Out Of Focus

Back in May, I wondered out loud on this blog whether the Ford Focus and Fiesta, still available in Europe, would return to the U.S. market, given the continuing increase in gas prices.  The short answer, regarding the Focus at least, is: It won't.  That's because the Focus is being discontinued in Europe in 2025.

Ford announced the news on June 22, adding that it doesn't know how to keep the German plant that makes the European Focus up and running once the car is axed.  Most of the 4,600 workers at the factory could be laid off, even as Ford plans to make more electric vehicles. "The reality of the industry," a Ford representative said, "is that the production of EVs will require fewer people."

That would be fine if an ID.3-like hatchback were in the works at Ford to replace the Focus.  Alas, Ford plans to make more EUVs, because, well, crossovers are gaining popularity in Europe too.

The Focus is on the way out.  The Fiesta is next. 😬

No Focus. No Fiesta. WTF?

Back in 2018, then-Ford CEO Jim Hackett, who retired in 2020, decided to ax all of Ford's sedans and hatchbacks - including the fuel-efficient Focus and Fiesta - in the U.S. and Canada, and he did not spare the Lincoln brand from his decision.  This means that Ford dealers in North America only offer SUVs, pickup trucks and Mustangs and the Lincoln brand is all SUVs - without a single sport sedan in the lineup.

Since then, the Focus and the Fiesta have been redesigned for the European market.  The Focus remains as edgy as ever, as seen below (in hot ST form).

And the all-new Fiesta (below) is pretty slick too!

Would the Focus and the Fiesta ever come back to the New World?  Yes, said then-and-still-Ford executive chairman William Clay Ford, Jr., provided, of course, that the North American market changed and made compact cars popular again.  An Ford would be readily be able to adapt to such change.

All right.  So, gasoline in the U.S. is $4.76 per gallon.  It's the equivalent of $6.54 in Canada.  All of those SUVs are suddenly to big, too cumbersome too wasteful, and too stupid.  Even the compact ones.  Now is the time for the Focus and the Fiesta to come back to the New World.  So, Ford - what the f**k are you waiting for?

Oh, right, for North American buyers to stop buying these.

*💣💀##!!

Mondeo Sunset

For those wondering when it would become obvious that sport utility vehicles are a truly global menace, the suspense ended when Ford announced that it was discontinuing a once-popular sedan to concentrate more on monster wagons.

And no, I'm not talking about the Taurus or the Fusion in North America, the discontinuations of which you already know about.  I'm talking about the Mondeo sedan in Europe.

The Mondeo, which has lasted five generations (the latest and last one having been sold in North America as the Fusion), was once to Europeans, particularly Britons, what the Toyota Camry has been to Americans - the gold standard of family sedans.  But rising SUV sales and the grater popularity of the Kuga SUV in Europe (we know it as the Escape) have ended even the Mondeo's long run, with 2022 as its final model year.

Unlike the non-Mustang Ford lineup in the New World, Ford of Europe's offerings won't be entirely devoid of regular cars - the Focus and the Fiesta remain available there - but that may very well change in the very near future as monster wagons now account for 40 percent of Ford sales in the Old Country.  Ford is moving to an all-electric lineup in Europe by 2030, and I presume North American models (expect pickup trucks, of course) will also be predominantly if not completely electric, but who cares when the vehicles themselves will still be cumbersome, bulky, high-perched wagons with little aerodynamic styling and no joie de vivre in their handling characteristics?  Even the most boring family sedan is more pleasurable to drive than a "sport" utility vehicle.

That, of course, means nothing to Ford and its customers, both here and abroad, who continue to make life on the road more unbearable for those of us who cling to our small, zippy runabouts.    

Pride Comes Before a Fall

This is without a doubt the most obnoxious and most nauseating auto ad tagline I've ever seen.

As you all know by now, Ford no longer makes standard passenger cars in America except for the Mustang.  The rest of its passenger vehicle line in the U.S. (and Canada) is comprised entirely of monster wagons, my term for SUVs.  Implicit in the tagline "Built For America" is Ford's belief that, while people in other countries may be content with "regular" cars, Ford makes SUVs because real Americans want SUVs, they can't be bothered with sensible, small sedans or hatchbacks, and they certainly don't want station wagons!  Oh, no, they demand wasteful, inefficient, bulky sport utility vehicles because, God damn it, this is America, and Americans have a God-given right to buy what they want!  And Ford is ready, willing and able to satisfy that desire for big, nasty, brutish vehicles out of a patriotic duty to American values and blind devotion to American exceptionalism!  And heck, Ford couldn't be prouder to do so!  "Built Ford proud!"

Want a regular car?  You're obviously not a real American. Why don't you move to France?  At least there, you can still get a Ford Focus.

Making SUVs that pollute the environment, cause more blind spots than a regular passenger car, are cumbersome to drive, and can run over my Golf is Ford's idea of building Ford proud?

My advice to fellow SUV-haters is to stand back . . . and stand by as gas prices slowly rise as they've been doing. When they get high enough to make SUV owners - especially Ford SUV owners - berserk, that'll be fun to watch!  (I'll bring the popcorn.) 

Keep On Truckin'?

I recently finished reading Bill Vlasic's 2011 book "Once Upon a Car," about the the bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler and the painful restructuring of Ford in the late two thousand zeroes, and while this blog entry is not a review of that book, I feel compelled to recount some tidbits from it that, though this all happened only a decade or so ago, seem like a much more distant past.

There are accounts of President Obama talking with Ford scion William Clay Ford, Jr. about a future of motoring that envisioned all sorts of electric cars, Robert Lutz of General Motors waxing rhapsodic about the then-all-new Chevrolet Volt, then the most advanced hybrid vehicle in the world, and Fiat's Sergio Marchionne being eager to help Chrysler, which his firm had just absorbed, by designing fuel-efficient Dodges and Chryslers based on Fiat platforms.  All of this looked oh, so promising as the Big Three recovered from near-extinction.

Well, what a difference a decade makes.  Today, the Big Three are back to pushing sport utility vehicles - a strategy that got them into such much trouble in 2009 in the first place.  The Chevrolet Volt is gone, GM and Chrysler have pared their sedans and hatchbacks in North America to one or two, and Ford has pared its sedans and hatchbacks in North America to zero.  Even Sergio Marchionne, who died in 2018, decided to emphasize Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' Jeep brand (earning Donald Trump's admiration) over everything else, while the Fiat brand, which promised an array of small cars with Italian flair, has given us ugly crossovers based on its only car model in the U.S., the Fiat 500 - and, like the crossovers, has proven to be as reliable as the original Fiat 500.  Gasoline, once four dollars a gallon, has gone back down.  And even as Volkswagen plans to start making electric vehicles in Tennessee (not the Golf-sized I.D. 3, alas) while Tesla continues to charge along, Donald Trump, now President, has killed fuel economy standards and is aiming to get rid of electric-car tax credits that promote sales of cars like the Chevrolet Bolt (not to be confused with the Volt, of course) and the Tesla Model 3 (below) to discourage anyone from buying them.  ("Mr. President, Chuck and Dave Koch on line two, still no word on sister Vera!") 

And it's not just Fiat Chrysler, GM, and Ford that have turned their backs on a future of more sensible and practical trucks in favor of mothertruckin' SUVs, crossovers and pickups.  Foreign automakers are riding the SUV gravy train without apology.  I can watch two hours of television at a time and see numerous commercials for SUVs from Chevrolet or Ford and foreign brands like Volvo, Infiniti and Honda and, apart from a BMW commercial, not see one commercial for one of the few sedans remaining tin the U.S. market going into the 2020 model year.  Hatchbacks?  Well, you can still get a Volkswagen Golf, though probably not for much longer.  Also, the Honda Fit is still available, but you'd never know that from Honda's advertising because it keeps pushing its Passport SUV by showing it in a commercial depicting a family going out to the great wilderness to the tune of Wolfmother's "Vagabond."  About the only good thing I can say about this ad is that Wolfmother, an Australian rock band, is getting exposure on the air in America that they otherwise might not get.  Too bad "Vagabond" is from 2005.  

What's going on here? What happened to the new golden age of automobiles we were promised when GM and Chrysler got restructured and when Ford started giving us the exact same sort of cars that Europeans had been buying from Ford and enjoying for decades?  Apart from bringing Alfa Romeo back to the States, what good has the Fiat Group done for us?  Why are we buying more and more crossovers and putting up with their cumbersome handling?  And why do Americans keep falling in love with gas-guzzling SUVs for off-road capabilities they'll never need?  And why do I even bother asking?

 And why are Europeans picking up our disgusting habits?

At least in European countries, though, you still can buy a small car or a sensible sedan if you want to.  Or nothing at all; after all, there are plenty of mass-transit options.  In America, thanks to our pathetic mass-transit network, everyone is expected to own and drive a car whether they like it or not, and your only choice of car style is increasingly either an big ugly wagon or a big brutish truck.  And for someone like me, that's all far more than merely annoying.

Driverless cars?  Please, don't get me started . . ..      

(Update on the Golf: I wrote Volkswagen of America CEO Scott Keogh to beg him to please keep the base Golf model in the U.S.  Soon after that, a VW representative contacted me to acknowledge Keogh's receipt of my letter and to say that no decision has been made about it yet.  More about that later.)  

Go Further?

The Ford Motor Company has gone batsh--.

Ford just announced that it will no longer make and sell passenger cars in the United States and Canada, except for the Mustang.  Even though the company made a profit in the first quarter of 2018, the profits have mostly come from SUVs and crossovers.  Ford hatchbacks and sedans have lost so much market share in their respective segments that the company has decided to kill off all of them rather than discontinue some of them and replace others.  Ford doesn't want to keep any of these cars as loss leaders while the SUVs and crossovers make money because the profit margins wouldn't be as big.

Ford didn't so much kill these cars as let them wither on the vine.  Once these models went on sale, Ford didn't bother to freshen or improve them.  The Fusion is a competent car but is regarded as somewhat bland, and despite the popularity of the Focus in Europe, it's not as good or as competitive against Japanese makes and the Chevrolet Cruze. The Fiesta (shown above)?  If there's anyone left who buys subcompacts in These States or the Great White North, they're more likely to go to their Honda dealer for a Fit.  My mother's Fit, which I occasionally drive, is dull, but it's extremely versatile and incredibly efficient.  The Fiesta simply couldn't give the same value for money, even though I've been told that the Fiesta ST is a blast to drive.      

If traditional cars had a bigger share of the North American market, Ford might have considered re-investing in its car line, but with cars accounting for less than a third of the vehicles sold in the New World, Ford saw no incentive.  I still say that this is an insane move and one that will come back to bite the company in its proverbial rear end.  Not everyone wants an SUV, a crossover, or a pickup truck.  The only reason SUVs are so popular in the first place is because advertising agencies have suckered impressionable consumers into thinking that they're chic, powerful, and formidable vehicles, fortresses on wheels. They're really pretentious station wagons, supported by crude platforms and notoriously uneconomical when it comes to fuel consumption.  And to respond to the inevitable counterpoint that SUVs are more fuel-efficient these days and come in a variety of sizes - some of them based on traditional car platforms - to cater to customers who may not like a traditional SUV on a light-truck chassis, I would point out that all SUVs and crossovers, no matter their engines and dimensions, have higher ground clearances that offer degraded handling and make them difficult to drive, and many of them are so bulky they're subject to heavy cross winds that are hard to drive through.

And, they're ugly.

I don't want only big ugly wagons to choose from when I have to buy a new car.

And face it, the bigger the SUV, the better in the eyes of SUV customers.  They love the sense of superiority they get from driving at a high perch in such monstrous vehicles, made possible by a loophole in the corporate average fuel economy requirements that exempted light-truck platforms from higher standards, a loophole Detroit exploited after it tried to compete against the Japanese in the traditional-car market segments in the 1980s and demonstrated its inability to do so.  All we need is one big oil crisis - which could happen as soon as John Bolton makes Iran glow in the dark - to kill the SUV market (and Ford) overnight.

Incidentally, that wouldn't be the first time that Ford got screwed by spiking oil prices.  When the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973 caused the first big oil crisis, Henry Ford II, who was then chairman of his family's company, refused to follow GM's lead and make smaller cars, ignoring the advice of his company president, a guy named Lee Iaccoca, who would later become CEO of Chrysler and save the company by banking on - you guessed it - smaller cars.  (Iaccoca would later make mistakes that again put the company on the edge of going the way of Studebaker, but that's another story.)  Ford eventually had to catch up with GM and was still trying to do so when the Shah of Iran was overthrown and another oil crisis resulted.       

Fortunately, GM isn't so foolish this time, either.  Mary Barra, GM's current CEO, says her company still recognizes the value of the traditional-car market segment, and she has made it clear that sedans and hatchbacks will still be available even as GM continues to compete aggressively in the SUV/crossover market.  Volkswagen, meanwhile, has recommitted itself to the North American car market with its new Jetta even as it pushes its new Tiguan and Atlas SUVs.  And Toyota has brought a hatchback back to its long-running Corolla lineup in the States.  But I can't help but wonder if GM, Volkswagen and Toyota are merely offering a temporary reprieve for us fans of traditional cars.  Because a fear I voiced awhile ago on this blog seems to be coming true - either we drive around in big ugly wagons or we take the bus.

When America needs a bad idea like that, Ford will put it on wheels.

Trump Autotopia

Donald Trump swaggered into Michigan yesterday to talk about the American auto industry - one of many subjects in which he is no way familiar.

He announced that he was going to review and likely roll back corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards that sets a benchmark of 54.5 miles a gallon by 2025.  This means less incentive for automakers to develop hybrid vehicles, and electric and fuel-cell models, as well as cars like the Chevrolet Volt (ironically, one of the many cars Trump looked at while in Michigan), and, oh yes, less of an incentive to produce small cars.

My next car may have to be a gas guzzler, because that's all I'll be able to buy.

The domestic automakers are, of course, pleased that the CAFE standards are likely to be reversed, because that means they'll be able to avoid responsibility for making environmentally friendly products and be able to continue making cheap, crude SUVs and pickups and underdeveloped sedans rather than come up with more innovative cars that can compete in the market more effectively.

"There is no more beautiful sight than an American-made car," said Trump, who's obviously never seen a Porsche.  He promised that Detroit would "once again shine with industrial might" and decried the "massive shipments" of foreign cars dumped on American consumers.  Oh yeah, while in Michigan, he'd had a round-table discussion with car company executives that, in addition to General  Motors CEO Mary Barra and Ford CEO Mark Fields, also included Sergio Marchionne, the CEO of the Italian company that owns Chrysler (Fiat Chrysler Automobiles), as well as Nissan North America Chairman Jose Munoz (Nissan - a Japanese company owned by Renault of France) and Jerry Flannery of Hyundai (a South Korean company).  Trump said of the foreign automakers with plants in the United States, "We love them too."  Not too many of them have American facilities in Michigan, though. 

Trump was essentially promising to bring the auto industry in the U.S. back to 1950s levels, even though back then there had been little industrial competition from overseas and looser regulations that discouraged continuous improvement and encouraged flashy, superficial model changes - thus, Detroit ended up using rudimentary technology that persisted will into the 1980s.  He also said that the assault on the American auto industry is over, leading me to wonder what he was talking about.  Because as I recall, it was Barack Obama who saved GM and Chrysler by investing taxpayers' money in them (which got paid back to the government) and helping them through bankruptcy, preserving thousands of auto jobs and many other jobs connected to the auto industry. 

Trump also promised that, under his Presidency, Detroit would become "the car capital of the world again."  Umm, didn't he realize that, again, Chrysler is a subsidiary of an Italian company and that, umm, GM just sold all of its European assets to a car company based in France?  Is that how Detroit becomes the car capital of the world - with Ford being the only U.S.-based car company having something resembling a truly global presence?

One thing is for certain - given Trump's history in business, we should be glad that he never ran a car company.  And I'm sorry Tesla founder Elon Musk - a South African immigrant - can't run for President.  Because he's a CEO I'd vote for! 

Mercury Falling

You gotta cross Mercury off your list.

The Ford Motor Company has announced its decision to drop the Mercury brand, a story that must have been greeted in Detroit with one big, collective yawn. Because the truth is, the Mercury brand has been dead for a long time.

Unlike the Lincoln brand, which it shares showroom space with, Mercury was never a real company; it was an invention of Edsel Ford to provide a lineup of medium-priced cars to sell between the basic Ford brand and Lincoln luxury cars. Originally a separate division when launched in 1939, Mercury was merged with Lincoln into a single sales network in 1945. Mercury was once known for innovative features, and some Mercury vehicles have been distinctive - the Turnpike Cruiser, various generations of the Cougar. But more recently, many if not most Mercs have been slightly more expensive variations of vehicles found in Ford dealerships, and with different grilles. Even though Mercury was supposed to be a medium-priced brand, Ford occasionally sold entry-level cars with that nameplate, most likely to use up extra capacity at its plants. There's no other reason to explain why Lincoln-Mercury dealers would be given the Bobcat, which was a Ford Pinto with nicer trim, or why the Mercury Lynx, a badge-engineering variation of the original American Ford Escort, was conceived.

Unlike General Motors, which had far more brands and were so limited in making the cars of one brand distinguishable from those of another, Ford could theoretically have made Mercurys more distinctive than Fords because there were only those two nameplates to differentiate - Lincoln's status as a luxury car was a given, and fewer Lincolns were built off Ford's platforms than Mercurys. There was some success with the Cougar coupes of the 1980s and 1990s - though based on the Thunderbird, the Cougar had a different roof line, a different interior, and a personality that emphasized luxury as much as sportiness, if not more so. Yet, as automotive analyst Maryann Keller noted at the time, both cars were the same under the hood, with the same engines. The last Cougar was a final attempt at distinction; it was a domestically produced 2+2 hatchback based on a Ford of Europe product, yet it drew little notice here. Less successful were Ford of Europe products directly imported from Germany and sold by Lincoln-Mercury dealers, although the old Ford Capri attracted some attention.

I would have suggested that Mercury sell some of the small, edgier Ford of Europe product - made here, of course - and have in its lineup cars based on only one or two of Ford's North American platforms with different styling and, where feasible, different engines and suspension, but hey, too late. Anyway, Ford apparently stopped trying to make its Mercury vehicles distinctive long ago, and the lines between the Ford and Mercury brands only became more blurred. You may disagree, but I challenge you to tell me the difference between the Ford Crown Victoria and the Mercury Grand Marquis.

Incidentally, brand consolidation isn't limited to Detroit. In Europe, rumors abound that Volkswagen, which bought the Spanish automaker SEAT in 1990 and continued it as a separate brand, may discontinue it because its image is blurred between itself, Škoda, and the parent VW brand. The Volkswagen Group has seven brands now, including Bugatti and Lamborghini. (Audi and Bentley round them out.)

Apart from Lincoln in North America, which needs the kind of re-invention that Cadillac underwent recently, Ford will concentrate on its namesake brand worldwide. As for Mercury, I doubt anyone will really notice its departure from the automotive scene. And I think it's time for actress and Mercury spokeswoman Jill Wagner to move on to bigger and better things.

Auto Company Overhauls

General Motors reached a deal to sell Saab to the Netherlands-based Spyker Cars NV, a speciality car firm. Many Saab fans are obviously happy about this, meaning that the storied brand will live on. It's likely it will compete with GM's Opel brand in Europe. For Saab, this is indeed a Dutch treat. :-)

With this sale finally out of the way, GM is investing in the future - sort of. The company insists n building more light trucks, but it hope to increase the corporate average fuel economy of its cars by making electric motors for its upcoming rear-wheel-drive hybrids, spending $246 million on a new plant to produce them. Ford, meanwhile, is moving production of the latest generation of its Explorer SUV to a newly redone plant in Chicago, while a factory that previously made the Explorer will build smaller cars. The good news is that the Chicago factory is hiring. The bad news is that new hires will only make fourteen dollars an hour. That's a good wage these days, but far less than autoworkers used to make.

It's a whole new ball game.

Modesty In Motown

The North American International Auto Show in Detroit kicked off with much less glitz and glitter in a much more subdued fashion. Good ol' American showmanship remained in high gear (no pun intended) on the auto show circuit during the last great recession of 1981 and 1982, when General Motors was so full of itself it boasted it could build a small car just as good as anything from the Japanese . . . and demonstrated their inability to do so with the Chevrolet Cavalier. Even the start of Persian Gulf War in 1991 didn't dampen the enthusiasm at that year's Detroit show. Now GM and Chrysler, humbled by the bad decisions and inferior product, don't talk so loud, especially after they needed government bailouts to stay in business. GM's Pontiac and Saturn brands are down to one car or two each in their last year, and they're not represented at the show. (Even Oldsmobile had a display on the auto show circuit in 2004, its last year.) GMC Truck offers an SUV concept that's about the size of a traditional station wagon. And Chrysler's most exciting products are the Fiat-based Chryslers and Dodges that aren't on sale yet.

Ford is much better off, winning the 2010 Motor Trend Car of the Year award for its Fusion sedan and getting good press for two smaller vehicles due in showrooms soon, the next-generation Focus and the new Fiesta, the latter car set to return to America following a thirty-year hiatus.

The Japanese continue to demonstrate their affinity for hybrids, Toyota displaying a FT-Ch concept hybrid compact and Honda showing a new CR-Z gas/electric sport coupe. Meanwhile, Volkswagen, to quote an old VW tagline, does it again. The German automaker, Europe's largest, unveiled a new concept car - a compact two-door coupe obviously based on the new, upcoming sixth-generation Jetta sedan. This will likely be a two-door Jetta, the first since 1991. This coupe is quite stylish, offering impressive fuel economy and a seven-speed DSG transmission mated to Volkswagen's TSI gasoline engine with a supplementary electric motor. And the company is on track to continue expanding in the United States, as Consumer Reports recommends eight VW models and the new Tennessee factory is on schedule. Learn more - a whole lot more - by watching the video here.

I'm a little embarrassed by the dancers at the end of the presentation. Volkswagen is notoriously famous for avoiding the showbiz razzmatazz at auto shows favored by GM or Chrysler. But they have less reason for such showmanship, which is why they have none this year (no pickups dropping from the ceiling), and VW is bucking the trends of the recession, so I'll give VW a pass.

Volvo Sale A Safe Bet

Ford is selling the Swedish car manufacturer Volvo, which it bought for $6.45 billion in 1999, to the Chinese auto company Geely for a about third of what Ford paid for it. Volvo has been losing money lately, and Ford is focusing more on its namesake brand both in North America and Europe. Ford will still have a stake in Volvo, though; much of the technology and safety features Ford and its Swedish subsidiary have developed is included in Ford vehicles, so it will be able to continue to share components with Volvo for awhile.

It's a win-win situation for everyone, helping Ford becoming a leaner company while allowing the continued collaboration with Volvo and allowing the Volvo brand to be introduced to Chinese consumers.

To those auto enthusiasts who see this deal as the automotive equivalent of dipping herring in sweet and sour sauce, put a Swedish meatball in it. Volvo is a brand with a long and honored tradition of making the safest cars on the planet (not necessarily the most durable cars on the planet anymore, but that's another story). I'd rather see a thriving Chinese-owned Volvo company than a dead Swedish one. Didn't you hear about Saab? :-(

Strong As a Bull

The Ford Motor Company surprised everyone by posting a billion-dollar profit for the third quarter of 2009. This proves that Ford's business decisions, dating back to their restructuring of a few years ago, are beginning to pay off. The company managed to avoid bankruptcy and produce some fine product - Ford cars are the best-made domestic cars right now - and they had fuel-efficient automobiles on the market during the "cash for clunkers" program when GM and Chrysler had few models in that market segment. Also, they continue to receive a lot of goodwill from car buyers by not taking federal bailout money.

Ford still has a few problems. They can't wipe out their debts the way GM and Chrysler did in Chapter 11, and getting unions to make concessions designed to cut costs hasn't been easy. But the way forward, as their restructuring plan was called, sounds more like a real plan of action than a slogan.

I happen to like the new Taurus. :-)

Government Motors

President Obama pretty much had the government take charge of what's left of the American automobile industry, dismissing GM and Chrysler's survival strategies as insufficient and having them go back to the drawing board . . . and giving Chrysler only a month to finalize a partnership deal with Fiat that has only a slight chance of being completed in that time. The government will now back warranties for GM and Chrysler products, and GM chairman Rick Wagoner has been forced out of a job, with a severance package of $23 million. That's pretty good for someone leading an industry whose remaining employees are asked to make the kind of sacrifices the bankers don't have to worry about.

It seems weird to many that the automakers are being punished so severely for their bad business practices while the banks get even more money on top of the bailout funds they've already received for their bad business practices. But Obama has gotten caught in the devil's bargain. The banks are too big to fail, and money has to be pumped into the system to get credit flowing again. This is what most consumers need to buy a car.

Some of the government's policies in helping out Detroit make sense. GM and Chrysler are overrepresented by too many dealerships meant to cater to a market share that was once much larger than it is now, so dealerships have to be sacrificed. Also, many of GM's brands, which once dominated American highways,have become irrelevant and redundant. Pontiac, after trying to produce a distinctive high performance image for their cars, are once again becoming nothing more than Chevrolets with split radiator grilles; its "newest" model, the G3, is actually a rebadged Chevrolet Aveo. I used to insist that Dodges were Plymouths and Plymouths were Dodges and Chryslers were Dodges and Plymouths with upright grilles, plushly upholstered seats, and more chrome, but even with the Plymouth brand name long gone, Dodges and Chryslers are still rather redundant, and even the distinction of Jeep trucks and SUVs (made by Chrysler since 1987) is getting blurred as some Dodge trucks (like the Nitro SUV) derive much of their styling and engineering from the Jeep lineup.

GM should survive; even though new chairman Fritz Henderson (do you really want a guy whose nickname is slang for something that's broken?) has indicated that bankruptcy is "probable," its new product should help. Many of GM's latest models are more competitive with their Asian counterparts; my own cursory, unscientific census suggests that the all-new Chevrolet Malibu is selling well among the few Americans still buying cars. Chrysler is a question mark; even though some question the logic of its deal with Fiat, due to the fact that Chrysler's 1998 merger with Daimler-Benz was a fiasco, it's worth noting that Fiat makes more cars for the average buyer; its legendary 500 was and the retrograde 500 is the Italian equivalent of the Volkswagen Beetle. This deal will allow Chrysler to make and sell European-engineered cars prices for more of a mass market.

Ironically, despite Obama's call for Detroit to make greener cars, his administration has declared that the coming Chevrolet Volt hybrid is too expensive to turn things around for GM. Its sophisticated components are too costly to produce. And here's another dirty little secret; hybrids are only a small part of the car market. Most people in this country buy cars that use gasoline, and, as long as gas is cheap, prefer bigger cars that use more of it. Unless gas prices go up again and stay up - or unless gasoline subsidies in this country are eliminated and more punitive federal taxes for gas guzzlers are imposed - you won't see many more Aveos or G3s on the road, much less Volts. Which works out fine, since the Aveo/G3 twins are made in Korea anyway.

Obama hopes to save the American auto industry, and I hope he does a better job than the guys who actually ran the industry. But that industry could just as easily disappear, or be reduced to total irrelevance even in the best of circumstances. I'm somewhat skeptical myself. In fact, I saw something really eerie today. On the road, driving home from work, I saw a Model T going the other way. Okay, it was a collector's car, being driven by its eccentric owner. But even though Ford is doing relatively better than GM or Chrysler, the sight of a Model T Ford was still rather symbolic. The Model T is a ghostly symbol of Detroit's glory days, and the sight of one was like a premonition of the industry's death.

After all, Model Ts are black.

(Whew! I certainly didn't go out like a lamb tonight! It's March 31, 2009, and that's the end of the first quarter!:-D)