At the times of the Beijing Olympics in 2008, Toyota proudly stood on the podium of the Chinese sales winners, along with Volkswagen and GM. Ever since, Toyota received the wrong fortune cookies in China: Its market share deteriorated steadily, down to half of its 2008 high. Toyota now is on an all-out offensive to re-gain lost ground, with promising success.

The truck depicted above was found by one of Carnewschina’s many stringers in Southern China, Guangxi Province, National Highway 323, km 1181, near the town of Desheng. The stringer noted an indicated speed of 80 km/h. This gives a whole new meaning to a crash truck.

Much to my own surprise I read in China Daily that Volkswagen only holds 40 percent in its partnership with its Chinese joint venture partner FAW. I always thought they had the usual 50:50. Well, it looks like my beliefs will become reality.

It used to be an ancient custom in China that there is a dowry when people get married. Not good enough anymore. Now you have to bring a supercar. Did I say a supercar? There must be bunches of them!

Yesterday, we ran a story about that new mystery British supercar from Eterniti. We had to draw our own conclusions, because we could not reach the company. Today, I received an email from Mark Carbery, who is the spokesman for Eterniti. The mail isn’t really bursting with information, but here it is:

Porsche was spared a major embarrassment – by the Chinese. According to an emailed memo, the boys in Zuffenhausen sold 10,722 vehicles worldwide in July, that’s 4 percent below the 11,169 units sold in July 2010. It could have been worse.

According to (some) conventional wisdom, Chinese cars are made from toxic drywall and are covered with lead paint. A more benign characterization of a Chinese car is “POS” – which is not meant as “point of sale.”

J.D. Power, the global go-to for all matters of customer satisfaction, begs to differ. Chinese have never been happier with their new car, says J.D. Power in a press release titled “New-Vehicle Sales Satisfaction in China Reaches an Historic High in 2011.”

Who are the cars that make Chinese so giddy? If you like American brands, don’t hit the jump. Wait – we found another study that has some red, white and blue. Jump with confidence …

From the Detroit News all the way to the Miami Herald, you will receive the good news that “China’s July auto sales are up 6.7 percent.” They are not. According to data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), automobile production in China rose 1.26 percent in July to 1,306,100. Sales rose 2.18 percent to 1,275,300. In case you don’t read Chinese, China Daily provides a translation. The numerical crime was perpetrated again by the Associated Press. The AP is a repeat offender.

Having been asked by a certain newspaper to review the new book “American Wheels, Chinese Roads: The Story of General Motors in China [more info on that review coming soon], I’ve been spending my quiet moments over the last week or so looking into GM’s Chinese operations. The book’s author, Michael Dunne, documents GM’s rise in the Middle Kingdom from the perspective of a well-informed outsider, revealing just how delicate one of GM’s best-performing global maneuvers really was. But after following the rise of GM in China, Dunne notes the December 2009 announcement that GM was selling a 1% stake in its Shanghai-GM (SGM) joint venture to its Chinese partner SAIC (for the paltry sum of $85m no less), arguing that GM had made a dangerous leap of necessity. This sale, implies Dunne, could well have been the tipping point that leads to GM being surpassed by its erstwhile junior (in size, technology and global reach) partner, SAIC. And, in the words of “one GM executive who used to work in China,” GM would need

good luck getting that back.

But, back in June, GM CEO Dan Akerson told GM’s shareholder meeting that he wants to do just that, saying

We have an option to buy that 1 percent. It’s our intention to exercise that.

With Akerson’s announcement, the mystery of GM’s “golden share” sale deepened. At first the question was simply “why would GM sell its 1%?” but now there’s another mystery: why would GM want it back? After some digging, it seems that we are now able to resolve the first mystery, and report why GM sold its one percent. But the whole deal is still surrounded by several layers of mystery which conceal whether GM will in fact be able to regain its 50-50 partnership in SGM, why it would want to and whether its gambit was ultimately worthwhile. And given how important China has been (and continues to be) to GM’s global business, this is definitely an issue that GM- and industry-watchers will want to better understand.

Imagine what would have happened if someone would have done an “Imported from Detroit” persiflage as blatant as the one above. A horde of screeching lawyers waving court orders and threats of unspecified punitive damages would have descended on the authors. What did Volkswagen do? Volkswagen invited the creators of the movie to Wolfsburg for a chat over coffee and PowerPoints.

Greenpeace says Volkswagen is not doing enough to save the planet. Volkswagen on the other hand thinks the company is the epitome of environmental responsibility. Greenpeace wanted to discuss Volkswagen’s environmental record. The environmentalists received an invitation to Wolfsburg to see themselves. After they left, the attacks escalated, Volkswagen’s plant in Wolfsburg was picketed and the video went viral. And that’s just the beginning of a sordid story that has the pungent smell of a different kind of green …

Carnewschina.com presents our first look at… no, that’s not a Jetta, it’s a stretched Polo sedan. What, you had a hard time telling the difference? That’s China for you...

Today, my phone rang repeatedly, and my email inbox quickly filled with questions. They all said: “Did you see this? Do you know these people?”

I knew the guy in the picture. I used to be married into a family that was in the Washington Green book. I lived in Virginia two driveways from Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. I was surrounded by gentleman farmers and politicos. Jeez, the late Ambassador Fritz Nolting drove into my pool on a riding mower with a cocktail in one hand and a cigar in the other. Talk about distracted driving.

The right man in the picture wanted to be Governor of Virginia. He still does. The left man wants to be a tycoon.

The man who leans over that sign somewhere in the godforsaken desert of Inner Mongolia, China, is Terence “Terry” McAuliffe. Yes, the very same Terry McAuliffe who was a Democratic National Committee head and a close Bill Clinton adviser who, according to a United States Senate document organized the famous coffees and sleepovers that saved Bill Clinton from electoral annihilation.

According to one source, “McAuliffe’s soft money strategy was responsible for President Clinton’s 1996 scandal concerning the Lincoln Bedroom sleepovers and the White House coffees, two tactics employed to solicit huge donations from wealthy friends and patrons of the Clintons.”

Putting the Lincoln Bedroom up for sale for $100,000 a night (on average) was only a minor scandal compared to what was called “Chinagate.”

Al Gore, friend and beneficiary of Buddhist monks, praised McAuliffe as ”the greatest fund-raiser in the history of the universe.” Coming from Gore, that’s the best endorsement one can get.

Yes, you are looking at THAT Terry McAuliffe.

Yes, it’s the same and he is back in China, and back in the fundraising business. This time, he promises to bring 300,000 cars to China. Made in America by Americans. Assembled in China. In that new factory which is going up behind the two gentlemen.

Wait, there is more. A lot more.

Saab is living off charitable donations and newly issued stock to allow its workers to live from paycheck to paycheck while doing nothing. Over at the Blog of Good Hope every little donation to the cause is praised as the Final Deliverance. According of a Blog of Good Hope post, representatives of the Chinese savior Pangda are in Trollhättan this weekend. One of the questions undoubtedly will be “how long, how much?” Or in the language of venture capitalists “how long until we run out of runway?”

GM China and its joint ventures sold 173,398 vehicles in China during the month of July, “as Shanghai GM and GM’s Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac brands all set sales records for the month,” GM’s press release says. Nonetheless, GM’s China sales in July were down 1.8 percent from the same month last year. Now how did that happen? Why should you care? Why should anybody care?

Saab’s white collar employees were getting blue in their faces from waiting for last month’s paycheck. Saab had to sell off slices of the company to pay workers who sit at home twiddling their thumbs. According to the always well informed Saabsunited (when it comes to good news), salaries were transferred today at 5pm. On to the next payday.

Meanwhile, things don’t look so good in China. In June, Saab signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Chinese distributor Pangda Automobile and car manufacturer Zhejiang Youngman Lotus. This had been feted as the second coming of Christ over in Flagwavingland. Put your ear on the ground. Hear that sound? It’s the Chinese, dragging their feet.

Chinese construction workers settled an argument about a parking spot with dynamite. The altercation left four people dead and 16 injured.

Last week, we brought you the news that the Nissan-Dongfeng joint venture will build an EV in China, that it will be ready by 2015, and that it will not be the Nissan Leaf. The Made-in-China plug-in will be offered by Nissan-Dongfeng’s “Chinese” brand, Venucia. This most likely in compliance with yet-to-be-released, but much-rumored regulations which will shower Chinese EV subsidies only on indigenous vehicles.

Barely a week after the news, there already are pictures of the future Chinese EV.

The dwindling and demoralized ranks of Saab flagwavers had a bad week. No cash in the kitty, bankruptcy looms, their savior Vladimir Antonov is rebuffed by the European Investment Bank, dirty laundry about funds seeping away to hot islands is being aired. Their hopes now cling to a sheet of paper. Today, Christer Gerlach wrote an op-ed piece in Sweden’s Dagens Nyheter in which he makes the case that Saab should not be written off just yet. He is asking the Swedish government for help . A translation is printed at Saabsunited.

Christer Gerlach is a famous autowriter. The 66 year old Swede became notorious in 1972 by crossing the Sahara in a Citroen 2CV. In 1988, he entered the Guinness Book of World records in a solo trip around the world – in a Toyota Corolla. If you want the impossible on four wheels, Gerlach is the man to call. I would not call him to restructure a moribund car company.

Toyota is working on a small car based on its emerging market platform that underpins the Indian Etios, and will release it in China by 2013 – if The Nikkei [sub] is correctly informed. There is nobody working at Toyota on Thursdays and Fridays as a power saving measure, so there is nobody to ask. We expect no more than the usual “we cannot comment on future models” when people will be back to work on Saturday. With that in mind, let’s go down rumor lane.