And so General Motors turns to 'value pricing' to maintain the momentum created by its now defunct Employee Discount For Everyone (EDFE) program. OK, so what the Hell is value pricing? 'Value' is a subjective term. Stick it front of the word 'pricing' and the phrase simply indicates that someone somewhere thinks that a particular price is fair. Whether or not customers agree with The General's assessment will be revealed in a month or so. Meanwhile, let's try to find the truth behind this slippery concept…

This is what we know for sure: the official sticker price for GM's '06 models will be lower than the official sticker price for its '05 models. Whether or not the new sticker price will be significantly less than the EDFE price, or the pre-EDFA discounted price, is not yet clear. (To refresh your memory: the EDFE price represented a large discount from the official sticker price, but a relatively small discount from the actual, discounted price available before the EDFE program began. In a few rare cases, the EDFE price was actually higher than the discounted price.) More importantly, The General swears it will no longer slash prices to chase turnover and market share. The fire sales are finished.

Ever since I can remember, the Chevrolet Corvette has been the fat Elvis of sports cars. Every few years, someone would try to convince me that “America’s sports car” had received the engineering upgrades it needed to restore faded glory. But no. The latest ‘Vette was always a dynamic disaster: a feeble chassis married to lackluster brakes and an incompetent suspension, with more than enough horsepower to make it swap ends with frightening ease. Oh, and the car’s interior remained the only place capable of making a Motel 6 bedroom seem luxurious.

The Mercedes-Benz R500 has three rows of seats, so it can’t be a sedan. It’s too tall for a station wagon, too low for a minivan and lacks sufficient ground clearance for an SUV. If you define a “crossover” as an automobile that doesn’t fit into any known genre, then the R500’s got it nailed. [...]

Just a few model cycles ago, savvy auto-shoppers could indulge in the fine art of speccing-up. Consumers coveting European motoring on the cheap flocked to Volkswagen's second-generation Jetta. Shoppers could specify a lightweight, no-frills special: crank-it-your-damned-self steering and windows, no a/c and a basic radio. (Even steel wheel trim rings were optional.) The converse was also true– intenders could option-up a high-end GLI with most every feature then extant.

Fast forward to the new Jetta. Even a cooking version of VW's fifth-generation Jetta comes with air-con, remote keyless entry, power windows and a 10-speaker MP3-compatible CD stereo. And that's just the creature comforts; safety-wise, figure six airbags, ABS and traction control. Which goes some way towards explaining the car's 3,200-pound curb weight. (For comparison's sake, the average 1986 Jetta weighed around 2,500-pounds.)

GM's second quarter financial results prove what we've been saying all along: sales do not necessarily equal profits. Thanks to its Employee Discount for All program, The General's turnover climbed by a staggering 47%. The automaker's US market share rose to 30%. And yet GM lost another $1.2b, which is nearasdammit the same amount they lost last quarter. Add up cash reserves, marketable securities and available assets (from an employees' healthcare trust no less) and The General has about $20.2 billion in the bank. Simple math says that GM's US division will be completely bankrupt in a little over four years.

Of course, that assumes a steady burn rate. It's entirely possible that the automaker's fire sale has sucked-up most of the cash from GM's customer base, leaving a diminished market for new products. These new whips will have to kick some major league ass (i.e. Toyota et al) to stave off an even more precipitous earnings slide. And again, that's income. GM's expenditure is still wildly out of control; despite Rabid Rick Wagoner's public pledge to hold the union's feet to the fire on health care benefits, he, um, hasn't. There's no word about containing equally onerous (though less publicized) production, labor, management, administrative, inventory, distribution and marketing costs.

When BMW designer Chris Bangle first unleashed his version of venerable 7-Series in '02, the oddly angular "flame-surfacing" inflicted upon the plutocrats pride and joy was roundly criticized for not being round enough. At the same time, the overly-complex iDrive mouse controller iDrove customers nuts. Although Bimmer's brand cachet helped maintain the 7-Series' showroom momentum, the new, "refreshed" 7-Series was designed to right those wrongs and restore the natural order.

And so the Seven's sheet metal has returned to slab-sided safety. Gone too are the peculiar Dame Edna wraparound headlights and the gi-normous, protruding back end bustle. The hood has been re-sculpted as well, giving the car's nose a somewhat flatter, more balanced appearance. Otherwise, Bangle's art school over-indulgence has been replaced by, of all things, blingery. Xzibit A, B and C: the larger kidney grill at the front, the concave seven-spoke wheels and the more tightly gathered rear bumper (designed to show off the 7's wider rear track). The overall effect is extremely color-sensitive and a bit schizo: Bad Boyz meets Bavarian burghers.

Accord and Camry owners: "You're Welcome." At the risk of sounding sniffy, Toyota and Honda owners owe a large debt of gratitude to Nissan. Without the Altima, rival pink-slippers might still be trundling around in severely underpowered appliances. Rewind to 2002, when Nissan lit a fire under the collective backsides of every carmaker in the family sedan segment. At the time, Altima's haute-couture shape and Tabasco-infused engine gave competing engineers gray hair– and their marching papers. How else do you explain today's 240hp Accord?

That was then. And this is… later. Fortunately, while Nissan's busied itself immolating the wick at both ends of their considerable lineup, they haven't lost sight of the car that put them back in the game. I submit Exhibit 'SE-R'. Okay, so the new uber-Altima only boasts a modest bump in horsepower (10) and an extra ratio (6) in the manual gearbox. But don't be misled: the revised Altima is no trim-and-tape proposition designed to hold the fort until reinforcements arrive. It's yet another leap forward for Nissan's standard bearer.

If you want a lesson in engineering excellence, drive the new Bentley Continental Flying Spur slowly. At 35mph, with just 1500rpms on the tachometer, the go-pedal responds to the slightest pressure with a perfectly measured amount of additional momentum. Reverse ditto the brakes. At the same time, the big Bentley’s power-assisted steering [...]

So, GM car Czar Bob Lutz breaks cover again. This time, Maximum Bob strolled into the offices of AutoWeek to face a grilling from the magazine's [unnamed] editor. Well, maybe not a grilling; more like a few minutes in a reasonably warm room with his coat off and feet up. In fact, the rambling and less-than-grammatical nature of Max Bob's replies to AutoWeek's underhand lobs indicates some kind of no-edit deal with the mag. Presumably, what we're getting is unvarnished Lutz. It's pretty scary stuff.

After a bit of warm-up softball, we get down to the main event: branding. In two of the longest, most 'puddle of consciousness' paragraphs ever posted on the web, Bob provides a guided tour of the magical mystery maze known as GM's branding strategy. [NB: Immediately after this editorial appeared, Autoweek removed its interview with Mr. Lutz from its website.] "I don't want to start a debate" the Editor begins, leading with his chin, "but how many divisions are adequate to cover the market?"

An Italian tailor once told me that the best men's clothing is invisible. A well-made suit flatters its owner, not the tailor. And so it is with the Audi S4 Avant. Despite the company's decision to slather the press car in Crayola yellow, and their unconscionable policy of inflicting their gauche grill across the entire model range, the S4 Avant is an entirely restrained machine. It's completely devoid of the aesthetic fripperies that announce a heavily modified car's sporting aspirations. The S4 Avant is all about the driver, not the manufacturer.

The bias is obvious the second you enter the belly of the beast. As the S4 Avant's door thunks shut with startling finality, you're captivated by an interior that is as dour as it is functional; a dark plastic and leather cabin that feels more like an operating room than an automotive cockpit. Every human interface– from the clicking HVAC controls to the steering wheel's tiny thumbwheel controllers– reacts with perfectly measured tactility. Even the in-dash MMI (Multi-Media Interface) works with chilling precision. The car's single-minded minimalism raises your driving game on the subconscious level.