#politics

It’s the stuff of which public relations nightmares are made.

For the past couple of years Dodge has sponsored Motor Trend‘s “Roadkill” show, which can be thought of as a generic white-label take on Fast N’ Loud. It’s worth noting that Dodge did several promotions with Rawlings before parting ways with him and settling for the Roadkill team; the brand appears to believe that its heartland audience is best reached through flamboyant/quasi-authentic/redneck-chic YouTube personalities. What that says about FCA’s view of its customers is an exercise best left to the reader.

This past weekend, Dodge and Roadkill teamed for “Roadkill Nights on Woodward,” a staged car show and street-drag event in Detroit. There’s been no small amount of interest in this among the company’s owner base and from what I can see the event was a rip-roaring success, chock-full of Vipers and Demons and whatnot. Whenever an automaker spends this much money on any public relations exercise, there is always a tremendous amount of data deep-diving done immediately afterwards to demonstrate ROI of the expenditure via social media visibility, buff-book coverage, and mainstream mentions. Given the big turnout both online and in real life, I’m sure Dodge and its marketing partners were looking forward to the Monday meeting where they could pat themselves on the back for a job well done.

As it turns out, this weekend was an absolute barn burner of Dodge-branded media exposure. Unfortunately, the Dodge in question wasn’t a Demon lifting its front wheels on Woodward. Instead, it was a V6-powered 2010 Challenger that was driven into a crowd of anti-white supremacist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, causing one fatality and multiple injuries.

The odd coincidence of a “Roadkill”-themed promotion with a Challenger-caused hit-and-run fatality in Charlottesville has pundits on both sides of America’s culture war salivating — and with this unforeseen notoriety comes an unusual, and nearly unprecedented, demand.

President-elect Donald Trump has named General Motors CEO Mary Barra to his advisory board on economic issues and jobs growth.

While this could also be a coincidental slight against Mark Fields for publicly criticizing the new president’s repeated verbal attacks against Ford, this isn’t the first time Barra has been considered for unexpected political involvement this year. Hillary Clinton had shortlisted her as a possible running mate for the 2016 election.

It’s morning in America. Just before noon Eastern Time, actually.

If decades of Gallup polling is correct, and we’re inclined to believe it is, car salespeople and members of Congress have among the lowest reputations of any profession in the U.S. Surprised? Not likely. It’s probably why you never see politicians in car commercials, even if they’ll gladly lend their name to products like Pepsi and Viagra. We’re looking at you, Bob Dole.

That doesn’t mean the two worlds never mix.

General Motors CEO Mary Barra was under consideration to be Hillary Clinton’s running mate. Barra’s name, along with the names of 39 other candidates for the vice presidency, were found in a hacked email released today by WikiLeaks.

So, there’s an election on, and a certain candidate has made some high-profile, sometimes inflammatory comments about American manufacturing and jobs being sent south of the Rio Grande. That person’s name is Donald T. No, perhaps that’s too obvious. D. Trump.

The Republican nominee recently found himself in a cage match with Ford Motor Company CEO Mark Fields after accusing the automaker of sending its jobs to Mexico. But one manufacturer that Trump does favor, one that he invests heavily in and whose products he plans to use to build a certain wall, also has a “Mexican problem.”

To disenfranchised voters, sitting through the first of the presidential debates tonight will be akin to laying back in a 19th century dentist’s chair. Open wide.

Politics (mostly) aside, Audi saw the potential viewership and wasn’t about to let a TV audience of that size pass it by. In its new spot for the Audi RS7, the automaker stages a John Woo-worthy valet battle that should provide some viewer relief.

This is the new News Round-up where we cover all the things you should know that may or may not deserve a headline on their own (or we may have simply run out of time to cover them). It’s similar to the “While Your Were Sleeping” news coverage, but not the same, hence the name change.

This morning, Jaguar announced they are going racing again, the automaker formerly known as Saab has a business plan and the Tesla Model X has a price spread that would make Porsche blush.

A handful of Republican presidential hopefuls converged upon Iowa last weekend to discuss the pros and cons of ethanol.

With 112,000 infrastructure projects and 700,000 jobs at stake, the Obama administration and Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx are both urging Congress find a way to provide funding to the United States Highway Trust Fund before the well goes dry as early as August.

Following the 712 – 629 decision against representation by the United Auto Workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., the union may be forced to throw in the towel on foreign-owned auto factories as the automaker’s works council vow to press forward with plans to establish their brand of representation in the plant.

Image from Twitter @craigsfrost

Positively or negatively, mass transit is often viewed as a social leveler. Rich and poor alike ride the subway in New York, London and Berlin. Atlantans of all economic and social backgrounds make use of MARTA’s facilities, as they do in many other American cities where public transit is the most efficient way of navigating the inner cities. Of course, these are public systems, funded by fares and taxpayer money.

An obscure story in the Azerbaijani press this past summer may be the tip of a much larger iceberg involving General Motors, PSA Peugeot Citroen and the Western World’s current bete noir: the Iranian regime currently embroiled at the heart of a controversial nuclear program, which is subject to economic sanctions by the United States government, including those that specifically target Iran’s automotive industry.

Citing reports from Iran’s Mehr news agency, an Azerbaijani news outlet reported that an unspecified number of brand new Chevrolet Camaro RS 2LT convertibles were imported by a division of Iranian conglomerate Iran Khodro. According to the report, the Camaros were sent from Miami to Paris, and then from Paris to Tehran via a Qatar Airways plane. The report also states that US Customs and Border Patrol documents list the final destination as the Aras Free Trade and Industrial Zone.

FMG Holdings, which operates a number of car dealerships in western Michigan under the name of Fox Motors, had planned on spending $57 million turning an abandoned industrial site on Chicago’s North Side into a large Ford store but it has now given Chicago politicians an Oct. 1st deadline to either approve or deny their zoning application after the issue has gotten mired in local politics and injected with the issue of race.

Following PSA’s exit from Iran last year, Renault is the latest French car maker to leave the Middle Eastern country, thanks to American derived sanctions.

A proposed law that would have eliminated Tesla’s ability to sell cars in New York state has died on the vine, after lawmakers adjourned their legislative session without taking any action on the bill.