BMW’s next big thing is the 1-Series coupe and convertible. Propellerheads are positively dizzy at the prospect of a new, small-ish, rear wheel-drive BMW offering a modicum of practicality, brand-faithful weight distribution and one of the company’s legendary in-line six-cylinder engines. Why it’s the 2002 reborn! Hello? Has the entire enthusiast community been neuralized? They seem to have forgotten the fact that BMW already sells a model answering to this description: the Z4 Coupe. Or, in fact, doesn’t, much. And for good reason: the Z4 is a rolling condemnation of BMW’s evolutionary commitment to ultimate driving, a four-wheeled cautionary tale for anyone blinded by the BMW badge. 

I have been reading the comments to the post "In Defense of American Automakers" with ever-increasing fascination and mounting excitement. As of this writing, there are 828 comments beneath Mr. Ressler's rant. Yes, there's a great deal of rhetorical repetition. Yes, the same half dozen or so commentators have set up fortifications on either side of the "import bigot" issue–  which neither side shows the slightest willingness to abandon. But despite this intellectual intransigence, I'm getting the feeling that something radical is gradually emerging. I'm not entirely sure how to characterize this development; slapping a label on the interchange would be premature. But I am sure that this is exactly the sort of discussion this website was created to engender. The argument’s longevity and vitality reveals a fundamental truth that I have been championing for the last five years: the American automotive marketplace is, at its core, engaged in a strange new war of ideas. Ideas that involve art, science, politics, culture, psychology, commerce and national security. Prior to now, if debates on these topics occurred, they occurred within industry enclaves. As I've said many times, we're still a long way from the time when the "barbarians" muscle their way inside the gates– where they belong. But reading this post, knowing that it's making the rounds inside the manufacturers' servers, I sense we're closer than we've ever been before. We're being noticed. And we will be heard. 

The VW/Audi Group, owners of both the Lamborghini and Bugatti boutique brands, have invented a lucrative niche market that could awkwardly but accurately be called, “I’m Rich but Not Stupid… Come to Think of It, I Am Stupid.” Exhibit A: the Lamborghini Reventón, a limited edition, moderately rebodied Murcielago LP640 that stickers for $1,440,000 (exactly 4.5 times a Mercy’s $320k Monroney). Exhibit B: the Bugatti Veyron Pur Sang. For $560k more than the $1,440,000 "base" Bug, you can get an unpainted body. I asked the best high-end bodyshop guy I know how much he’d charge if a Veyron owner on a budget asked him to strip their ride right down to the aluminum and carbon-fiber skin, polish the metal and shoot it with a layer of clearcoat.  "Fifty grand," Mickey Bigg of Vails Gate, New York, estimated.  “But I don’t wanna do it. Too much trouble.”

Jet planes, armored personnel carriers and racecars all have nitrogen-filled tires. So it’s got to be cool, right? I mean, I wish my Honda Odyssey minivan was more like an F-22 in some way. Or in any way. Anyway, is it worth an average five bucks a tire to stuff your rubber with the seventh element? For the majority of American drivers– those who do not routinely drive through flaming pools of fuel, off-road on dunes hotter than Scarlett Johansson’s hips or hit 200mph on the straight-aways– the answer is a simple “no.” Yet thousands of vendors are setting up nitrogen pumps and enticing people to pop open their stems. What’s the point?

As Marketwatch rightly points out, all this talk of United Auto Workers' contracts this, plug-in hybrids that, and Chinese expansion the other thing, doesn't have much impact on Detroit's current bottom line. Ahead of this Thursday's reports on October sales, the Dow Jones' diligent reporters have rounded-up the usual suspects. First up, Goldman Sachs analyst Robert Barry. To say Barry isn't bullish on the U.S. car market's immediate prospects would be like saying Eeyore needs Prozac. "With oil prices above $90, choppy stock markets, and renewed economic concerns, the selling environment remains poor for new light vehicle sales." Barry reckons ramped-up incentives on outgoing '07s are all that's propping-up U.S. sales. Once those wear-off… Barry's particularly sanguine about Ford Motor Co.; he's told his clients that The Blue Oval Boyz are heading for a 17 percent hit against their October sales numbers. Meanwhile, Deutsche Bank analyst Rod Lache doesn't like what he sees over at Chrysler; weak truck sales are likely to lead another double-digit decline. And Barry's warning that Chrysler's Last Big Thing, its new minivans, "may be off to a slow start."

The European Union (EU) is bound and determined to cut automotive CO2 emissions; Brussels' bureaucrats are looking to lower the required C02 levels from today’s corporate average of 160 g/km to 130 g/km by 2012. Curious about the cost of the new regs on the auto industry and, hence, consumers, Germany's federal environment ministry commissioned the Transport Research Institute to do the math. The Berlin-based boffins reckon EU car manufacturers will have to invest at least €11.7bn a year in new technologies to meet the new obligations. The "per unit" cost to the consumer: €500 to €1,500. But don't get to thinking that the Institute is lobbying against the stricter regs (perish the thought). Auto Industry reports that the report counters carbon positivists by pointing out that the fuel saving from C02-compliant cars should mitigate the extra cost "over the medium term." The Institute also suggests that funds from fines against corporate CO2 scofflaws should go to national carbon mitigation programmes. But that would be wrong! So they recommend that the regulation should be so constructed as to encourage manufacturers to invest in meeting CO2 norms rather than paying fines, just as BMW, Mercedes, Porsche and VW do on this side of the pond.

As predicted here, Chrysler's plans to import Chinese-built subcompact cars into the American market has hit a few snags. When Chrysler replaced Malcolm Bricklin as Chery's American partner of choice earlier this year, the new dream team announced they'd have a subcompact car ready for export to the North American market by 2009. Now The Detroit News reports it ain't gonna happen (dot com). Chrysler's head of Asian operations, Phil Murgaugh, admitted that "the task we decided to bite off is a little bit more challenging than either Chery or Chrysler thought at the beginning." Sensibly enough, "when we're both satisfied that we've got cars that will meet… market requirements, then we'll begin exports." Thomas Hausch, Chrysler's executive director of international sales, revealed that they're still (cough) discussing the car with Chery and could not say when a US-compatible product would emerge from The People's Republic. With the just announced demise of the PT Cruiser, that leaves the chunky Dodge Caliber as Chrysler's smallest offering in a market where subcompact cars are the hot property. How great is that?

Someone go get my Clonazepam. MINI has announced that it's building an SUV-type product, and cyber-mag Winding Road has the shots to prove it. Forget market share, ignore the ever-present push to increase sales numbers at any cost. The MINI Cooper was specifically, consistently and persistently sold as the anti-SUV– not the ante-SUV. This type of "every brand, every niche" mindset is killing the car industry, one BMW SAV, Mercedes hearse, Bentley hybrid, Audi city car, Lexus hypersport sedan and $29k Cadillac at a time. While most of those propositions are merely Three Stooges ridiculous, the MINI SUV (a.k.a. "Monte") has a major problem. It's not mini. It has to be quite a bit bigger, quite a bit heavier. It'll probably need (in some sense of that word) all wheel-drive. Oh, and a larger engine. At best, all that changes MINI from Mini to "Regular." Unless the new MINI SUV has Suzuki Sidekick off-road abilities, PASS.

As common sense suggests, GM's new "two-tier" contract with the United Auto Workers (UAW) works best (at least for the automaker) if the majority of their employees are on the lower tier. The Detroit Free Press reports that GM is using its corporate wiles to move its workforce's wage structure in a decidedly downwards direction. To that end, the automaker is dropping an entire shift at their Pontiac pickup truck assembly plant beginning in May. It's just one of three layoffs GM's planning under the new UAW contract that will eventually divest the domestic of several thousand jobs. GM claims the cuts are "to keep production in line with demand" and deny it's part of a plan to prime high paid hourly workers for a buyout– so they can hire cheaper "second-tier" replacements. Credit Suisse's Chris Cearso suspects "GM will be back before too long with an announcement of an attrition program geared to induce current noncore workers to retire so they can be replaced with new Tier Two workers at about one-third the cost." RN auto analyst Erich Merkle agrees. "I think GM wants to put as many people as possible into retirement and get young hungry workers, that are still treating their acne, in there at the lower rate." GM has responded to talk of buyouts or other attrition programs by labeling it "absolutely wild speculation." The UAW can't claim they didn't see this coming. And if they didn't, they sure as Hell should have. 

Yesterday, we speculated whether or not Chrysler would hang fire on trimming union jobs dud models until after the United Auto Workers (UAW) convinced Ford members work without job guarantees. Turns out Chrysler didn't even wait for the ink to dry on its union agreement before axing its first three losers. The Detroit News quotes "people close to Chrysler" and "people familiar with the situation" (that could be you!) saying that the PT Cruiser, Dodge Magnum and Chrysler Pacifica will get the chop. Oh, and maybe the Jeep Commander. And possibly the Dodge Dakota pickup. And the Chrysler Sebring and Dodge Avenger. Meanwhile, Chrysler hired former GE exec L. John Cataldo to assume a newly created position: vice president of business development and mergers and acquisitions. Cataldo is in charge of hooking-up with other automakers and selling the family silver. Speaking at the Magazine Publishers of America annual conference in Boca Raton, Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli reiterated Chrysler's 'focus on cash.' The company is moving to sell off $1b in "unneeded real estate and facilities." Not to go all TV Land on you, but I'm hearing "They call him stripper, flipper; faster than lightning."