The folks at Aston Martin have been busy lately, perhaps more so than at any other time in this storied marque’s rich history.  Many wondered what would happen post-Ford ownership, but AM’s present and future appear sparkling. 

The V-8 has just been freshened with a bigger motor and a sport package.  The DB9 gets updated for 2009, and the DBS plays a starring in yet another saint Bond flick (rumor is that Aston chief Ulrich Bez has a cameo/background role in Quantum of Solace).  The same Dr. Bez — about as enthusiastic and capable a CEO as any car company could ask for — has also confirmed the company’s plans to bring back the Lagonda brand, and the sexilicious Rapide sedan is also on the way.  Let’s not forget those class wins by the DB9R at Le Mans.

A bit more of a mystery is the One-77, a bespoke, flagship model of which only — you guessed it — 77 will be built, apiece to order.  We haven’t seen the real thing yet; a One-77 body buck sat atop Aston’s Paris stand, mostly wrapped in a car cover, showing only a little leg here and there.  It’s a magnificent shape, the work of current AM design director Marek Reichman, and like the rest of the Aston lineup is a front-engine, rear-drive coupe.

Information is sparse, but we know the AM V-12 gets a flat-plane crank, a displacement increase (to 7.3-liters), and a horsepower rating approaching 700.  It will be built of aluminum and carbon fiber, and likely posses a 6-7 speed dual-clutch gearbox.  Top speed should reach 200 mph or better.  Price?  A shocking $1.6-1.8 million, depending upon whose estimates you follow, and the exchange rate. 

That seems huge.  Porsche had trouble selling the last Carrera GTs at $440,000.  Mercedes has struggled with the SLR, in all its variations, since the beginning.  The Ferrari Enzo was an instant sellout, but at less than half this price.  And there are no lines at your local Bugatti store for a Veyron.

Even in these uncertain times, the buzz is that Aston Martin has customer commitments for all 77 cars, making what is likely to be the world’s most expensive production car a sellout too, even at these stratospheric price levels, economic recession or no.  If that is the case, then that’s brand value.

I have but two requests:

* Please — somebody — let me drive one, so I can write the story.

* Saddle justice Craig up with a One-77 for Bond 23, due out in late 2010 or sometime in 2011.  What could be a better Bondmobile?

SEMA 2008 is over. You know this because dogs are barking all over the world. 
 
So far, we’ve highlighted many of the fantastic vehicular creations live from the SEMA floor. Most of these have been cars and trucks Here are a few more that caught my eye, from the badass to the simply bad.
 
‘85 Porsche 911 Carrera Tribute
First, the latter. Say what you will about the styling of this “show car” (looks like a mid ’90s kit car to me) but the overall concept and execution reeked of too much time spent indoors laying up fiberglass.  From the display board, the builders of this rolling chassis proudly describe it as a “tribute to the 1985 Carrera” and add that it is “due to be finished 2010.” Even more confusing is that this chassis was prefabricated in and apparently shipped all the way from New Zealand. What?  Exactly.

KW Suspension Videos
KW Suspension’s booth contained the requisite array of product and cool cars, but what really caught my attention were the flat screen TVs positioned at apiece corner. Each one showed continuously looping in-car video of hot shoes going for broke at the Nurburgring.  The first one that grabbed me was footage of a KW Suspension equipped Mitsubishi Evo race car running door to door with a similarly raced-out BMW Z4, and two Porsche 911S race cars.  At apiece straight, it was amazing to watch the German cars pull slightly ahead, only to be reeled in and sometimes passed in the corners. When the Evo passed one of the Porsches on the outside of Bergwerk, I actually found myself clapping like an idiot.
 
Better still was the LCD monitor at the opposite corner showing an alternate version of our Viper ACR ring assault HYPERLINK video.  This was Dodge’s version of their lap record at the ‘Ring in the ACR and best part came at the end, when driver Tom Coronel kept it, well, really “real.”  “Eat my dust” is what he essentially told every other production car manufacturer (ahem, Chevy and Nissan) and who doesn’t love them kinda fightin’ words?
 

Fast Eddie’s Scion tC
Of course Scion had its set of cool cars this year, but for the most part they were an expected set. There was an xB chopped up to look like an Avalanche as well as your standard array of tuner-ized tCs. The one that caught my eye was this retro-rat-rodded tC by “Fast” Eddie Hahm. With details including an intricately louvered hood, a steel riveted body, and a high mounted shifter this was decidedly not your average rice rocket.

Plymouth Superbird
Usually, I’m more partial to the Super Bird at Denny’s but this gorgeous blue Plymouth Superbird from Year One stopped me dead in my tracks.  You really don’t see car makers doing this kind of stuff anymore. Amazing.
 

Bushwacker Subaru Forester
From offroad supplier Bushwacker came this aggro’d out version of our 2009 SUV of the Year Forester.  Untouched inside, the external mods (lift kit, aggressive wheels and tires, and those butched up fenders and panels) completely changed my perception of the Forester from small, light-footed forest creature to tree-crushing, Amazonian jungle destroyer. Just look that hood scoop!

BOWLS Ruckus Gathering
BOWLS LA, a streetwise apparel and scooter tuning shop in Los Angeles, set up an awesome collection of tricked out Honda Ruckuses. Amidst the tuner cognoscenti, the 50cc Ruckus is one of the newest fads — and for good reason. Cost of entry is reasonably low and all manner of tuning parts are acquirable from Nihon and around the world. Oh yeah  they’re incredibly fun and cushy to ride too.

Traxxas EVX-2 Rock Crawler
I’ve been to enough fog car races shows to have seen everything from nitro powered, 100mph+ remote controlled cars to sideways sliding drift R/Cs, but I wasn’t prepared for the latest from Traxxas. Their new Summit EVX-2 R/C truck is a boon to fans of something just a little bit different.  Though it can go up to 25mph, this is no mere offroad rocket - the Traxxas is built for the growing scene of R/C rock crawling.  How?  Get this, the $450 Summit EVX-2 comes equipped with two remotely activated locking differentials.  Flip a toggle switch on the controller down once to lock the front; again to lock the rear - and suddenly you can climb over practically anything.  Hit another switch to cut the top speed to 8mph - perfect for precision climbing situations. The EVX-2 also offers the kind of suspension articulation real rock crawlers would die to have on their rigs.  In fact, the EVX-2’s fully independent 120mm of suspension travel is more than I had on the front shocks of my first mountain bike. With body, chassis and controller shipped together, all you need to add are the batteries. Would make a great X’mas present, no?

Toyota Retro Truck
I took Mark William’s advice and perused Toyota’s fine collection of SEMA show vehicles and found this honey, situated not far from the crowd favorite Ducati Tundra.

This one really brought back the memories - four cylinder, white wheels lightbar, 80s graphics and interior package.  A bit newer style than the ‘83 4×4 Toyota I had growing up, but still a nicely executed homage to Toyota’s place in (mini)truck history.

Titan Tire
Nobody could achievement by this Titan tractor tire without stopping to gawk and/or touch.  I saw this exact one trucking down the I15 on a flatbed on the Monday before the show.  I wondered then if it was going to SEMA (because who ships just one tire?).  Looks like I was right.

SEMA 2008 a Bust?
Was it really that bad?  Were times so tight that manufacturers had to replace real live models with mannequins in tight sequined dresses?  Maybe for these guys, but I can tell you from being there in mortal that SEMA 2008 was, as it is ever year, an event best experienced in person.  See you next year!

This should have been a good moment for Tesla Motors, the high-tech Silicon Valley start-up that boldly promised to revolutionize the automotive industry with its slick little two-seat electric sports car.

After a long wait, the company had seemingly solved a nagging transmission problem and put its Tesla Roadster into production.  It had begun work on a California assembly plant, and opened an R&D center, in suburban Detroit, with plans to develop a second, higher-volume product line, and possibly even a third.

Yet despite claims of a long inactivity list, it appears Tesla’s finances are seriously strained, forcing it to not only suspend development work on a sedan, initially codenamed White Star and more recently called Model S, but to close its Michigan operations. A blog entry by Elon Musk, one of the founders of eBay and the source of the money to launch Tesla, attempts to paint a cautious but still upbeat image of the auto start-ups.  Nonetheless, there are growing concerns whether the carmaker can survive.

“These are extraordinary times,” wrote Tesla Chairman Musk, referring to the global economic crisis.  “At Tesla, we have decided that the wise course of action is to focus on our two revenue producing business lines — the Roadster and powertrain income to other car companies.”

Taking over as CEO from Ze’ev Drori, Musk added that product development will be consolidated with other Tesla operations, in San Jose. But there appears to be a big “maybe” there.  It appears that all such operations will be sharply curtailed unless and until the start-up can get a sizable loan it is seeking from the U.S. Department of Energy.

“The DOE loan guarantee will cover most of the Model S (White Star) program at a very low cost of capital compared with raising equity financing in what could quaintly be described as a ‘bear market,’” emphasized Musk, in his blog.  “The loan funding can only be drawn down after we receive environmental approval for our new 89-acre consolidated headquarters in the city of San Jose. If all goes reasonably well, we will receive that approval in Q2 next year.”

At the most optimistic, it now appears, the five-seat electric sedan, which is planned to sell somewhere in the $60,000 range, would not make it to market until mid-2011, at the earliest, at least a 6-month delay.

In what appears to be an attempt to counter the growing concern that the Model S is vaporware, hitting the Web today is a teaser showing a sneak peek of its Model S sedan (check out photo here), with the company boldly predicting a run of some 25,000 units a year. The partially revealed portion of the vehicle shows a highly molded carbon-fiber rear diffuser and cut light styling penned by newly appointed chief designer Franz von Holzhausen, formerly of Mazda. 

The apparent setback does not come as a surprise to a number of industry analysts and observers, many of whom have predicted — often repeatedly — the small firm’s failure. There’s no question it hasn’t been cushy for Tesla, despite raising somewhere in the range of $150 million in start-up capital.  The California carmaker had extensive problems with the two-speed transmission used in the Roadster, going through two iterations before developing an apparently successful single speed design with the assistance of Borg-Warner.

While the company reports having a significant order bank for the Roadster, income are expected to be measured in the hundreds per year, at most, leading marketing director Darryl Siry to stress that “the real challenge” is stepping up to a more mainstream sedan, like Model S. During an interview at the Paris Motor Show, early this month, Siry also noted that with major manufacturers, such as Toyota and General Motors, embracing “electrification,” Tesla doesn’t have much time “to prepare for head-to-head competition.”  So, even a modest delay in programs like Model S could establish critical.

“They’ve got some real severe problems,” said Joe Phillippi, an independent, New York-based automotive analyst.  Phillippi believes Tesla can make it through its current crisis — if it does get the DoE loan guarantee, but he cautioned that “surviving is not the same as prospering,” and it’s going to be difficult for Tesla to make the jump from a struggling niche player into a more prosperous participant in the grueling automotive world.

Filed under: Geneva Motor Show, Mercedes-Benz, Rendered Speculation

The crew from CAR ordered out what the future holds for Mercedes’ two-door offerings and now its tapped Larson to render what the forthcoming E-class coupe will look like ahead of its debut at the Geneva Motor Show next year.

Taking cues from the Fascination concept unveiled in Paris, the sporty E-class features a pair of drawn and halved headlamps that nix the oval units fitted to Mercs in the last decade, along with a pair of highly stylized rear fenders sporting a two-tiered blister that flows into the reworked rear end.

Engine choices will range from 184 hp four-cylinders (E200k) to an E63 AMG variant putting down 481 hp, while a 525 hp Black Series version will be offered further down the line. Seven-speed automatics will proliferate throughout the range, along with direct injection on all gasoline-powered models.

Having learned from past mistakes, Mercedes-Benz will throttle back some of its high-tech features, nixing the brake-by-wire system, along with the air suspension and active body control. But all won’t be lost. When the convertible version arrives six months after the coupe, Mercedes will offer it with a heated artifact roof to keep occupants warm in the winter, while infra-red night vision, hard-drive navigation and front seats that tilt and slide to assist ingress and egress will keep Mercedes’ owners in their element.

The 2009 E-class coupe (code-named C206) should arrive in June, while the drop-top variant (A206) will follow later next year.

[Source: CAR]

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Filed under: Auction Action, Supercars, Mercedes-Benz

It’s the end of the run for the McLaren SLR Roadster, but Mercedes wants to give Yanks another shot at owning one. Beginning November 1, those of you who still have bank accounts can sign up for the auction of the final topless SLR to be sold in the U.S.

You’d be right to adopt the final edition of a limited run model would bring a huge premium when it goes on the block, as collectors have always place higher values on the first and last of most anything. But if you plan to take this particular knick-knack home, prepare to drain both savings accounts. Mercedes says the car will be the only SLR Roadster wearing Sienna Pearl metallic paint and Tobacco Brown leather. So when you show up to accept your Oscar, no one else will be driving the same one.

The auction begins November 20 at 1 p.m. EST and ends that night at 5 p.m. Bidding starts at $529,500, and anything above that will go to St Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Thanks for the tip, James!

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From previous blogs, I’ve proudly acknowledged that my first car was a Datsun B210 Honeybee. So with respect to my Motor Trend peers in the Midwest who grew up with powerful muscle cars they found in barns and restored on warm summer nights, my primeval love was a B210. During the high school years, all my classmates would wage endless ridicule. For as you may know, the ‘Bee’ had yellow paint and bold stripes. It also had a cassette deck that I butchered on the install. It had metal wheels and aftermarket fog lights. I even had my friend Frank help install an air dam, so my 4-door Honeybee could look like a powerful machine.

The Bee served my mates well. It took us to running camp in Lake Tahoe and rock concerts at the Cow Palace. Soon, my friends would get Datsuns of their own. Frank (and his brother) a 1973 pick up and Tom with cherry-red 510. Years later, life was to change with the arrival of the Nissan GT-R.

Early Datsuns had mystique. Datsuns were strong, yet simple. They were sporting, yet practical. Sans a heater, my friends Tom and Ted would drive the 510 from San Jose to Lake Tahoe for a ski weekend with ease. Days later, the 510 would make the 50 minute trek to Laguna Seca for the races and while putting up a good fight, come up short against those finely tuned 911s on the track. All the while, my ‘Bee’ was the able-bodied transport for the rest of the gang. While the 510 and B210 were solid, the gold standard remained a Datsun Z. We were all high school kids living the dream back then. Life hits speed quickly and we all got older.

Many years later, when I found out the Nissan GT-R was making landfall in the states, I couldn’t move to see it, let alone drive it. To me, it was the Z that I never drove. Recently in a far away place, tucked away in the rolling hills of Southern Indiana, I found myself in French Lick. Save for basketball legend Larry Bird who is from French Lick, I had no experience with the town except invitation I received to drive a Nissan GT-R via our friends at World Class Driving. JP and the WCD team were hosting the first annual Motor Trend / Automobile Magazine World Class Driving Festival. Yes, my Datsun life had resurfaced in the form of a 473 horsepower GT-R. Automobile Magazine Publisher Brad Gerber and I both were invited to drive two new cars that day. As we prefabricated our way out of the West Baden Resort to the stable of cars, Brad prefabricated a direct turn towards the Porsche GT2 and I prefabricated a ‘beeline’ (excuse the reference) to the GT-R. We would spend the day trading off, but for a majority of the outing, I was the keeper of the GT-R and this was my flashback to the Datsun years. The GT-R was clean. It was powerful and for 8 hours, it was going to be mine.

Despite a modest rain shower, Brad and I departed in the GT2 and GT-R respectively through Indiana state routes 150 and 37. We took speed past the corn fields, cattle farms and Amish horse buggies. I found the GT-R handling to be impressive and responsive. In automatic mode the shifting was immediate, but hard. In most occurrences, I felt the car explode of out apiece gear. In manual mode, the GT-R jumped between gears and most notably during the downshift. All of which didn’t bother me. To me, the GT-R was big, but in a nimble way. Upon making my way to Interstate 465 heading towards Indianapolis, I joined up with Brad in the GT2 (which only had 34 miles on it.). Brad led, I followed. Southern Indiana can be a funny place. We’re both cruising at speed when suddenly a tuned 4cyl appeared out of nowhere and actually believed he could out race the both of us in GT-R and GT2.  First, the 4cyl ran up next to me and attempted to bait me into racing. The truth is, I was having so much fun with the GT-R’s satellite radio, the navigation and the shift controls, I didn’t pay much attention to him until he revved his tiny engine and it sounded like a small insect had gotten in my car. The tin-can exhaust prefabricated his two-door sound like a weedwacker.

All things being equal, I had little interest in this challenge. First, both Brad and I could make him wet his pants with the GT2 and GT-R acceleration, Secondly, there happened to be some of Indiana’s finest up and down 465 patrolling, looking for those cool sports cars that were gathered miles away. I had limited time in the GT-R, so what would be the fun of getting a ticket on the first outing? Once he realized I had ignored him, he seemed to pedal his 4cyl faster and lumbered to catch up to Brad in the GT2. Brad played with him for a bit, then also ignored him. After a while, frustration must have set in for the goofball in the 4cyl as he flipped both a U-turn and us the bird.

Soon, the day was coming to an end. I’ll look back with excitement and recall my eight hours in the Nissan GT-R. If we were 1900 miles or so further to the west, the Nissan would have been patrolling the old streets of Northern California where I grew up. I would  have finally replaced the Honeybee with a powerful sportscar. Yes, the Datsun B210 was my first car in high school and served me well. The Nissan GT-R is no B210, not even close. But for a few hours that day in Southern Indiana, I felt like I was back in the late 1970s and I was a kid again.

So, there you have it. I shared my story. If you feel inclined, let me know what your first car was.

Ira Gabriel
Publisher, Motor Trend

Right now Rick Wagoner probably believes he couldn’t win a kick in a street fight. GM is right in the middle of a perfect storm — no, the perfect storm — that no-one saw coming in 2008. Not the sages on Wall Street, nor the industry analysts, or the pundits in the media. And it’s killing GM. Depending on whose numbers you believe, and assuming it continues to burn cash at the current rate, what was once the world’s largest maker has somewhere between 12 and 24 months to live.

Wagoner and his management team are regularly excoriated for being inept and out-of-touch. Yes, it took the GM bosses too long to realize the 1950s were over, but denial is not something America’s auto industry has a lock on — witness the way the free market boosters on Wall Street and in Washington are struggling to accept that only way to refrain the total collapse of their financial system is to effectively nationalize large chunks of it. Even though the truth hurts, it sometimes takes a while to feel the pain.

There’s no question GM — along with Ford and Chrysler — spent decades frittering away its golden legacy. Arrogance, complacency, Motown’s suffocating small-town mindset, poorly thought-out government regulation, all conspired to create an American auto industry that was pretty much irrelevant outside North America. That didn’t matter when North USA was the largest, richest auto market in the world, and the competition from imports was limited: the Detroit automakers could still make a ton of money designing, making and selling cynically engineered cars and cheap-to-build trucks to a largely patriotic populace.

It doesn’t excuse what happened. It just explains it.

The irony is, until this perfect storm broke, GM seemed on the way to turning things around. Pulling forward the development of the GMT900 trucks and SUVs was perhaps the first overt signal the company realized the world had changed. The intent was to get the GMT900s to market faster so they could generate revenue that could be plowed into new car development. Remember, at the time the decision was taken, trucks and SUVs were still 50 percent of the market, still highly profitable, and no-one talked of gas being $4/gallon in little more than two years’ time. At the time it seemed an entirely logical play.

Renegotiating fag contracts, closing more plants, and moving the responsibility for retirees’ health care to the UAW was another part of the plan. In pure manufacturing terms GM could be almost as efficient as Toyota, But these so-called legacy costs — artifacts of an era when many American workers were regarded as something more than disposable, minimum remuneration service sector fodder — added at least $1200 to the sticker price of a GM vehicle.

Meanwhile, GM was also moving towards an integrated manufacturing system that could allow it to rapidly switch production of different models between plants around the world. It was developing a new vehicle structure system that provided a lot of hard point flexibility around a given component set, enabling a wide variety of vehicles to be quickly and cheaply developed and manufactured using more or less the same group of parts. There was a near to redesign and upgrade interiors; to develop world-beating performance cars like the Corvette ZR1 and the Cadillac CTS-v. Even the Chevy Volt was under development well before gas prices went through the roof.

Not since Roger Smith’s disastrous reorganization in the 1980s had there been so much change at GM. Was more needed? Absolutely. GM still has too many brands and way too many dealers, although various franchise laws make it virtually impossible for the company to do what it probably needs to — grapple GMC, Buick, Pontiac, Saab, and Hummer from its North American line up, and slash its bloated dealer network by one half to two-thirds.

However, the perfect storm has blown away any notion Rick Wagoner might have had of systematically retooling GM for a new world order, and more than a few of the death-watchers in the media say a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing is now inevitable. GM says that’s not an option. More hubris from an out-of-touch management team? No, just realism.

Chapter 11 endorsement might be useful for service businesses like airlines or non-complex manufacturers like steelmakers, but it’s difficult to see how it could work for an automaker, where wide, deep and intricate financial links run both upstream (eg: suppliers) and downstream (eg: dealers) from the core enterprise. If GM were to file for Chapter 11 protection, the consequences would likely be catastrophic for the highly inter-connected U.S. auto industry, affecting the viability of companies that might also supply parts, components and materials to the likes of Ford and Toyota.

And then there’s this: Chapter 11 allows companies to reorganize and trade out of their difficulties. We’ve all flown on bankrupt airlines. But would you buy a car or truck from a bankrupt automaker?

I’ve been to all the big European shows a bunch of times, but these two companies have eluded my notice until this year’s Paris show. PGO Automobiles, of Saint Christo lez Ales, near Nimes in the south of France and Fornasari of Montebello Vicentino, Italy, near Padova. PGO, titled for its founders Prevot Gilles and Olivier, started out in the replicar business, but in 1998 they started building a completely new car with retro Porsche 356 styling draped over a unique chassis that uses a Peugeot transverse front-wheel-drivetrain mounted amidships for rear-drive. The Speedster II was born. 

The Cevennes entered production four years ago, as sort of a modernized, fresher take on the Speedster idea. At the Geneva show in March, 2008, a natural-gas turbo version of this car was presented (I wasn’t there). These days the drivetrain for all PGO variants comes from the Peugeot 307. Its 2.0-liter 16-valve four produces 138 hp, which can be routed through either a five-speed manual or a four-speed automatic. All three versions of the PGO weigh about the same (2150 pounds), and 0-60-mph acceleration is pegged at less than seven seconds. Not exactly mind-altering thrust, but certainly a heckuvalot quicker than the original 356.

Making its world debut this year was the Hemera, billed as “a mix of a coupe and a shooting break,” though I’m not sure how much shooting anyone could do out the back of this thing sitting on top of a Peugeot motor. The glass bubble rear window is said to “create a new driving experience.” My experience with these things is that the “newness” is claustrophobia and the demand of open-air sunshine, but maybe there’s a body rigidity payoff to offset that. In any case, they’re reasonably affordable, starting at 37,000 Euro ($50,000), or just 33,000 Euro ($45,000) for the Hemera, which includes a load of French taxes.

Fornasari was founded in 1999 by Giuseppe Fornasari, who had been importing Corvettes and preparing them for European racing. In 2003 the company began rally competition in a car of its own design achieving success in the Italian Championship Tout Terrains and International Baja Championship. The design of that racecar now lends its basic shape to the three production models, the RR600, the LeMans, and the Gruppo B and helps explain its somewhat bizarre proportioning.

The RR600 SUV is acquirable in two- or four-door bodystyles (a Cabrio with fixed B-, C-pillars and side rails is planned as well), and incorporates a 6.0-liter Corvette engine tuned to 610 horsepower and 552 pound-feet of torque. A choice of four-speed HydraMatic or 6-speed Borg-Warner manual transmissions is offered, routing power through an all-wheel-drive system with a viscous center coupling and a 40/60 percent front/rear torque split. Weighing in at 3600 pounds, the RR600 can hit 62 mph in just 3.8 seconds en route to a 175-mph top speed, according to company claims. Price is an attention-getting 110,000 Euros to start ($147,000).

The Gruppo B is the newest Fornasari, a 2+2 riff on the same basic chrome-moly tubular space-frame structure underpinning the RR600 wearing more aggressive wings and spoilers to connect to its racing heritage. A range of Corvette engines is envisioned, tuned in the U.S. by Cottrell Racing Engines in Chaska, Minnesota to produce 500, 610, and 700 horsepower. Pricing for the Gruppo B is expected to start at 150,000 Euro ($201,000). Production is (understandably) very low, so owners certainly won’t see themselves coming and going in a Fornasari.

If you are or have ever thought about buying a car on eBay, you must read The Auto Prophet’s expose of a new scam bubbling around the Internet these days. Amazing how creative crooks can be in their devious ways.

Did you know you can have a plug-in hybrid today? As usual, the private sector is way ahead of the big corporations. Autopia will tell you all about Alison Gannett and the $35,000 conversion kit that turned her Ford Escape into a 100 mpg wonder.

In news from Paris, Peter De Lorenzo at AUTOEXTREMIST spent a good bit of time studying the new Ferrari California and came away wondering if perhaps everything is not OK in Maranello.

Uh oh, The New York Times has got Robert Farago’s ire up, publishing a poorly sourced story suggesting that GM and Chrysler are talking merger. Frankly, my bet is on the man behind The Truth About Cars.

And speaking of GM, over at The Auto Observer, Bill Visnic meditates on the current plunge in stock prices in Detroit. With GM at around $5 a share, either this is the beginning of American Automotive Armageddon or a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to buy really low and then sell way high in a couple of years once the Volt re-charges the General.

There seems to be a bit of, oh, how should I say this, uh, skepticism at DrivingEnthusiast.net regarding a report in Road & Track that a redesigned Honda S2000 is right around the corner.

The skepticism is a bit more understated at GM-Volt concerning new details of the Chrysler EV program.

Your next equipage ride in New York might be in an alternative-fuel powered taxi. Or maybe not. Steve Parker explains the ins and outs of a debate that could make Gotham like Tokyo … Sorry, you have to go read Parker to understand that connection!

You say you can’t make it to the 2009 F-150 short-lead but you have questions about the newest full-size Ford pickup? Well, drop a line to Dorri at If It’s Got An Engine … because he’s going to be there. Better hurry, though, because that’s next week.

Have you joined the National Motorist Association yet? No? Well, go read Eric Peters’ excellent explanation for why car insurance costs so much these days.

Come on now, admit it, you are absolutely dying to know what “Cookie, the dog’s owner” thinks of Nissan’s answer to the Scion xB. With an intro like that, it almost doesn’t matter what Cookie says at Car Lust, you just gotta read it regardless!

Well, Jim Dollinger still thinks it’s time for “Red Ink Rick” to get the old heave-ho at GM.

Strange things going on at Honda, according to Green Car Advisor, which worries about production delays of the CNG-powered Civic GX. Does T. Boone’s buddy, Aubrey McClendon, knows about this?

WHAT I’M DRIVING THIS WEEK: Audi A4 Quattro Turbo

It was a mid-70s Audi Fox that hooked me on German sedans, so I was biased in favor of the latest A4 when it arrived recently for a week in the Tapscott stable. And sure enough, it took about five miles behind the wheel of the silver 2009 Quattro Turbo tester to confirm the old love.

Yes, I know lots of Three-Series Bimmers and Infiniti G35s and so on and so on are quicker in a straight line and some get around corners a bit more majestically. But the thing that most impresses me about this A4 is its all-around excellence, from arrow-straight stability at triple-digit cruising speeds to an interior that is gorgeous to look at and simply begs to be used.

I’m still not there yet with the Large-Mouth Bass Audi grille, but there are some intriguing details elsewhere with this A4’s exterior styling. From certain angles, for example, you think you are looking at an A5 coupe. And the A4 is bigger, with a six-inch addition to the wheelbase that, among other things, makes for genuinely useful rear seating. At $38,000 and change for the Quattro Turbo, we’re definitely talking premium small German sedan at a not-quite premium price.

See ya next time!