[Rob Hood]

http://www.autoextremist.com/current/2008/7/8/rants-453.html

Was listening to some newsradio today - many analysts are painting a bleak picture. Heard that Hummer and Saab were going to be let go, maybe more. I've already seen where Chevy is not sponsoring several NASCAR races next year.

Rick Wagoner is supposed to deliver an announcement tomorrow morning at 0830 EST. Should be worth listening to.

This post has been edited by Rob Hood: Jul 15 2008, 05:59 AM

[marka]

Howdy,

Not to mention, "drilling our way out of this" won't do a freaking thing for the next seven years or whatever it is before the oil comes on line from the new wells.

Though it might help whack the speculators I guess.

This was interesting in GM's thing that Kevin quoted:

"As part of its cost-cutting, GM plans to eliminate health care coverage for U.S. salaried retirees older than 65, effective Jan. 1. Wagoner said the company will increase pensions for affected retirees and their surviving spouses to "defray the impact." "

Can they do that? Presumably they've got a contract with those folks, right?

Unrelated... I'm being pretty "glass is half full" here with this but... this could end up helping peformance minded folks as much as it hurts them... I'm really hoping that we see more emphasis on saving weight, plus more dedication on the part of the domestics toward smaller / funner cars (as a small segment of the "smaller / more fuel efficient" car market they're being forced to go into).

I think I've said it before, but in 2006 we were looking for a car with very good fuel economy that we'd like to drive. The only domestics that got good fuel economy were shitty econoboxes. Rode like crap, felt like crap, etc. It was worth it to us to pay more for a Civic, which felt _way_ more refined (and got better mileage to boot). Perhaps now the domestics will see that there's a market for people like us... Wanting a car that gets good fuel economy but is also sporty and/or nice to drive and/or whatever.

The new Mustang SVO I've heard some folks talk about seems like a great idea as a performance car for this transistion period we seem to be coming into (transistioning from gas powered cars to something else). Put some controls in the driver's hands and let them dial up the boost / decrease fuel economy when they want it, and otherwise sip the dino juice.

But the big potential win to me would seem to be that weight is going to matter more and more and more. Perhaps we can get away from 4k lb performance cars? :-)

Mark