Curbside Classics takes you back to 1971 for a virtual comparison test of six small cars, based on (and partly borrowed) from a C/D test. Please don’t spoil the outcome, if you know it (the suspense has been building for over 30 years).

Was a car ever born with the odds so stacked against it? Its name is defined as “a small gnome held to be responsible for malfunction of equipment”. Its design was penned on an air-sickness bag during a (bumpy?) flight. It carries almost 60% of its weight over the front wheels despite being RWD. Its steering has six turns lock to lock. And it looks exactly like what it is: a perfectly normal-looking sedan that had its rear end amputated by a cleaver. The Gremlin would have had to create a pretty major malfunction in my PC (and C/D’s typewriters) for it not to end dead last.

The Washington Post reminds us that Uncle Sam’s chance of recouping taxpayers’ $50 billion “investment” in New GM shares are somewhere between slim and none. To recover the money poured down the GM rathole so far, not including “extraneous” bailouts to lender cum banks, suppliers, dealers and car buyers, the automaker’s stock must rise to the point where it’s worth $68 billion. And remain at the level as the feds attempt to off-load their/our 60 percent share. As we like to say in these parts, good luck with that. Or, as the WaPo puts it, “Even at its recent 2000 peak, GM’s stock was worth only $56 billion.”

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First, engine sludge in the Camry. Then, rusty frame rails on the Tacoma. Advertising Age (of all people) reveals the latest problem to tarnish Toyota’s solid gold quality image: the Prius’ HID headlights. A number of owners of Toyota’s green machine weren’t well pleased happy their high intensity headlights died after a few years. No surprise there; replacing them runs up a $1000+ parts and labor bill. Owners claim HID death is a “a dangerous but undisclosed safety defect” and that Toyota has “long been aware of Prius’ HID headlight problem” and is “concealing the problems from owners.”

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Will they or won’t they? First, the factory. GM’s announced they’re bailing on NUMMI. Bloomberg says Toyota may be considering the same thing. Once GM turns its door keys over to Toyota, the Fremont, California, plant becomes Toyota’s highest-cost factory and the only one manned by UAW workers. With other US plants’ excess capacity (including a mothballed Mississippi manufacturing facility) and lower operating costs, ToMoCo may well pull the plug on NUMMI. Problem: PR. Shutting down a plant in economically-challenged California (Toyota’s biggest market) and putting another 5K people out of work wouldn’t endear the Japanese automaker to the public or their politicians. (GM, of course, would get none of the blame.) Now about that GM – Toyota Synergy Drive deal . . .

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MediaWeek reports that Detroit’s “troubles” have put the hurt on Car and Driver and Road & Track ad bucks. “With auto advertising down 47.5 percent in print in Q1, per Publishers Information Bureau, the car books could use help. Through July, Car and Driver’s ad pages fell 20.7 percent to 451, per the Mediaweek Monitor (rival pub Automobile was down 34.1 percent, to 289). ‘Things have been paralyzed a little bit with what’s been going on in Detroit,’ [chief brand officer John] Driscoll said.” Understatement much?

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A few days ago, RHJ International, the Belgium-based industrial holding company interested in Opel, was moping. They said, apparently, they were not wanted anymore, were “kicked out of the bidding process.” GM and Germany were only talking Magna and maybe China’s BAIC. Guess who’s back in the game?

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TTAC commentator Detroit-Iron writes:

I am in the process of buying a new car (despite Steven Lang’s admonitions). I would like to get a 2009 after the 2010′s come out, maybe a Legacy or Ralliart. My problem is that there is zero information on the specific month that a given manufacturer is going to release the 10s. I can understand the manufacturers and dealers wanting to keep that info under wraps considering the inventory but I would think that a journalist or consumer advocate would have it, but I can’t find anything.

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Porsche finally has a written offer from the Sheik of Qatar, if the Frankfurter Allgmeine‘s sources are not mistaken. It sounds pretty official: “We have a written offer of the Qatar Investment Authority which details their engagement in the Porsche Holding SE and their purchase of our options for Volkswagen stock,” said a Porsche spokesperson to the FAZ. Currently, the both sides are in the bargaining phase: How much or how little will they pay?

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In general, today’s cars don’t put us in mortal peril (by themselves) or strand us miles from home. They don’t require any special driving or mechanical skills. As always, progress has come at a cost: it’s eliminated the character-building experiences that helped guys of my g-g-g-generation become “car guys.” Yup, I come from a time without cell phones, G.P.S. navigation, OnStar, and vehicles that can breeze through 100,000 miles with little to no fear of meltdown. A time when cars offered a shorter shelf but more human – machine interaction. When car guys could look under the hood, see a problem and correct it. On the spot. I’m not bragging, so don’t put me down. Not yet, anyway.