Automotive Press Imitates Real Estate Drivel

Robert Farago
by Robert Farago

Have you ever opened a real estate magazine and read “House prices suck. They’re going to get worse. Stay away from real estate”? Obviously not. It’s a perspective problem shared by the American automotive press, whose Panglossian reviews rankle anyone who wants the truth about cars. Yada, yada, yada. Advertising. Unfortunately, the non-critical kudzu is starting to spread. We’ve already blogged the Motown-friendly press’ straw-grasping predictions for a sales recovery. I’d kinda assumed they’d pipe down after December’s debacle. Sigh. “Despite doomsday auto sales forecasts for 2009, promising signs continue to emerge about early January sales in the United States and their potential for growth.” The Detroit Free Press isn’t free, and this is not what I call the press. “Pent-up demand for new vehicles grew to 820,000 new cars and trucks last year, as consumers continued to wait out the dismal economic environment before making a new purchase, according to a report released Monday by CNW Marketing Research. That’s nearly four times as high as pent-up demand was in 2007, CNW said, and the research firm predicted that ‘the bulk of those postponements are slated to return to market in 2009.'” And now, a reality check…

“[GM COO Fritz] Henderson said January auto sales are shaping up no better than last month,” The Wall Street Journal reports, “when GM’s sales fell 31%.”

OK, back to the Gallactica.

“Cars.com, a consumer automotive Web site, is reporting an uptick in traffic that could signal that consumers who were taking a wait-and-see approach to car buying because of the economy might now be coming back to market.

“‘I am having a much better start in January than I thought I would have,’ said Carl Galeana, owner of Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Saturn and Kia dealerships. ‘I may have a better January than December.'”

Could. May. How about expect?

“‘We expect to see a recovery start sometime in the second half’ of the year, Lewis Booth, Ford’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, said in an interview with the Free Press last week.”

The Freep closes the article with a realistically downbeat quote, but the un-damage is not done. Same time next month?

Robert Farago
Robert Farago

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  • Fincar1 Fincar1 on Jan 21, 2009

    "I’m just waiting to watch a couple of Land Cruisers drive into Renaissance Center and pull down the statue of Rick Wagoner on CNN." RedStapler, would that be Toyota or Studebaker Land Cruisers?

  • Prescott Arizona Houses Prescott Arizona Houses on Dec 20, 2016

    Investing in anything that devalues has "strings" attached. The government knows how to devalue any monetary possession while holding it. Cars, Houses, Art, etc. Only things in limited supply have constant demand. For instance, cars will never be valuable except to people who find them valuable. Some people could care less about cars and wouldn't pay a nickle for a '69 Corvette...but they might buy gold or real estate and vice-versa. Land doesn't change, gold, silver, precious stones, and items in limited supply. In other words finite commodities. I like what Allen said, buy a house and the price will eventually recover.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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