Angry shareholders yesterday ousted the chairman of the board of a major traffic camera company and two of his closest allies. Redflex Chairman Chris Cooper and Directors Peter Lewinsky and Roger Sawley resigned to avoid an embarrassing vote after learning that a majority of shareholder proxies expressed no confidence in their continued leadership. The internal revolt followed closely upon the revolt of Ohio voters in the cities of Chillicothe and Heath.

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The die is cast. Robert Farago, the man who founded this site nearly a decade ago and nursed it into relevance and notoriety, has left the building. Those of us who remain behind take his burden onto our willing shoulders, dedicated to realizing his dream of a car blog that covers the most relevant industry news and delivers the most unflinchingly honest reviews, commentary and analysis. Though much has changed since TTAC’s founding, the need for the truth about cars has not diminished. The automotive media remains a haven for craven cowardice, mutual back-scratching and unquestioning obsequiousness, and our inviolable mission is to provide consumers and observers with perspectives that stand in stark contrast to the industry business-as-usual. Though no site can remain unchanged after the loss of such a prolific founder, Robert’s work over the past decade is the blueprint for our future. The truth must be told, and we’re forever grateful to Robert for showing us the way and, in the process, building up an outlet that is irrevocably dedicated to these ideals.

On a personal note, I’m humbled by the task of filling Robert’s prolific, principled and notorious shoes. I’m also eternally grateful to Robert for his faith in me over the past 18 months. Thanks to his trust, generosity and patience, I have the honor of replacing him in what may well be one of the best jobs in the world. Thanks to his high standards, tough criticism and brutal honesty, I feel capable of doing some justice to his vision. Thank you Robert, for creating this site, for mentoring me, and for making an indelible mark on the autoblogosphere. It’s been a true honor.

The Detroit News reports that Senator John McCain (remember him?) has declared Chrysler unlikely to survive. Mr McCain, who was serving as grand marshal of the NASCAR Sprint Cup series race at the Phoenix International Raceway, even went as far as to argue

No, I don’t think we ever should have bailed out Chrysler and General Motors. We should have let them go into bankruptcy, emerge and become viable corporations again. It was all about the unions. The unions didn’t want to have their very generous contracts renegotiated so we put $80 billion into both General Motors and Chrysler, and anybody believes that Chrysler is going to survive, I’d like to meet them.

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In four day’s time, my byline will appear on this website for the last time. During the previous nine-and-a-half years, I’ve watched the mainstream automotive press slowly evolve from paid cheerleader to . . . nope that’s it. No progress there. Despite having written literally thousands of diatribes against the media’s willful ignorance on the auto industry, I’m still galled that people who call themselves professional journalists have such little moral fiber and testicular fortitude. Only more so, now that GM and Chrysler’s endless turnaround promises have been revealed as a combination of epic self-delusion, outright lying and near-as-dammit criminal conduct (e.g. we never got the bottom of that SEC accounting case). This morning’s Detroit Free Press continues the tradition. “GM Chairman Ed Whitacre clear he’s in driver’s seat” is the worst kind of non-journalism—the kind that enables the rape of the American taxpayer by a bunch of egocentric incompetents.

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Automotive News [sub] reports that President Obama’s Pay Czar has done an about face. Kenneth Feinberg pledged to remove the $500,000 salary cap for NEW executives hired for TARP-recipients—if he’s convinced that a rule-busting pay boost would help the bailout queens return U.S. taxpayer’s money. Feinberg’s climb-down comes just two days after New GM’s federally-appointed Chairman of the Board said that Uncle Sam’s pay caps could be, indeed should be, “modified.” Of course, Ed Whitacre didn’t make his suggestion directly. Nor did Feinberg reveal the locus of his “come to Jesus with cash” moment. “[Feinberg] said the automotive firms did not appeal his rulings. But he said he would be open to requests to hire in new executives at competitive pay. ‘If General Motors or any other company wants to bring someone in laterally — laterally — and competitive pay packages require that lateral hires get certain competitive pay, what have you, we’re perfectly willing to examine that.’” So the new rule: GM can hire someone for more than $500,000 in cash per year if that person was already making $500,000 per year doing the same job, only better (one would hope). Which would exclude, uh, no one. And create mucho resentment at that special place where RenCen’s express elevators ascend to glory. More Feinbergian 180 after the jump, and a mystery to be solved . . .

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The catalyst for all this was the EU saying you only made the money available to one investor. The board did what they should have done and revisited the issue… It’s been a confusing decision, but I don’t think it was handled badly. The circumstances changed from the time this started. The financial part of the business got better. Conditions have changed.

GM Chairman Ed Whitacre on the decision to keep Opel. Financial? Better? Because EU regulators said so? How anyone can see the Opel situation as a “sign of change” is beyond me. GM never wanted to get rid of Opel, they just didn’t want to pay the $8 bil, er, $3 billion to keep it. Too bad German Economics Minister Rainer Bruederle says it’s actually going to cost a cool $5b to restructure Opel. Which GM will just be cannibalizing with Chevwoos anyway. Is any of this not sounding like Old GM?

Jay Leno wasn’t present for the roast of Bob Lutz, but he did check in via video with a few jokes about Bob’s age. Luckily, former Car and Driver editor Csaba Csere decided to mine a richer vein of humor, digging into Lutz for his Merkur branding debacle and his distaste for flying commercial. Maybe retirement allowed Csere to loosen up and deliver some of the evening’s better zingers. Whatever it was, the contrast to Automobile Magazine’s Jean Jennings couldn’t have been greater: Jennings’ contribution was less roast and more abject fawning. She couldn’t have been more toothless if her press fleet access depended on it. Apparently she thought it did.

The evening before Bob Lutz was named Chairman of Opel, he was roasted at an Arthritis Foundation benefit at the Ritz-Carlton in Dearborn. The lead-off hitter was none other than Lutz’s boss, Fritz Henderson, and the inherent awkwardness of a boss roasting his far more charismatic employee made Fritz’s jabs some of the evening’s best. Here is his tribute to a man called Maximum.

There are plenty of reasons to believe that Chrysler will not survive, let alone thrive the way the firm’s five-year plan foresees, but one of them does not appear to be Sergio Marchionne’s leadership. Though there’s doubtless a good deal of hubris in his plan, Marchionne’s depth of knowledge, personal experience and legendary workaholism seem to indicate that, if nothing else, Chrysler’s leadership is lightyears away from the Bob Nardelli years. Considering he oversaw a turnaround of Fiat that was only slightly less improbable than his current turnaround mission, he’s about as qualified to take on the mess in Auburn Hills as anyone else. Here are his closing remarks from the seven-hour product and business plan event.

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Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska meets with Fritz Henderson, German Gref of Russia’s Sberbank and Siegfried Wolf of Magna. The state department had previously denied Deripaska a US visa for undisclosed reasons, but according to the WSJ, the FBI arranged for Deripaska to visit the US because “they were getting interesting information from him.” Deripaska denies any cooperation with US authorities.