“The film ‘Flash of Genius’ chronicles the life story of Bob Kearns, who asserted that he invented the intermittent windshield wiper and sued Ford, Chrysler and other automakers for patent infringement. While films like ‘Flash of Genius’ are made for entertainment purposes, the facts are often less dramatic.

Bob Kearns as well as hundreds of engineers from many companies, including Ford, helped develop the intermittent wiper as part of an evolution of existing automotive and electronic components.

While there are inaccuracies in the film, Ford sees no value in re-hashing the history of a legal case that was resolved in court almost 20 years ago, when a jury ruled that Ford did not willfully violate Mr. Kearns’ patent.

Today, Ford continues to make engineering and design breakthroughs in areas such as fuel efficiency, safety and smart technology, and is proud of its 100-year legacy of innovation in automotive technology.”

Well, now that NBC’s lawyers have swooped down on the net like a helicopter appearing from out of nowhere, we can’t warn you not to click on a link to the entire episode of last night’s Knight Rider– the only TV show in the history of the world (ever) that can make Bewitched seem like Beowulf. Watch the preview above, but do not view the latest episode of the latest Knight Rider; you will never get that 42:38 seconds back. But if you feel you must, I highly recommend Autoblog’s live blog log as the best way to navigate to/around the truly excrutiating bits. Normally, Autoblog’s unabashed, puppy-dog-like love of all things automotive makes their PR-inspired analysis the equivalent of listening to an over-earnest co-worker describing a particularly boring meeting while he’s pissing in the adjacent urinal. But this time, Alex Nunez provides us with comic friggin’ gold. Or, if you prefer, haiku hilarity. “8:08: A Cobra (helicopter) shoots a missile at our fearless heroes. It is the world’s slowest missile.” I swear this is Autoblog’s. Best. Post. Ever.

Personally, I am offended by this "remake." While Death Race 2000 wasn't exactly Five Easy Pieces, Paul Bartel's 1975 cult classic featured motorized combatants competing to cut pedestrians into at least that many bits. Which was– and still is– deliciously politically incorrect. The new movie pits convicts against convicts for mass entertainment. Been there, Running Man'd that. Ho-hum? Nope. "The car chases and most of the characters are thrillingly executed, with 5,000-horse-power smash-'em-ups shredding the screen," writes New York Post critic (or not) Kyle Smith. "If you run over the right manhole cover, you can activate additional weapons or bloodthirsty traps, and there aren't a lot of environmental restrictions ("Give me the napalm" is as routine a command as "find something on the radio"). If the warden feels like cheating, and that feeling often comes over her, she can throw into the mix something called the Dreadnought, which is to the other cars what a Chevy truck is to a roller skate."

I reckon if a product placement calls attention to itself, then it makes moviegoers groan and say (silently) "I paid for a goddamn movie, not a commercial!" Apparently, brandchannel.com couldn't care less. They base their Brandcameo Award on the number of cinematic product placements in number one ranked movies (1251 brands counted in total). "Ford— for the third straight time— topped all other brands, appearing in 30 of the 52 number one films at the US box office from January 1, 2007 through June 30, 2008. Ford’s 57.7 percent appearance rate in top films is a marked increase over its 18 of 41 appearances in 2005 (44 percent) and 17 of 41 in 2006 (41 percent)." (FYI: Transformers, Bucket List, I Am Legend, American Gangster and taxis aplenty). Unfortunately, the man responsible for all this screen time, Mark Kaline, was written out of Ford's script. Or perhaps he's just in development Hell.

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First, this post dovetails nicely with the Ask the B&B question on homoerotic truck ads. I mean, if the testosterone-laden Torque.tv's announcer's tongue isn't firmly in his cheek, well… Anyway, the video also suggest a click on over to Paul Niedermeyer's excellent editorial on the coming showdown between the 2010 Prius and the 2010 Honda Hybrid. Personally, I find the producer's choice of cartoon clown xylophone background music a bit OTT. But I'm glad the torque team pointed out that a properly-flogged Prius can suck more unleaded than a 'Vette. It brings back fond memories of the time I tried to discover how much gas I could use in a Prius. I never got it below 17mpg. Guess I wasn't trying hard enough.

H2H Ep12, Honda Civic Hybrid Vs. Toyota Prius

As a high school soccer player, I shared a locker room with the football team. Apparently my choice of the world's most popular sport indicated that I and my fellow teammates were all homosexual. Huh? Not that I debated the point with the tight end, but I reckoned there was a distinctly homoerotic undertone to our tormentors' camaraderie (me thinks thou dost towel whip too much). And I've started to notice that truck advertising– always mucho macho– is wandering into the same hyper-male territory. I refer here to the glossy Silverado pimpatorial in September's Car and Driver. "If you're a man's man, you need to be driving a truck's truck." What does that make a Honda Ridegline, an F-150's bitch? I like functional tools as much as the next guy, but I'm beginning to think truck maker's might want to ease-off on the gravelly-voiced steroid approach. Or not. What's your take?

Anyone who thinks GM isn't in a cash crunch better come up with some serious spin stat. The American automaker has officially confirmed that it's withdrawing from the Oscars. No, I don't mean it's removing itself from contention for "The Most Shameless Product Placement in any Movie Since Cinema Was Invented" Oscar. We're talking about ad sponsorship. As in no more. Which also means the Autoblog gallery-filling pre-Oscar stars and our cars "Style" event is toast. The Wall Street Journal makes the contrast with years past. "Not only has GM — the maker of brands such as Cadillac, Chevrolet and Saturn — aired a slew of commercials during the popular awards show, it also has paid extra to be the exclusive auto advertiser during some of the Oscar broadcasts. GM's marketing around the program has included on-the-ground promotions, such as giving the show dozens of GM vehicles to shuttle celebrities to the event and to Oscar-related parties." What, no Escalade Hybrid limos? Nope. And no Emmy sponsorship. And the next Olympics will not have anything shiny and blue paying the bills. It would be nice to think that all this money saved will be going towards new product development. But it's not. It's what the non-technical analysts call throwing shit overboard to stop the ship from sinking.

Me, never. Why would I? But I know plenty of pistonheads who have. I remember a particularly coke-fueled neighborhood Porsche driver who was crazy enough to get some serious distance from the local po-po, who were Hell bent on throwing his dangerous driving ass in jail. He screeched into his [blacked out] garage, stripped, jumped in bed and pretended to be asleep. Mind if we have a look around? Long-suffering wife: with all due respect officers, talk to my fucking lawyer. These days, it's not enough to evade the long arm of the law. If you're way cool, you race the cops, videotape the result and share your criminal activities with the world. To wit: superspeeders.com, "where horsepower rules, and the rules of the road don't apply." And their teaser video for same, via Streetfire.net [Note to the SF guys: please don't pull the link. This is instructive stuff.] I guess discretion is no longer the better part of stupidity. If it ever was. Anyway, you ever done shit like this?

Cops have a little run in with Ford GT