One Cargo Ship = 50 Million Cars?!?

Next time you think you are making a significant impact on global pollution levels by driving your 40+ mpg Prius to work each day, think about this:  Due to the low-quality fuel consumed by large ocean-going transport ships, a single one of these behemoths can emit as much cancer and asthmas-causing filth as FIFTY MILLION cars!  One seriously has to wonder why we even bother with federal automobile emissions standards.  Perhaps we should be focusing on "point" sources of pollution (like power plants and, say, filthy cargo ships), instead of on more difficult to regulate "non-point" sources (like hundreds of millions of cars and trucks).  Let's get serious about cleaning up these floating garbage scows.

This is not a new article, but it paints a pretty bleak picture of our mis-placed focus on the Camry's we drive to work instead of the carbon-spewing ships that deliver them to our shores.

Good News for Rochester

The much-suffering Flower City of Rochester, NY received some good news on Saturday when General Motors announced a $100 million investment in its GM Components Holdings Rochester Operations plant.  The investment will upgrade the factory's fuel injection and intake components business for the modernization of GM's small block car and truck engines. The investment will also mean 30 much-needed new jobs at the plant.


I'm very pleased to see that there's some good news in Rochester to report these days.  You can read all about GM's plans for this investment here.

The Auto Industry as a Subway Map

Ben Oliver at the UK's "CAR Magazine" has published an updated 2010 map of the relationships among world automakers (ownership, joint ventures, etc.).  What's interesting about this map is that it is organized in the form of the London subway map - you can find it here.  Back in 2005, Ben produced a similar map - and comparing the two, you get a sense of how much the industry has evolved in that time.  For example, DaimlerChrysler figured prominently on the 2005 map, but by 2010 both Daimler and Chrysler occupy much smaller parcels of real estate on the map.  Also in 2010 you see the emergence of Geely and other Chinese makers not on the 2005 map.  In addition, GM has been pruned of several divisions (Saturn, Hummer, Pontiac) on the 2005 map, and the updated map illustrates the emergence of electric car specialists BYD (from China) and Tesla.

Readers can see my much more rudimentary attempt at illustrating these relationships, showing more of the change in relationships over time, at this link.

Mercury is Kaput - Ford to Discontinue the Near-Lux Brand

Ford Motor Company will announce today that it intends to euthanize its Mercury Division, after weeks (and indeed years) of speculation, per a report from the AP and The Detroit News. Mercury will join Chrysler's Plymouth division and GM's Saturn, Hummer, Pontiac and Oldsmobile brands on the scrap-heap of automotive history.

A moment of silence, please, for the folks who brought us this little gem....

Here are a few more tasty morsels from Ford's near-luxury companion to the Lincoln brand.

The Mercury Monterey (this one a wagon) ....

And a lovely Monterey convertible....

Makes me a little misty-eyed thinking about my first two cars, both Mercuries: a '75 Comet (yellow with a white vinyl hard top) and a '78 Zephyr (tan, a.k.a. "Ford racing beige" per the folks at "Car and Driver" magazine).

RIP, Merc.

Latest Automaker Dance Card

Here is a revised version of my earlier graphic (posted originally here) which includes the latest updates in the seismic re-ordering of the global automotive industry. Updates to this version include:

• the cancellation of GM's sale of Hummer to China's Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company, and the General's decision to shutter the brand.
• Similarly, the sale of the Saturn brand to Penske fell through, so Saturn will also be closed down, with all its dealers.
• GM decided ultimately NOT to sell its European Opel division to parts supplier Magna International, opting to retain it instead, causing significant teeth-gnashing among the Germans, Russians and Canadians.
• Ford is completing the sale of Volvo to Geely, a Chinese automaker seeking an American presence.
• Saab was sold off ... but not to Koenigsegg, as earlier attempted, but instead to Spyker Cars, also of Sweden.
• And Mitsubishi and Peugeot-Citroen are rumored to be cozying up to a stock-swap deal that would cement a strategic alliance between the Japanese and French automakers.

So, never a dull moment. It's a soap opera these days. You literally cannot tell the players without a scorecard. Stay tuned as the automotive fallout from the financial meltdown is quite likely far from over.

The Detroit Shuffle: U.S. Automakers 2.0

In May, when the economy was heading into the ditch at blistering speed and the automakers were struggling to shrink themselves to prosperity, I wrote a post and published a graphic on what the major players in the U.S. auto market might look like once the dust settles.

Now the folks at Mint.com have put together a similar graphic here. Theirs focuses exclusively on the U.S. "Big Three", as opposed to mine which was a broader look at the industry's reorganization.

Not much new info here, but I have to give them props for the fancy presentation. Enjoy!

Once More, With Feeling

Time to wrap up my coverage of the classic car show at the Howard County Fair with a quick blast of photos representing my personal "Best In Show."

THE ROADSTER COLLECTION

First, a gorgeous black Porsche. I'll take one in black and another in red, please.

First of several Corvettes - this red one is from the '60s...

... and THIS red one is from the '50s (maybe '58).

This 'Vette is a couple years older still, a '55 or '56, the first generation. Note that the quad headlights from the red 'Vette above debuted on many GM models in 1958.

THE PONY CAR & SEDAN COLLECTION

Always competing, even when parked in a field with the bonnet up. Here a Camaro SS and a Mustang show us what's under the hood.

Somebody spent a ton of cash on this highly-modified Studebaker Golden Hawk. Gorgeous. Not subtle.

A moment of silence, please, as we pay our respects to the Plymouth brand, God rest her soul. Still flying the flag.

"Goodnight, Jim Bob."

"Goodnight, John Boy."

A prop from "Driving Miss Daisy"?

THE PICKUP COLLECTION

This gorgeous green Chevy reminds me of a Stepside my younger brother had back in the '90s. Much like my old Caprice, I'm sure he'd love to have that truck back now. I'd love to have this one myself.

Stepping back in time a decade or two, we find this immaculately-restored Ford, another Stepside.

Next I found a two-tone Ford, a Fleetside restored to within an inch of its life. My uncle, a plumber in North Carolina, had a more pedestrian monotone example very much like this one.

This one I wanted to drive home that afternoon. One thing was clear at this show: many of these car collectors have a ton of cash to spend on restorations, chrome engine treatments, custom paint jobs and interiors, etc. Recession? What recession?!

Finally, a great old Chevy stepside with side-mounted spare, next to a fabulous fifties Ford with a power retractable hardtop. Nice!

Hope you enjoyed the pics. Odds are I'll hit another show this fall, and I pledge to remember to bring a REAL camera next time so that I don't have to rely on the single-use, drug-store specials...

More Classic Iron

Among the other fabulous cars I saw at the Howard County Fair a couple weekends ago was this lovely back number. Love this freakin' hearse. Check out the custom coachwork, including side panels that look like curtains. At first glance I thought they were some sort of plastic do-dads added in the 70s - but it's actually STEEL, people! The owner had photos of the unrestored car with rust covering those drapery panels. I've never seen anything like it - a real looker.

Below is a gorgeous 1940 Buick. The sign says "96 produced. This is allegedly the extant version with dual side mounts." So this one might be worth some bank.

Also of interest to me, thanks to my Mopar jones, was a gorgeous Chrysler Imperial. A few shots - check out the fabulous tail-lights, and the headlights-on-stalks. Car also had a push-button automatic transmission (which makes an enormous amount of sense, when you think about it). Some fascinating details.

More cars to come in my next post. Stay tuned!

Classic Car Show at the Howard Country Fair

I found my grandfather's car at the

Howard County Fair auto show a couple weeks ago. OK, not EXACTLY my grandfather's car, but a twin sister. On what had to be one of the hottest days of 2009 (and brightest, judging by my over-exposed photos), I drove up to the fairgrounds to have a gander at the antique machinery.

And there it was: a 1973 Chevrolet Caprice, a near twin of the burgundy Classic I bought from my grandfather in 1992. To this day, I wish I hadn't sold that cherry ride. Burgundy paint, black vinyl hard top, immaculate burgundy cloth interior, pillarless doors, and a honking V-8. Nice.

The green and white example at the fair was a real looker, too, in excellent condition. I had a nice chat with its owner, a delightful older gentleman who's owned the car for 40 years.

Here are a couple more images of that fabulous ride that brought back a lot of memories.

Stay tuned for more images from the show - lots of nice iron.

2009 Bucky Fuller Challenge Winner

"Does humanity have a chance to survive lastingly and successfully on planet Earth, and if so, how?"

Legendary designer and futurist Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller (1895-1983) was concerned with this question throughout his life. His inventions and innovations focused on ways to minimize our impact on this earth while maximizing human potential.

Every year, the non-profit Buckminster Fuller Institute conducts a contest (the Buckminster Fuller Challenge) and awards a $100,000 prize "to support the development and implementation of a strategy that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems." The winner of the 2009 Challenge is the Smart Cities Group at the MIT Media lab, for their entry entitled "Sustainable Personal Mobility and Mobility-on-Demand Systems", which is a system of sharing 2- and 4-wheel vehicles in an urban setting. The innovative proposal includes a collapsable 2-wheel "RoboScooter" and stackable 4-wheeled "CityCar." Excerpted from the winning proposal:

"Mobility-on-Demand systems utilize fleets of shared-use lightweight electric vehicles placed at automatic charging racks throughout a city. The CityCar and RoboScooter, both folding vehicles, along with the Green-Wheel Bicycle, minimize parking space and can be picked-up and dropped-off at any rack. Mobility-on-Demand systems maximize mobility and dramatically reduce congestion and pollution through energy and land-use efficiency."

Details of the proposal, and those of other contest entries, can be found here.

My Post on CNN.com's "Cafferty File"

In his blog post today on CNN.com, Jack Cafferty discusses the increasingly dire state of federal and state finances. With tax revenues in free-fall, and demands for government services spiking, he correctly points out that something's gotta give. You have basically three options in this situation:

1) Debt - put it all on the credit card (although we've just about maxed-out our credit card from the Bank of China);

2) Raise Taxes (always unpopular); or

3) Cut Government Spending and Services (also unpopular).

So what's a government to do? Here's my take, posted today:

It’s truly time to re-evaluate our priorities, and here are a few things I would do if I were Obama-for-a-Day:

1) Eliminate agriculture subsidies, which encourage overproduction and distort overseas food markets (destroying local production abroad, esp. in developing countries).

2) In accord with 1 above – Eliminate subsidies for corn-based ethanol. If we are to go down the road of renewable fuels, they cannot be based on food crops. Better to go the Brazilian way of switch grass or agricultural waste as feedstocks.

3) Increase gasoline taxes to $1 per gallon, and tilt the balance of transport spending away from ever-larger roads, and towards mass transit. I am thoroughly convinced that GM and Chrysler cannot compete in a world of $2 gasoline – the market will never buy the smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles that new owner Uncle Sam wants them to produce, until people have a reason to buy them. Tax gas to reduce environmental pollution, reduce our dependence on imported oil, and then shift transport spending from autos to mass transit, which will give people viable alternatives to driving. If you focus on nothing but automobiles for over 50 years, as we have done here, and you get nothing but more and more auto-induced sprawl and gridlock – how can you be surprised by that outcome?

4) We need to take a good, hard look at the entitlement programs which are sinking our budgets, in particular Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. We’re going to need means testing for all three programs, and higher retirement ages for SS. It makes little sense to subsidize the wealthiest demographic (retirees) by taxing the poorer demographics.


5) Require the Federal Government to operate under a balanced budget except in times of military conflict, and even then require a two-thirds majority of the SENATE (not the hopeless, parochial House) to approve deficit spending. We are drowning in red ink, and we must begin living within our means.

And while we’re at it: let’s abolish congressional districts for individual states and go to a national, party-based proportional representation system. A Congress tied to individual states has demonstrated that it cannot be trusted with the power of the purse.

6) If we can’t get to a balanced budget by using the ideas above (and there’s no way these steps will be enough), then we’ll need across-the-board reductions in ALL government operations: tell each agency they need to lose their dead wood. As someone with a wife employed by Uncle Sam, let me assure you that 5% of federal staff could be eliminated without affecting services provided! The kind of dysfunction tolerated in government bureaucracies is astounding, and it’s time we created incentives to root out waste. No more free-riders, no more coddling of dead-wood by the nanny-state and employee unions.

Thanks for allowing the rant, Jack!

Saying "I told you so" is pretty immature - which never stopped Michael Moore in the past...

I was quite curious to find out the level of glee and gusto with which Michael Moore would rub salt into GM's wounds as he discusses his prescription for the auto giant's future in today's The Daily Kos. On the contrary, I was surprised by how gracious he was: while pointing out many of the General's failures over the years, he did not dance on GM's grave.

While a good hunk of what Moore suggests for the future of GM is pie-in-the-sky stuff, I agree with his basic premise: saving GM for the purpose of building more crappy cars does not serve America's long term interests. Those interests, however, could indeed be served by using this opportunity to re-purpose GM and its laid-off workers, putting them in service of a greener economy by building trains, solar and wind power equipment, etc. I particularly enjoyed this part of Moore's article:

[Let's announce] that we will have bullet trains criss-crossing this country in the next five years. Japan is celebrating the 45th anniversary of its first bullet train this year. Now they have dozens of them. Average speed: 165 mph. Average time a train is late: under 30 seconds. They have had these high speed trains for nearly five decades -- and we don't even have one! The fact that the technology already exists for us to go from New York to L.A. in 17 hours by train, and that we haven't used it, is criminal. Let's hire the unemployed to build the new high speed lines all over the country. Chicago to Detroit in less than two hours. Miami to DC in under 7 hours. Denver to Dallas in five and a half. This can be done and done now.

You can read Moore's full article here.

Requiem for the General: My GM Ownership Experience

The New York Times' autoblog "Wheels" is running a post sharing the author's experiences with GM cars, on the occasion of the car-maker's imminent bankruptcy filing on Monday. And he invites readers to do the same. So read his story, and post your own, here.

Although I grew up in a purely Ford and Chevy household (mostly pickups), my only GM car ownership experience to date is a '73 Chevy Caprice, purchased from my grandfather for $500 just before his death in the early '90s. Car was in great condition inside and out, had a pre-smog-control motor that would haul you-know-what. That car made several long trips up and down the eastern seaboard, and was a joy to pilot down the roads, even if it was impossible to keep gas in it or to find a parking spot big enough for it. Did burn a little oil, and the A/C self-destructed the first time I tried to use it, but then again it WAS 20 years old by the time I got my hands on it.

A few years later I moved to Rochester, NY in the frozen north and had to liquidate the Chevy for a more-practical front wheel drive vehicle (a Ford Tempo of all things - what a come-down). But I'd give my eye teeth to have that burgundy over burgundy beauty (with black hard top) back in the garage as my "toy" car.

My garage has been graced over the years with the following collection of steeds:

1. 1975 Mercury Comet: Yellow paint, White hard top, Pea Green interior (with a flatulent exhaust note reminiscent of a UPS truck)


2. 1978 Mercury Zephyr: Light Tan paint, Dark Tan interior


3. 1973 Chevrolet Caprice (see above)


4. 1986 Ford Tempo LX: Medium Blue Paint and interior


5. 1995 Plymouth Neon: Lilac paint, Grey interior (my first New car)


6. 1991 Ford Escort wagon: Electric Blue paint, tan interior (built by Mazda; damned transmission!)


7. 2000 Dodge Stratus ES: Light Cyprus Pearl Coat paint, Dark Charcoal interior


8. And currently a 1999 Honda CR-V: Silver paint, Grey interior

While GM has produced precious few vehicles that I have considered purchasing during my adult lifetime, I do hope the company can resurrect itself and continue as a going concern. It will be an enormous loss to this country if our ability to manufacture cars slips away in much the same fashion as TVs, radios, VCRs, computers, etc., etc.

Happy Motoring!

Brand Shuffling in the U.S. auto market: You can't tell the players without a scorecard.

Although I have become a rather serious proponent of public transportation over the years, especially for urban environments, I have been and remain an enthusiastic car buff. There was a time when I looked forward each month to the arrival of "Car & Driver" and "Automobile" magazines, and I would sometimes read them cover to cover in one sitting. To learn more about the industry, I even worked for a brief time in my twenties as a salesman in a Chrysler-Dodge-Subaru dealership (can you say "fundamental type mismatch"?).

And while I no longer follow the industry as I did in those years, I retain a strong interest in the doings of the industry: new models, corporate mergers and partnerships, the latest technological advances, personalities and market forces that shape the industry, etc.

There has been much to digest over the last several months, to say the least.

The landscape that appears likely to emerge from the current economic tsunami will bear little resemblence to the status quo. The entire automotive order is being reshuffled, and the big players in the American automotive market will take on an ever more international flavor.

This is ultimately a good thing - America's "Big 3" long ago surrendered their prior leadership roles in automotive innovation to their German, Japanese and Korean counterparts. Can the Chinese and Indians, both with ambitious plans to crack the U.S. auto market, be far behind?

When I was a child the automotive powers of the American marketplace looked like this:

• General Motors



• Ford



• Chrysler

Next was a large gap, and then:

• Volkswagen



• Toyota



• Honda



• Nissan

plus several other niche brands (Mercedes, BMW, Saab, Volvo, etc.)

Beginning in the 1980s and continuing to the present day, the Japanese manufacturers developed reputations for building reliable, efficient cars, and moved their vehicles up the ladder of sophistication and luxury to become full-line brands, offering vehicles from small to large, from cars to trucks, minivans and SUVs, from thrifty to luxurious. The Germans continued to supply high-end cars, moving up to the luxurious end of the spectrum once occupied by Cadillac, Lincoln, and Buick. Currently, the Koreans (Hyundai, Kia) are following the path of their Japanese predecessors, expanding their overall product portfolio while moving away from cheap econoboxes towards near-luxury sedans, minivans, and SUVs.

The one constant has been a persistant loss of market share by Detroit's Big 3 to the "newcomers" (remember when they were almost derisively referred to as "imports"?). Over time, the Japanese, German and now Korean manufacturers even added manufacturing plants here in the U.S.A. employing tens of thousands of American workers.

I created the the graphic above to represent what the landscape may look like once the dust of the current crisis settles. Highlights include:

• Chrysler as a homeless vagabond, being passed from one foreign corporate master (Daimler-Benz, 1998-2007) to another (Fiat), after a brief period of independence (2007-2009). Hmm... Sounds like Latvia between the wars....




• GM and Ford shedding Asian and European subsidiaries in a rush to streamline. Ford got a head start when it flirted with bankruptcy a few years ago, cutting its close ties to Kia, Jaguar and Land Rover, and currently seeking to divest itself of Mazda and Volvo. GM, meanwhile, appears to be the largest victim of the economic slowdown, and will emerge a much smaller company as it struggles to survive. It has shuttered Oldsmobile and Pontiac for good and now seeks to sell off Saturn, Opel/Vauxhall (GM Europe), Hummer, and Saab.




• Fiat may return to the U.S. market and emerge as one of the world's largest automakers if it can pull off the acquisitions of Chrysler and Opel/Vauxhall.




• Volkswagen continues to absorb its purchase of U.K. super-lux brand Bentley while it works on a merger with Porsche.




• Similarly, BMW has expanded its U.S. presence by picking up the Rolls-Royce and Mini (Cooper) brands.




• Meanwhile, the availability of the Saturn brand and distribution channel is attracting lots of attention from investor groups and foreign automakers, including Chinese and Indian companies looking for access to the U.S. marketplace. Saturn's 384 dealerships offer that access on a turn-key basis. Investor groups hoping to facilitate that access are lining up plans to buy the chain as we speak.




• Meanwhile, look for aggressive marketing from titans Toyota, Honda, Nissan-Renault, Hyundai-Kia (as well as smaller players like Subaru and India's Tata, which owns Jaguar and Land Rover) to pick up market share as the industry adjusts to the seismic shifts noted above.

One thing is sure: more of the old, familiar auto brands will disappear, and be replaced by new brands with decidedly foreign pedigrees.