more, Nissan and Toyota, were mentioned in the report by investigating team, which was headed by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker and which issued its report Thursday.

You know, if the U.S. government really wanted to stop this kind of practice, they could just say, "Hey, Nissan, you can't sell any 2007 models here in the states." We just made that up.... We have no idea how to stop anyone from doing anything, really. Our neighbor keeps coming over and taking a crap on our lawn and even macing him doesn't work.

GM Death Watch 38: General by Name
The Truth About Cars writes once again on the impending death of GM in their latest column GM Death Watch 38: General by Name. All we know is, we're sure glad we paid Robert Farago back that loan. All we need to see is a Farago ediotiral: "Cars! Cars! Cars! Death Watch: It Will Happen Tonight... Once in the head and once in the neck." We're also inspired by Mr. Farago's:

We’ve said it before. We’ll say it again: GM must die. You can't fix this company. Even if GM's unions agreed to join their Chinese colleagues and work for $1.50 per hour, even if several of GM’s 14 (count ‘em 14) crossovers are a runaway success, the company is deeply, fundamentally, culturally flawed. Shuttering Buick, Saturn and Saab would help, but nothing can save a car company that’s a jack of all trades and master of none.

whereas all we can muster is, "GM's the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked a suck."

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A limousine (or limo) is an unusually long luxury car, traditionally black or white in color. Limousines are most commonly driven by chauffeurs.
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