Cars! Cars! Cars!

Name That Loser!

Yeah, so it's 100% true. Pontiac introduced the G8 truck! Yeah, a truck. But with the front of a G8. How awesome is that?

The world has been yearning for a car truck since the dawn of time. And even though Subaru sold one recently and discontinued it because of very, very poor sales, Pontiac thinks you'll want one. Only bigger. That uses more fuel.

Bigger AND uses more fuel. That's what Pontiac thinks.

But what's it's name? Well, Pontiac doesn't know. But they know you want one! And they know you want to name it.

So, go to Tame the Name and enter your idea there. That's right, be a naming ninja! <--Honestly, their words!

Come on! How long before this turkey is canned?

Old, White Dude Refutes Science

In a shocking development an old, white business dude whose business is selling pollution creating machines has announced that global warming from pollution caused partially by machines he sells is, as he puts it, "a crock of shit."

In an interview we just made up now, GM VP Bob Lutz said:

GM VP Bob Lutz: I'm old
Cars! Cars! Cars!: Right.

After a nap, the interview continued:

BL: I'm white.
CCC: Right. So... Oh! Old and white means you can't believe in global warming.
BL: Right. The polluting vehicles I sell are not causing global warming.
CCC: So, global warming is real?
BL: Well, I don't know. But my motor cars do not do anything like that.
CCC: Come on! Didn't you see the movie by Larry David's hot wife, Cheryl?
BL: That's the actress who plays his wife on the TV show.
CCC: Man, she's hot.
BL: Like the earth is getting.
CCC: Ah ha!
BL: Look, all I'm saying is that I have nothing to do with global warming. It's probably Jimmy Carter's fault.
CCC: That bastard!
BL: Boy howdy! And, you know, just in case there is global warming and we're part of it, we have an all electric dealie coming out. You just plug that sumbitch into one of them electric whatchamacallit and just like Bob's your uncle, you can, you know. Go somewhere with your... car.
CCC: The Volt?
BL: Is that German?
CCC: No, the name of the car.
BL: Yes.
CCC: Price?
BL: Well, higher than the other day! Ha!
CCC: Heh, Bob's your uncle.
BL: OK, we're done. I gotta go can the union.

Referenced articles:

From Jalopnik: Bob Lutz on Global Warming: "Total Crock of Shit"

From Kicking Tires: Chevy Volt to Debut $5,000 More Than Predicted

CAFE? No CAFE?

Man, this fuel economy crap is confusing the hell out of us. And U.S "President" Bush is going to veto it anyway, so what's point? Here are the latest articles:

The Detroit News reports House OKs 35 mpg rule.

AutoWeek reports Big CAFE hike stalls--for now--in Senate.

AutoWeek reports Lutz says 35-mpg CAFE will scuttle GM product plans.

OK, it passed the House, stalled in the Senate and despite the "Automakers, in a historic about-face, support the higher CAFE standards." (from the "Senate" article above), GM VP Bob Lutz says that new standard will mess up GM's future gas guzzlin' machines.

Clearly the Unions are at fault here. Damned unions.

It's pretty insane that we'll have to wait until 2020 to get vehicles with decent mileage. By then the sweet Honda Clarity FCX will be rockin' out everywhere and it won't matter, but the point is that we should be far ahead in terms of fuel efficiency. It's a shame that horsepower and top speed are more important than lowering pollution and lessening our dependence on foreign oil. You'd think some egg-head engineer would get a kick out of the challenge of combining power with fuel efficiency...

Imagine, them walking down the street and bumping into each other: "You got your fuel efficiency in my high horsepower engine!" "No, you got your high horsepower engine in my fuel efficiency!" Hilarity ensues and we all fly up to Heaven to be with Jaysus.

Can you imagine if these two were the egghead engineers? It'd be like: "We have a crotch explosion in sector two! Of the sexiest kind!" Also, Alison.

Lincoln Needs A Lutz

Oh, we've poked plenty of fun at GM's car dude Bob Lutz, but apparently he's thrown his big balls around enough to get some decent cars made. Ford needs to get its own Lutz action figure and clean up the mess that is Lincoln. Hell, all of Ford. Ford's exteriors are OK (unoffensive if nothing else), but interiors? Yikes!

Take a look at this turd: 2009 Lincoln MKS. Terrible! If Ford thinks this is a serious competitor to the 2008 Cadillac CTS they are drunk off their arses. This interior looks awesome for 1993, but for 2009... it's incredibly weak. You can read the whole bit over at Autoblog here: Spy Shots: Interior of the 2009 Lincoln MKS.

By the way, that big red button is to initiate the buyer's remorse sequence.

Lutz: We Love Ford Long Time

Autoblog reports Lutz says GM open to alliance with Ford. That's right, baby! Merger mania runnin' wild on you. Or on us.

In fact, we don't know my Mr. Lutz (GM Vice Chairman) does this to us. It's not like we need a lot of encouragement to start on the whole "merger" thing. In fact we're quite happy to just make it all up ourselves after just one cup of coffee. We love coffee.

Mmmm, Candy!

Crap, Mr. Farago is at it again. General Motors Death Watch 94: Table Scraps. We go back and forth about GM VP Bob Lutz. At first we thought he was full of baloney. Then the media decided he was the decider and could do all sorts of things, and it caused us to question ourselves. Then the friggin' Solstice and Sky came on the scene, and we were nearly convinced we were wrong. And then Mr. Lutz goes all nusto:

According to GM Exec Maximum Bob Lutz, "Whatever our market share stabilizes at in the US— 22, 23, 24 percent— I don’t really care. The idea that GM… has got to get back to 30 percent is a wacky notion with all this global competition we’ve got."

Obviously, Mr. What Me Worry? is a whack job. The fact that the septugenarian ex-Marine has any power whatsoever within GM— never mind his multimillion-dollar annual salary, huge pension, and Gulfstream perks— tells you all you need to know about GM’s ability to manage itself. At the risk of stating the obvious, shouldn’t the guy who calls [at least some of] the shots for the world’s largest automaker understand that the faster GM’s domestic market share shrinks, the closer The General gets to the tipping point of no return? Call me a weenie (SIR!), but I’d expect an ex-Marine to know when he’s fighting a rear-guard action.

We're still in the camp that GM is in the hopper, but every once in a while, we wonder. Time will tell, but action needs to be taken at the top of the heap, and someone better figure that out.

That's the same Honda Civic of a few days ago. GM should still be worried about it.

Edmunds And Lutz Sitting In A Tree

Edmunds reports: Bob Lutz, the man with the Midas touch. What's up with Edmunds pouring the love on GM VP Bob Lutz? It's not like he's Alison*. Or Claire. We absolutely, positively, without-a-doubtly will not ever, no never, not once pour any love towards Mr. Lutz until he uses his "Madas touch" on the most hideous, foul, bloated car that GM makes.

Yes, the Monte Carlo. It's ugly.

If it's true that Mr. Lutz was the sole person behind the design of the Solstice and Sky, then he can open a can of whoop-ass on the Monte Carlo. The Monte Carlo is ugly, you see. It doesn't even have a single redeeming quality. None. Because it's so ugly.

Huh, from that one angle, the Monte Carlo doesn't look totally like a pig. How's this for annoying? In our defense, GM had only three snaps of the '07 Monte Carlo SS and none of the plain ol' Monte Carlo. Also in our defense, we have no taste.

*Plaid and overalls! How are we supposed to control ourselves?

Ignoring The Outlets

The Car Connection reports: Lutz Likes Power-Outlets, That Is. You'll need to scroll down a bit to find this article, but make sure to read this quote:

And that, he acknowledged, is one area where GM has made some major mistakes over the last couple decades.

We then followed-up with Mr. Lutz in this made-up interview:

GM VP Robert Lutz: Ha! Remember 1977 through 2005? Ha! Man, we porked the pie that time! Whew!
C!C!C!: Sorry, Mr. Lutz, we don't follow.
Lutz: We mongoosed the snake!
C!C!C!: What does that mean?
Lutz: We threw the baby out with the bath water.
C!C!C!: We're familiar with these saying... well, not the first two, what the hell were those? But we think we know what you're saying.
Lutz: You do? What am I saying?
C!C!C!: You're saying for generations you ignored the (growing) competition's competenence and ignored the needs of your customers. GM single-handedly drove customers to the competition through negligence and hubris.
Lutz: I said that?
C!C!C!: Yes.
Lutz: I'll agree to that if you throw in something bad about the unions.
Unions: Hey! We're just sitting here eatin' a sammich.
C!C!C!: Unions or not, you are the ones designing the cars.
Lutz: It's far easier to blame someone else you know.

Meanwhile, make sure to read The Detroit News's piece: Carmakers take style fight inside.

Free Fords!

Detroit is like Hollywood anymore: no new ideas. What one company does, the other follows. It's a stupid cycle and it's get us nowhere. Fast.

We mentioned GM was paying for some gas and now Ford has done the same thing that GM did back in Oct. 2005 -- free gas.

The Detroit News reports: Ford deal: 0% loans, free gas. Sure seems like the Road Ahead is really just an envelope with cash in it. Which we like. Every car should have envelopes with cash in the glove box. Make sure to check out the chart with the Expedition: over $13k in savings! Sweet Mercy. Ford had to make a big deal about this Road Ahead campaign when all it entailed was rebates and stuff? Zzzzz....

Meanwhile, The Detroit News reports: GM takes flack for cheap gas incentive. This article is too much fun not to quote it a bunch:

While GM has stepped up its promotion of alternative fuels, critics say the new gas program is a cynical attempt to keep selling gas hogs without regard to the environment and America's dependence on foreign oils.

"It says a lot about GM and their dire financial straits that they are so desperate to sell the gas guzzlers that no one wants, that they are paying for the gas to drive them home," said Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming Program. "When did you ever hear about a junkie giving up his subsidized fix?"

Influential New York Times columnist Tom Friedman -- author of the best-selling book "The World is Flat" -- took on GM in a sharply worded column Wednesday.

"Is there a company more dangerous to America's future than General Motors? Surely, the sooner this company gets taken over by Toyota, the better this country will be," Friedman wrote, comparing GM to "a crack dealer looking to keep his addicts on a tight leash" by offering the fuel program.

GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, who oversees the automaker's product development, said in an e-mail that Friedman "is so 'over the top' that it borders on psychosis."

Lutz said his hope "is that the majority of Americans, not being extreme liberals, and harboring a deep-seated distrust toward the media, will see his piece for what it is: the product of an unusual, but not altogether well, mind."

Ha! How soon before there's a fight on TV? Speaking of Jell-o wrestling with Alison, we're totally down with that.

Bob Lutz Puts On Glasses. Looks More Serious.

Oh, now you're wearing glasses, Mr. Lutz? We get it. Put on the ol' spectacles and we'll take you more seriously? You can't fool a fool! Oh, wait. Crap. AutoWeek reports: Culture Change.

When you arrived in 2001, there was a sense that GM culture was too bureaucratic. Has it changed much -- or changed enough?

You could argue that no matter how fast a culture changes for the better, you're always impatient. When I got here, if I might criticize the past, product development was delegated at too low a level, especially design. There was insufficient senior management involvement with the product direction.

That's actually pretty interesting. And it makes sense. There's no way, say, Steve Jobs doesn't personally yea or nay a product and you can see how well Apple seems to be doing now. If the fancy boys, the big-wigs, the top dogs, the head honchos are honestly looking at future products and giving the green light (or not), well, then maybe GM has a future. That is, if they have any taste.