At this risk of stating the supremely obvious, we’re not enjoying a lighter-than-usual workload today in order to remember cars. The sacrifices of America’s warriors are the reason for remembrance today, as we reflect on the wrenching experiences that allow our flawed-but-wonderful experiment in democracy and capitalism to persist. But memory is a funny thing. Once you start looking back at through the jumbled scrapbook of past experience, unexpected artifacts come looming out of the fog.

My earliest memories of America at war, during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, remain strong: the yellow ribbons sprouting up like weeds, the menacing strangeness of terms like “Scud Missile,” the wail of Israeli air raid sirens broadcast into my family’s bastion of suburban privilege. Still a young child at the time, these memories mark a growing awareness of the world around me, and yet the memories that feature most prominently in my mind from that period are the comfortingly familiar ones. The smell of pine trees baking in the hot sun at summer camp. The taste of blackberries. The creak of swing axles, and the bucolic brumm of a straight six as the old yellow Ford pickup made its sedate progress towards the dump. Straddling the Hurst shifter and leaning into the curves, goading Dad to make the poor thing backfire while my sister and I screamed in delight.

To this day, nothing in this world reminds me of that or any other period of my life the way sitting in “Old Yellow” does, inhaling the smells of gas and manure, and absorbing every squeak and grumble. It’s a rolling memory machine, a warp-speed express to a world where war was a foreign presence, an atavism of history intruding on our perfect future. Somewhere in everyone’s past there’s a time and place that we can remember only in innocence. If we’re truly lucky, there’s still a vehicle that can take us there. What’s yours?

The Detroit News reports that the Treasury Department has hired Lazard Frères & Co. as an advisor to GM’s forthcoming IPO sale. And with news of the hiring comes confirmation that GM’s IPO really is coming soon: the investment bank will receive half a million dollars, according to the DetN, but that amount will drop to $250,000 if the IPO isn’t completed within one year. If you’re one of the GM boosters who believes that an IPO will repay all or most of the government’s investment in GM, it’s time to start saving those pennies. You have less than a year now to put your money where your mouth has been.

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Financial Times calls “Volkswagen a long-time skeptic about hybrid and electric cars.” As a long time observer of the Wolfsburg boys, I have to agree. Despite green initiatives for public and political consumption, their private position has been that the consumption and emissions of a hybrid could be achieved with their low displacement supercharged engines and some weight savings. Some electric initiatives notwithstanding, this position has not changed. Case in point: Their new Touran. (Read More…)

Gasgoo has not surprising news.  GM China announced that by the end of next year, they will invest India with mostly small trucks and possibly passenger cars, taken from their GM’s and SAIC’s Chinese portfolio. So far, so boring.

India’s Economic Times has a more alarming slant to the story: “General Motors may use its Chinese associations to launch a rival for Tata Nano in India.” Most likely, all are missing the real story. (Read More…)

Korea? Bzzzzt.

The U.S.A.? Bzzzzt. Not yet and not quite. (Read More…)

This week, NHTSA came out and said that after a recount of their complaints database, they found 89 dead bodies in their computers, allegedly killed by evil runaway Toyotas. The MSM ate it up. If it bleeds, it leads. Even if it smells. In this article, we will show you the secrets of the incredible killing machine at NHTSA. (Read More…)

In the basement are boxes of historic newspapers and old car magazines that I’ve saved since the late 1960s. The oldest items date to the Detroit Tigers’ 1968 World Series victory and the Armstrong/Aldrin moon landing the following year. The automotive publications are mostly from the early 1970s through the late 1980s, primarily Road & Track and Car and Driver from the US and CAR from the UK, plus a few odds and ends.

While looking for the newspapers on the moon landing I came across the November 1969 issue of Sports Car Graphic. SCG’s content was aimed more at the string-back glove set and road racing fans than Robert Peteresen’s other titles like Hot Rod & Motor Trend. I guess SCG was staking out a niche between C&D and Autoweek. I believe that TTAC contributor, Stephan Wilkinson was an editor at Sports Car Graphic during the 1970s so perhaps he can give us some historical background on the publication.

Picking up and reading a 40 year old car magazine evokes a range of thoughts and feelings. The physical object is both an artifact as well as historical source material. Certainly there’s a sense of nostalgia, as well as curiosity to look at the table of contents for cool cars. You read an old magazine differently than you’d read one that came through your mail chute today. If you still subscribe to C&D or R&T, you flip past the TireRack ads as fast as you can. With an old magazine you savor even the advertising copy, wondering if IECO still makes Corvair parts or even exists. Thinking Francophonically, there is an enduring sense not of déjà vu but rather of plus que change.
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The only “real car” on Forbes’ most overpriced list is the Chrysler 300. Really. Despite being based on the compact Cobalt, Chevy breaks sales of its HHR out as a “truck,” in search of improved CAFE performance. And despite an MSRP of under $20k, the PT Cruiser-inspired wagon was still one of Forbes’ most overpriced vehicles of 2010. The rest of the list’s 11 models are unquestionably trucks, or truck-based utes, and save for Nissan’s Titan and Armada, they’re also all from Detroit automakers as well. If you’re looking for more reasons to build a cheap, utilitarian compact pickup truck (ahem, General Motors) this list has got ‘em. Hit the jump for Forbes’ list of most overpriced vehicles, and the magazine’s formula for deciding who makes the cut for this dubious distinction.

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The strike at Honda’s transmission factory in China that has led to the closure of all Honda sites in China shows no sign of resolution. Actually, there is a new twist: Management is leaning on school interns not to strike, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post reports. Why the sudden focus on interns? (Read More…)

Despite the fact that the Greatest Generation keeps me cornered at my info desk for 45 minutes while telling me filthy dirty jokes, I know if not for everyone’s grandpa I’d probably be heil-ing allegiance to the flag of the Rising Sun or some German/Japanese combo thereof. I can’t imagine any 18-year-old boy I’ve ever known doing anything nearly as heartbreakingly heroic as some of the things these men and women did, although I know plenty have since and plenty, sadly, will in the future.

There are many legacies left to us by these old cranky dudes who fought so I could have the freedom to say whatever I want in my blog, but I think one of the strongest culturally is the love of the automobile. They are the ones who spent that post-war disposable income on those big, beautiful machines that became instant status symbols by their sheer power and heft. They are the ones that started the grand American tradition of the summer road trip and backseat shenanigans, and without them we’d probably never have those little shaky-shaky hula girl dash ornaments. (Read More…)