If anyone doubts that product is the key to success in the car business, just look at the new Ford Mustang– if you can find one. While The Blue Oval's US dealers watch 500's and Fusions pile up in their lots, the only signs of Mustangs are the smoking rubber streaks in the driveways leading out. And the money's not bad either. While Ford has placed huge incentives on just about every other car, truck, minivan, crossover, hybrid and SUV in their arsenal, Mustang GT's are selling within shouting distance of list price. Insiders are still amazed that a hot car like this could emerge from Ford's normally moribund new car development process. The answer is simple: Ford hired a capable, inspired product planner named Chris Theodore and set him loose.

Ford put Theodore in charge of the Mustang program, and later the GT. When Theodore punched-in, the Mustang program was in the doldrums; no one was willing to buck Ford's long-winded product development process to make a great car, instead of another example of humdrum transportation. Convinced that Ford's designers were devoid of new ideas, Theodore told the studio to make a clay model that represented a brand new interpretation of the old Mustang theme. The result is perhaps the best rendition of 'retro' on the market today. More importantly, Theodore then set to work resolving the problems of actually making the car– problems that have hamstrung Ford's creativity for decades.

The new Cadillac Escalade is a mission critical machine. It's one of the few remaining General Motors products whose sales don't depend on Mexican-sized kickbacks and/or a Day-Glo "Closing Down, Everything Must Go" sticker on the windshield. What's more, as a badge-engineered Chevrolet Tahoe, it's only slightly more expensive to build than a Chevrolet Tahoe. In other words, the 'Slade's is a cash cow on factory double dubs, trying to keep it real for GM's ten point six billion dollar man, Rabid Rick Wagoner; know what I mean? No? Let me spell it out for you: if the 'Slade ain't da bomb, it's a nail in the General's coffin. Well guess what? RIP.

Clock those side vents. At the precise moment when Caddy's luxury SUV should swagger into town with unabashed American style, the 'Slade arrives with its main design cue "borrowed" from Land Rover's Range Rover Sport. While the cynical amongst you might assert that the Escalade's target market is no more likely to connect the two vehicles than smoke crack and drive (as if), the fact remains: the porthole plagiarism betrays a staggering lack of confidence and originality. Of course, badge engineering a Chevrolet Tahoe betrays a staggering lack of confidence and originality, but, um… where was I? Something about the enormous gap in the SUV's wheel arches making the 'Slade look like a punk ass bitch? No… that wasn't it. Or was it?

The first generation Escalade always conjured up the image of a cubist Joan Crawford with chrome lips. In fact, it was nothing more than a melted-nosed Suburban sprayed black (ditto the Denali). The second generation didn't fare much better, dubiously distinguishing itself as some incongruent amalgam of curvy and chiseled forms, chrome-plated into a creature from Mary Shelley's deepest somnambulatory nightmare. And now, for the sports stars finding themselves bored between criminal investigations, fines and/or sentencing; pop music glitterati caught in the interim between final music-video edits; and the rest (whose leases are up), we present to you the 2007 Cadillac Escalade.

Much has been written about Cadillac adding aesthetic audacity with each successive Escalade. Oddly enough, that statement doesn't apply to the new model's front end. Flying in the face of all things big, brash and American– literally– the 'Sclade's design team have displayed a stupefying level of taste and restraint. The 'stacked' headlamps which work to such truck-like effect on Cadillac's passenger cars seems perfectly suited here on – gasp! – a truck. The Caddy's grille, though marginally larger in size, actually uses less brightwork than the previous model. Yo bro'! Where's the fun in that?

I once complained to my accountant about sky-high UK petrol taxes. An oil-producing nation with the highest gas prices in the world? What's that all about? He laughed. "Bitching about the petrol tax is like complaining about a mosquito bite when your carotid artery's been severed." This Sunday, The Detroit News ran a story about GM's $17m Viagra bill. Reporter Brett Clanton justified the titillating take on GM's health care provisions by claiming "company executives" use the factoid to illustrate runaway costs. Be that as it may, Clanton's story is nothing but an inane distraction from GM's death by a thousand cuts, both literal and figurative. Or is it?

The Detroit News seems to have missed the fact that GM workers go to their doctor, get scrips for Viagra, then re-sell the erectile dysfunction medication on the street. Insiders tell us that a large part of GM's $17m Viagra bill ended-up in UAW workers' pockets. In fact, the Viagra story could very well be the tip of a huge drug re-selling scandal (Vicodin, Oxycontin, etc.). And again, that's without considering the REAL story: all the tens of millions of dollars spent on unnecessary tests and procedures– blithely commissioned by doctors and patients who have no incentive to minimize GM's health care bill.

At yesterday's New York International Automobile Show, Bob Lutz provided the hook for GM's PR counterattack. Of course, the Car Czar's rallying cry wasn't planned. As usual, the former Marine aviator simply greeted the press, opened his mouth and OoRah! came out. 'GM has the worst behind it.' Whatever else you can say about Maximum Bob Lutz, the man is an idiot. While GM's first quarter results will be a lot less bad than last year's annus horribilis, Lutz' statement flies in the face of the growing, looming, unresolved, irresolvable conflict over at bankrupt parts supplier Delphi; the fact that GM's gas-guzzling SUV's are heading straight into a $3 a gallon shit storm; and a shoal of dangers so extensive that GM CEO Rick Wagoner has taken to calling it "stuff." But wait; there's more!

"Soon all will be revealed,' Lutz said. 'I can't mention figures, because I'd get in big trouble." So, Mr. 'Don't Tell Mommy' wants the nattering nabobs of negativity vulturing GM to believe that his company's management team (whom MB has just placed in harm's way) has a secret plan to pump-out GM's umpteen flooded compartments and restore the company to preeminence. Well, profit. Never mind that GM watchers have been waiting for an aggressive restructuring plan since 1973, or that every time Rabid Rick Wagoner steps up to the dais these days and says "Ta Da!" he's closing, cutting and/or buying out something or someone. If we're looking for company-saving revelations, what could possibly top the still only potential sale of 51% of GMAC for $14.1b? The mind boggles.

Can GM, master of big iron, build a proper sports car? Not simply something that murders straights and grips like grim death– the Corvette's got that covered. Rather, a roadster that takes to the bends with the eager playfulness of an overstimulated puppy and the agility of an all-star point guard. Could the Saturn SKY be such a car? I know it sounds crazy: an honest-to-God sports car from GM's shiny happy plastic panel people. And the specs aren't promising: this parts-bin special out-girths the Mazda MX-5 by four inches and 400 pounds. Still, it sure looks promising…

I'll never forget the billboard looming over London's Hammersmith flyover. At the exact point where drivers suddenly confront the endless congestion ahead, a teleconferencing company asked 'Is this journey really necessary?' I'd like to put the same question to the harried hacks covering The New York International Automobile Show– at the exact moment they hear the stilted cadences of The VP of Marketing for Generic Sedans enter the twenty-third minute of his presentation. And what say you show goers, as those circulation-constricting swag bags help transform your "visit" into a Bataan Death March? Is your Odyssean journey really essential?

A certain Mr. E. Ferrari used to refer to Jeep as 'America's only real sports car.' I never fully understood the Italian automaker's claim until I handed the keys to my Cherokee to my SUV-hating girlfriend. As my liver busied itself processing bourbon, she kicked the Jeep's 4.0-liter straight-six into life. Carving through the Silver Lake hills, the Jeep's right-now acceleration, scrappy handling and elevated driving position pleased her almost as much as I did. Enzo was right: Jeeps are a buzz. When DCX lent me the new Jeep Liberty Renegade, I slipped on my steel-toed Wolverines and readied myself for a good 'ole thrash in America's redneck Ferrari.

The model replacing Jeep's venerable Cherokee exchanges the Cherokee's near-perfect two-box design for something that looks like a VW Bug after a visit to Barry Bonds' doctor. Macho dignity is upheld (literally) by the Renegade's seven slot grill and its over-sized, over-compensating wheel arches– attached by marble-sized bolts as garish as diamond teeth. Rock rails and fog lights (disguised to look like KC lamps) reinforce the strong man aesthetic. That said, as I admired the Renegade on my drive, a desperate homemaker walked up and commented, 'That's cute.' Yes, well, the Liberty's UniFrame construction makes it stiffer, lighter and more crashworthy than the body-on-frame construction used by truck-based competitors. So it's still as tough as nails (the metal kind).

I wonder what Billy Durant would have made of Rick Wagoner. GM's founder was a man of great honesty, intelligence and drive. He was also a high school drop out who started the company with a $1000 loan– and ended-up penniless. Twice. Perhaps that's why historians tend to credit General Motors' epic growth to the man appointed president in 1923; about whom an observer wrote, 'The manufacture of correct assessments, not physical products, is what most gratified Alfred Sloan.' Billy was the "car guy." Alfred was the "bean counter." The history of GM is the history of the struggle between these two opposing forces: passion and, um, accounting. Rick Wagoner is, of course, a Harvard MBA.

I suppose Durant would have liked Wagoner well enough, at least at first. Durant's legendary charm was based on a simple but effective strategy: "Assume that the man you are talking to knows more than you. Do not talk too much. Give the customer time to think. In other words, let the customer sell himself." Rabid Rick is pretty good at selling himself these days. With a new PR guy pushing the buttons, Wagoner's making the rounds, defending his chairmanship on CBS' 60 Minutes and Face the Nation, and in the pages of The Wall Street Journal and other carefully-selected publications. So if Rick and Billy were schmoozing about GM, Wagoner would have done the talking.

Porsche recently unleashed the Cayenne Turbo S, a 521-horse update on their 'regular' Cayenne Turbo. While I haven't had the pleasure of testing Porsche's latest, greatest off-roader, Porsche purists have used the model's debut as an excuse to, once again, make snide remarks about The Sultans of Stuttgart's SUV. Even though the truck has dumped a mountain of money into Porsche's corporate coffers– funding the development of the 911, Boxster, Caymen and forthcoming Panamera– a great many US Porschephiles still think of the Cayenne as Mrs. Porsche Driver's second-rate whip. While the general population of pistonheads won't even notice this ongoing slander campaign, I do and it pisses me off.

Apparently, the Cayenne is a rolling indictment of Stuttgart's brand management, a vehicle that betrays all that's holy in Porsche World. According to this theory's addled adherents, the Cayenne represents a dangerous diversion from Porsche's one true mission: producing 911's and, if it really must, other sports cars. By this strict standard, the faster the Cayenne, the more suitable it is for non-paved surfaces, the more of an abomination it becomes– like some kind of hideous tuner project gone out of control. The fact that the Porsche factory racing team jacked-up a couple 959s and won the Dakar Rally twice doesn't come into it. A Porsche is not a truck, and a truck is not a Porsche.