Scanning the autoblogosphere, I did a figurative double-take on Autoblog’s headline: 2010 Detroit Auto Show main floor is full, recession officially OVER. Since when does Autoblog do irony? Since never, apparently. Here’s the genesis . . .  After a disastrous 2009, where major manufacturers pulled out of the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) like a recently divorced billionaire riding bareback, the event’s organizers are fighting for their employer’s survival. Like any marketeer steeped in the ways of Motown, they’re going on all-out with their primary weapon: lies. I mean, baseless hype. Kool-Aid anyone? First to drink: the Detroit Free Press. “‘Every space on the main floor is full,’ a marked departure from the gaps that dotted Cobo’s display space this year because of the disappearance of brands including Nissan, Infiniti, Mitsubishi and Suzuki, show chairman Doug Fox said in an interview at the Frankfurt auto show. Fox declined to name any brands that could return because negotiations are ongoing. One leading possibility might be Porsche. The German sports car specialist abandoned the NAIAS for the Los Angeles auto show a few years ago but has been disappointed that its events in L.A. generate less global news media coverage than it received from Detroit.” That doesn’t sound smell like victory in the morning to me. A full main floor—at what price? How many carmakers? In fact, I smell something else. Not Autoblog though.

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Bob Lutz needs to clear something up. Fun lovers, report to GM Fastlane, stat! It seems that the Man of Maximum is steamed about a WaPo piece which he complains casts him as “ambivalent” towards his beloved Volt. In fact, the piece is a sweeping look at the Volt’s place in GM, and it contains more than a few anecdotes that reflect poorly on GM management (shocking, I know). And the facts of the matter clearly illustrate that the Volt’s importance arises from political considerations far more than the inherent passion  of GM’s product planners to create reliable, fuel-efficient transportation. Hence the accusation of ambivalence. But political motivation has to be disguised with pure intention (no matter how implausible) in order to work. And so Lutz is off to man the crumbling Maximum rampart.

Lutz writes,

The reporter said that we are “ambivalent” about the Volt, largely because it flies in the face of what he perceives me to be all about, namely speed, horsepower and burning rubber – and fossil fuels. In fact, he neatly expanded this ambivalence angle to describe GM, and Detroit as a whole, as the auto industry faces a new future.

Look, I know how it works. A reporter has a great idea for a story, with a terrific angle, and, even if the facts indicate otherwise, he can’t help but try to shoehorn the story into the angle. It’s just too good an idea!

Yes, Bob Lutz knows how the media thing works. And the WaPo juxtaposes the Volt and the Camaro,

. . . type of vehicle they and their colleagues in the press insist GM is all about, the gas guzzler. Trucks, SUVs and muscle cars. They would have you believe that GM and the other American auto companies are the only manufacturers on the planet that have ever built any SUVs. They would have you believe that we are secretly bemoaning the coming of the Volt because it means the end of cars like the Camaro and the Corvette, cars they don’t think any Americans want to drive anyway.

Huh? Bob, the Post quotes you as saying,

When you get out into the marketplace, it’s probably just 5 percent of the public that desperately wants something environmentally sound and is willing to pay a premium for it. I would say the East and West Coast intellectual establishment kind of lives in its own world. When you get to the broad American marketplace, excitement is still kind of defined in the way it used to be.

If that doesn’t betray some ambivalence towards hybrid vehicles, then what does? If America doesn’t want Volt, Bob, why are you building it? Actually, the Post piece addresses this directly, explaining,

In the summer of 2008, at a forum attended by other auto executives and then-presidential candidate Barack Obama, Wagoner recalibrated his position. Under increasing pressure from government officials to demonstrate GM’s broad commitment to more fuel-efficient vehicles, the beleaguered chief executive confidently restated GM’s goal to bring out the Volt in 2010.

But that doesn’t jive with Bob’s self-image. Political lackey he is not!

How many times since the concept car’s debut in 2007 have I said (and been widely quoted as saying) that this is the most exciting program I have worked on in my entire career? I meant it every time I said it – anyone in the press who’s spent any time at all covering the auto industry knows I don’t do “lip service.”

But if this were true, Lutz wouldn’t be blustering about his deep, abiding passion for the Volt. He’d say something along the lines of “you’re damn right I’m ambivalent about it. It’s a $40k halo car that doesn’t go fast or look like sex. That doesn’t make sense to someone like me.” Instead, he demonstrates his pathos-laden (and politically corect) ambivalence towards the very car the WaPo accuses him of favoring: the Camaro:

Given the tough economic times and the high priority of fuel economy, we were almost wishing we hadn’t done the Camaro. We looked at it as something radically mistimed.

Which it is. But Lutz’s conspicuous ambivalence only shows how willing he is to reshuffle his priorities based on political considerations. If Lutz was brought into GM to provide clear-sighted leadership on product quality, he has clearly lost the independent, instinctive edge he once promised. Absent the need for a working compass of the American consumer psyche (thanks to bailout billions), Lutz has become little more than a breathless apologist for a program he clearly doesn’t think will be successful on its own merits. The curse of governmental control can already be felt at GM. What a crock of shit.

Remember when Farago asked what wasn’t wrong with this picture of the Chevy Spark? It turns out that despite 74 comments, nobody correctly identified the Spark’s major flaw: it’s a hunk of foam. The Spark was first teased on the Today show, where GM Design guru Ed Welburn first showed off the city car’s Pokemonesque snout. At the time, we (and everyone else in the autoblogosphere) concluded it was a Beat Concept, ignoring Welburn’s promise that it was a “new” city car concept set to debut on Sunday at the Detroit Auto Show. When Sunday came, GM only rolled a Beat into COBO Hall but posted a picture of the Spark on its corporate webpage promising a production model by 2011. Confused, the guys at Kickingtires contacted GM and learned that the Spark wasn’t rolled out because they don’t even have a rolling prototype of it, just the foam model that was trotted out for Today. The “real” Spark prototype will be revealed at the Geneva Auto Show later this year, but for the record, GM’s Beat/Spark policy seems to currently stand as follows. Beat was shown a year ago, 2.5m webizens voted for it over its Trax and Groove concept-mates, and it was then ruled out for an American launch. Now there’s not even a prototype Spark, but we’re told it will definitely come to the US. Confused? You probably should be.

I admire Henrik Fisker’s adaptability. When he realized that the high end market didn’t want reskinned German cars, he put his business plans int he greenwasher and emerged with cash-in-hand. Fisker decided he wanted to build a beautiful, powerful hybrid car– and that’s just what he wants to build. The Karma is quite an achievement, in terms of design, technology, and convincing someone to give Fisker millions of dollars. But then there’s the sanctimonious EcoBabble™. One of our Best and Brightest emailed me an excerpt from the brochure today, and the bits about the interior trim, well, judge for yourself. ”Wood trim is recovered from trees found in America’s wilds: Fallen Trees™ that have succumbed to age; Rescued Trees™ burned in forest fires; and Sunken Trees™ lying on lake bottoms.” ”Recylable EcoGlass™, made from naturally occurring sand…” ”The EcoSport™ series incorporates hand-wrapped premium leather processed using a 100 percent sustainable Happy Cow™ manufacturing strategy…” If a tree falls in the forest, but no one trademarks it…

When I go to the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS), I like to get downtown early, around 7 AM. That way I don’t have to wait in any lines for credentials and I can get my favorite free parking spot about a block from Cobo Hall. While waiting for the press conferences to begin today, I stopped at the Tesla booth to say hi to Rachel Konrad, head of communications. Tesla first appearance at NAIAS consists of a small booth next to the Lotus display. Tesla’s displayed a naked Roadster chassis, which laid the car’s Lotus roots bare. But Konrad was emphatic: only a small percentage of components are shared with the Elise. She said that 150 not-Elise Roadsters have been delivered. They’re completing 15 vehicles a week, with 1100 people on a waiting list. Their facility has an ultimate capacity of 40 cars a week. With production proceeding, albeit at a relatively slow pace, Tesla has grown their company beyond Tucker stage (50 units built). It remains to be seen if they surpass Bricklin (2854 SV1s) and DeLorean (~9000 DMC-12s). In the meantime, they’re building real cars. I know because I got to drive one…

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No really. (Remember: we don’t diss Autoblog any more.) Scribe Sam “Is There a Draft Out There” Abuelsamid has noticed a new technology on the otherwise Lincoln WTF– I mean Concept C that’s way cool. I think. “Take a close look at the brake caliper in the photo above. Typically, the brake rotor is attached to the wheel hub and the caliper grips the disk from the out edge. On the Concept C, the braking surface is attached to the inside edge of the wheel rim with caliper wrapping around the inside edge of the rotor… An internal caliper mount has the advantage of allowing a larger effective radius for where the braking force is applied. Since torque is defined as a force applied at a distance from a pivot point, the greater the distance, the greater the braking force. Such a setup allows more brake force with a smaller caliper, which in turn can provide better brake feel since the fluid displacement is smaller. The downside is that changing wheels becomes a much more complicated matter since the brake hardware is mounted on the wheel.” Man, I’ve got to get out more.