Prepping For The Return Of F1

With so much chatter going on about the upcoming election, it's easy to forget that there is another reason the world is watching what's going on in this great land. In case you missed it, a group of investors have put their time, talents and personal resources on the line in an effort to bring back to America a Formula 1 Grand Prix race.

Now, at one time, the US GP was a big deal. It's roots run all the way back to 1908, but since leaving Watkins Glen, NY in 1980, the success of Formula 1 racing on these shores has failed to gain consistent interest. In fact, the 1990 event, held on a street circuit in Phoenix, AZ, was out drawn three time over by ostrich racing. In 2005, the event was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but tire problems reduced the starting field to just six cars. After the 2007 race, IMS called it quits.

Hopefully, those darker days are in the past as Austin, TX prepares to host the 2012 US Grand Prix at the purpose-built "Circuit Of The Americas" on November 18th. On Tuesday (9/25), Charlie Whiting, who directs racing, safety and technical matters for the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), the sanctioning body that oversees international motorsport, visited the venue and approved the circuit for “Grade 1” status, clearing the way for the circuit to conduct Formula 1 racing, less than 2 months away.

But now that they've built it, will they come? A check of the COTA website shows that most of the grand stand seats have already been purchased. What's left are the premium seats (good for the whole weekend), running from $400 to $800. Adding to the global focus of the event is that this will be the next-to-last race in the hotly contested 2012 F1 series. If that doesn't pique your interest, Aerosmith will be there to rock the weekend up a notch.

You Can't Have This Or This Either

In the previous post (FIAT For A Day) I threw in a little tease as to what the next generation Chevrolet Colorado looks like, even though it's not yet available in the U.S. Apparently, compact pick up trucks are all the rage in underdeveloped countries where there just aren't a lot of paved roads.

So now that you've seen what the new Colorado like, take a gander at this. It's called The Amarok and that big badge in the center of the grill makes it pretty clear as to who makes it. You can find out more about it by clicking here, and if you can't read Spanish, just click the "english" at the top of the site.
 

Oh, and for all the old Boomers pining over the fact that VW no longer makes a camper van—wipe your tears, at least for the moment. This is the VW California, and you can get it just about anywhere—except in California or the other 49 United States.

FIAT For A Day

My daily driver is a Chevrolet Colorado pick up truck (pause, sigh) and yes, I’m fully aware that it is consistently rated as one of the worst trucks of all time. The grill looks like it was put it on upside-down, the turning radius is only slightly smaller than that of a destroyer, the transmission shifts gears like a squirrel trying to cross a road and the latch on tailgate needs attention almost as often as it needs a gas-up.

It’s pretty old school by today's standards, which is probably why it typically gets trashed in comparisons with similar vehicles such as the Nissan Frontier and Honda Ridgeway. But I like old school and its defense I’ll say that it rides better than a lot of cars, has plenty of power, is a terrific off-roader and gets ok gas mileage on the highway (city mileage sux). It's also very simple, void of useless buttons, knobs and dials. Having recently celebrated it's fourth birthday, the body is still in good shape, but flip it over and it’s obvious that the salty NY winters have taken their toll on the underside. (FYI - Future production of the Colorado is presently uncertain. The plant in Shreveport, LA has been shuttered and, while a new model is now available in Thailand and The Phillipines, GM has not said when the new model will be available here).

Given the state of the economy and the uncertainty of what’s coming after the election, my wife and I have decided to alter our pattern of replacing our vehicles every four years in favor of doing whatever is necessary to keep them running as long as possible. Not that I believe everything I read, but I have yet to hear any economist anywhere predict that things will improve if Obama is re-elected, so why chance it. But what really convinced me it was worth keeping was when I saw one identical to it advertised used, same mileage, for MORE than I paid for my truck new four years ago.

So, off to the shop it went for a complete rust-proofing and undercoating. BTW, the salesperson confirmed that they have been beyond busy as people rush in to get their cars and trucks treated so they’ll last “four more years.”

Hey, I Thought This Was About A FIAT!
While my truck was getting a goop job, I needed mobility, so I decided to take Enterprise up on their $35 a day rent-a-car deal. I had the choice between a Toyota Corolla and a FIAT 500. No choice really. It’s been years since I’ve driven a car where the doors make up nearly 50% of the length of the car so the 500 has to be more kicks than a Corolla. Actually... ah, nevermind...

The FIAT is smaller than small—more than two feet shorter than a VW Beetle, but the doors are large and open wide for easy entry, and they shut with a meaningful “whump." The cabin is bright and retro-whimsical. It reminded me of an old frig that my aunt had. This particular unit was a mix of white, pale green and black. The cloth seats are comfortable enough for buzzing around town and the ride is better than I expected for a vehicle with such a short stretch between its 15” wheels, even over pot holes and rail road tracks. The sound system was also several cuts above what I expected. The steering is light and fairly quick, however did expect it to be a little tighter and more responsive, more “go kart” like.

Out on the highway, the little 1.4 liter engine (101 hp / 98 lb. ft torque) was quite capable of keeping up and even passing when necessary. The 6-speed auto transmission has a clutchless, +/- shift feature for more spirited driving and this model had a “sport” button on the dash that seemed to quicken up the steering a bit. Most of the time, I used the manual mode and while it’s no Ferrari, it gets pretty eager when you hold the pedal to the floor and slam the shift stick up through the gears. 6000 rpms seems to be the sweet spot for DIY shifts, push it beyond that point and it’ll override your intentions rather than run into the rev limiter. For a tiny gumdrop of a car, it feels far larger than it is. It’s lack of mass is only apparent when some one pulls right up on the rear bumper at a stop, or there’s a semi approaching in the distance. I did notice this sort of “If it does hit me, how much can it hurt?” attitude from on coming drivers.

This unit had over 24K on the odo and was still tight and rattle-free. On my way back to the agency, I stopped to replace the fuel I had spent and found that a gallon and half took the gauge way above where it was at start.

On the down-side, if you’re long-legged (as I am) you may find it nearly impossible to find a comfortable driving position. There’s plenty of leg-room, but the way the gear-shift pod is position, there’s no knee-room. By the end of the day, my knee was sore from banging against that stupid shift-pod. There’s not much leg room for riders in the rear either, especially when someone sitting up front slides the seat back even half-way.

Aside from these nit-picks, I did enjoy running my day's errands in the 500 and if that new FIAT 500L (L is far large) offers a little more space, I may even give it a look—in four years. Hey, if gas goes to $6+ a gallon, these things will be flying off the lots.

Chevrolet Colorado - 75% US Content, Assembled in US (Until 2011)
FIAT 500 - 11% US Content, Assembled in Mexico. (FIAT owns controlling interest in Chrysler Corp.)

Fact Checking Fun

There’s been no shortage of exaggerations and lies from the stages of the political conventions. Even with help from BS filters and fact-checkers, such as Politifact.com, The Fact Checker, FactCheck.org and The Examiner, it’s impossible to sort it all out. Unfortunately, many voters don’t take these elections seriously enough to go in with an open mind and look for something that at least appears factual in a common sense sort of way, which is exactly what the candidates are hoping for.

After listening to Massachusetts Senate candidate, Elizabeth Warren cheer lead at the DNC last night (in which she even managed to mangle up and totally misinterpret a verse from the New Testament), I figured I should a pick a topic of personal interest and try to figure out what's really what.

For example, and this dovetails with the previous post "That Whole "Saved GM' Thing," here are some highlights from former Michigan Governor, Jennifer Granholm, from the DNC. She is obviously not very well informed as to the current state of the auto industry. Instead, the picture she chooses to paint is a distortion of what happened during G.W. Bush's days as a lame duck.

There are a lot of nits that we can pick with this, 
but the one that seems to surface the most is this:
While “Let Detroit go bankrupt” is a quote often attributed to Mitt Romney, it was actually the work of an editor for the New York Times, charged with coming up with a catchy headline for column that Romney had penned during the crisis in the auto industry. Apparently, most people don’t know (or don’t care to know) that Romney is also a car guy and that his father, George Romney, played a large part in the success of American Motors, during it’s days as one of the “Big 4” American auto makers.

No one has questioned that Romney’s business experience, especially in the auto industry, trumps Obama's. In fact, Romney is often vilified for being a successful business person. So what did Romney actually say? He said that the government should have let the automakers go into a “managed bankruptcy”... In his words... "Managed bankruptcy may sound like a death knell. But in fact, it is a way for a troubled company to restructure itself rapidly, entering and leaving the courtroom sometimes in weeks or months instead of years, and then returning to profitable operation."


For more fact checking fun:

FACT CHECK: Obama And The Phantom Peace Dividend

FACT CHECK: Clinton Claims Of Compromise A Stretch
“THE FACTS: From Clinton's speech, voters would have no idea that the inflexibility of both parties is to blame for much of the gridlock. Right from the beginning Obama brought in as his first chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, a man known for his getting his way, not for getting along.”

FACT CHECK: Obama promised and failed to keep Janesville, GM plant open
So who was right? Ryan or Obama? Well, it sure wasn’t The Washington Post.

FACT CHECK: 4.5 Million new jobs created under Obama? According Yahoo News...
“CNN found that there has been a net increase of just 300,000 nonfarm payroll jobs since Obama took office. And if you count government jobs, there are actually 400,000 fewer people working today than in January 2009.... Obama's job growth percentages trail far behind those of some other recent presidents, including Bill Clinton (+2.60 percent and +1.60 percent), Ronald Reagan (+1.75 percent and +2.53 percent) and even Jimmy Carter (+2.30 percent).”

Need a break from it all?  This pretty much sums it all up....

That Whole "Saved GM" Thing

On Monday (9/3) VP Joe Biden (reported just about everywhere) told a group of about 3,500 people in Detroit "I've got a little bumper sticker for you: Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive."

Obviously, Biden is a car guy as his daily ride is a petrol-gulping, tire smoking '67 Corvette C2 (although he is currently not allowed to drive it). His dad had dealerships for both GM and Chrysler and he even knows what a bumper sticker is. It's a safe guess that Biden (that's not his car) is more in touch with the auto industry than Obama, but I digress.

The part of Joe’s quote I found most interesting was the part that suggests that GM is alive because of the bailouts initiated by Obama. There are a lot of problems with this and it’s pretty complicated.

First, it was reported in the NY Times in December of ’08, that president “W” was the one who initiated the plan to pump $13.4 billion into the companies to rescue the financial industry. That plan gave GM and Chrysler until March 31, 2009 to produce a plan for long-term profitability, including concessions from unions, creditors, suppliers and dealers. There’s no question that Obama was handed a big mess. One that would require solid business experience and a working knowledge of the auto industry—which he does not possess.

But the story doesn’t end there. In fact, it’s far from over even today. While the Obama campaign now likes to boast that saved GM, those words may come back to bite them.

In April of 2010 it was announced that GM was doing so well that it had paid back the nearly $6 billion in loans to the US and Canadian governments. But wait. The US government gave GM $52 billion, right? So where’s the other $46 billion? And wasn't it $13.4 billion to start?

Oh, didn’t they tell ya? That wasn’t a loan. Despite the payback, we the people still hold controlling interest in General Motors. (Sources? - Just search  “How much has GM paid back” or click here). Seems to me we ought to at least get shareholder pricing.

And now, two years later, there’s reason to believe that GM is in trouble again. It's beginning to look like that big sales spike GM reported a while back was more the result of Japanese automakers dealing with the tsunami than anything else. As it stands today, GM is again losing market share and counting greatly on China and India to pull them out of the slump. According to Investors.com, "Ford, which didn't take TARP funds, grabbed market share from GM and is now more profitable. Ironically, Ford for the first time in years has outsold GM in the number of cars bought by the federal government — although Washington still owns a huge stake in GM. Not exactly a vote of confidence."

So don’t believe everything hear. As a part owner in GM, you shouldn't assume this book is closed.

As for Chrysler, well, you don’t hear the current administration even mentioning that that automaker has paid back $7.6 billion worth of high-interest government loans—most likely because, after the bail outs, Chrysler is no longer a full-blooded American company. Controlling interest is now held by Fiat, making Chrysler more Italian than American.

Another car company that has benefited from the generosity of the current administration is Fisker, which received a $529 million loan guarantee from the federal government so they could build cars in Finland. You don’t hear ‘em bragging about that one much either.

Also See:

Insight: GM's Volt - The ugly math of low sales, high costs.

General Motors Is Headed For Bankruptcy -- Again

Do They Really Think We're This Dumb?

Apparently, while we were focusing our attention on Hurricane Isaac and The RNC, those sneaky devils in DC decided that we are still not paying enough for cars and gas—and that vehicle safety should be in the back seat so that fuel economy can take the wheel.

According to an article in the International Business Times, yesterday, Obama finalized new fuel economy specs that will (supposedly) increase the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) of the U.S. auto fleet to almost 55 mpg by 2025—And save us oodles of cash in the process.
While that sounds great on the surface, the numbers don't add up.

Let's go back to the age of disco, the 1970s, when motorists were all up in arms over gas shortages and rationing that resulted from the Arab Oil Embargo. It was a rude awakening that we had grown overly dependent on imported oil and something needed to be done. As government's typical response to every crisis is to set up a new rule or regulation, creating a corporate fuel standard fit that agenda. And what would happen to any automakers that didn't comply? They would get taxed a set amount per vehicle and pass that along to the consumer. So for Washington, it was a win-win.

But was it necessary? It's common sense that, as fuel prices increase, vehicles that are the most economical to drive will have a solid sales advantage over those that aren't. So the marketplace certainly has had a lot more to do with improvements made in fuel economy than the gummint regs.

Regardless, in 1978, the first CAFE standard was set at a combined (cars and trucks) 17.2 mpg. The benchmark was then raised progressively. From 1991 through 2007 it increased from 20.2 to 22.2 mpg. During the same time, the average price of gas rose from $1.53 to $2.64. Using the US inflation calculator to compare the value of a dollar in '91 vs '07, that's an increase of ONLY 33 cents per gallon during the entire Clinton and "W"  presidencies! (note: in 2009, gas prices dropped temporarily to $2.14 a gallon).

Compare that to where we are now. 

Since Obama took office, the price of gasoline has been bouncing around $4 a gallon. That's an increase of $1.08 per gallon (adjusted for inflation) in less than 3 years.

The new standards adopted yesterday project a saving of 12 billion barrels oil and the elimination of 6 billion metric tons of CO2 pollution (I love how they round off these huge numbers). Who knows? Maybe. But to say that "A family purchasing a new vehicle in 2025 will save $8,200" is hog snot. A lot could happen in the next 12 years. There are just way to many variables. By then, gasoline* (based on what we've seen in just the last 3 years) could easily be $9-$12 a gallon and a basic family sedan that now costs $25K will be at least 32K.

And, because the easiest way to increase mpg is to decrease vehicle mass, future cars will have to be lighter and lighter means less safe. According to H. Sterling Burnett of the National Center for Policy Analysis, NHTSA data indicate that "322 additional deaths per year occur as a direct result of reducing just 100 pounds from already downsized small cars, with half of the deaths attributed to small car collisions with light trucks/sport utility vehicles." USA Today further calculated that the "size and weight reductions of passenger vehicles undertaken to meet current CAFE standards had resulted in more than 46,000 deaths."

Now, I'm just as concerned about the environment and the need to reduce dependence on fossil fuels as anyone, but I refuse to be taken in by slight of hand moves that have historically been nothing more than a another sneaky way to tax the citizenry.

Speaking of fossil fuels. This shouldn't even be about gasoline. While most of the other developed countries are putting their resources into Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology, Obama, shortly after taking office in 2009, actually pulled the plug on an aggressive plan put in place by George W. Bush. Apparently, he's starting to rethink that decision but in the meantime, we've fallen 3 years behind.


Additional Sources:

Official: 2012 CAFE Standards Finalized

Obama's Sneaky, Deadly, Costly Car Tax

Corporate Average Fuel Economy (Wikipedia)

"Summary of CAFE Fines Collected" (PDF).

Drivin' From Drive-In to Drive-In

This has actually been going on for 18 years, but being that I just learned of it, and it's happening this weekend, I thought I'd share.

If you like Hot Rods, Muscle Cars, Classics and Cool Convertibles with fat ties and flames (well, they don't all have flames), the place to be this weekend is The Woodward Dream Cruise. The not-for-profit event draws more than a million people—and upwards of 50,000 classic cars—from as far away as New Zealand, Australia, Japan and the former Soviet Union. For many, it has become an annual rite of summer. Sponsored by Chevrolet, the "Cruise" begins at 9AM Saturday and runs eight miles through Detroit, MI from Eight Mile north through Pontiac. Here's the map.

Side note" Over the years, GM has made it a point to dress up the route with nostalgic billboards which have taken on an online life of their own - Here are a couple of my favs, you can see them all at: PresqueIsleCorvetteClub.com or just search "Chevy Billboards Posted around Detroit":

"You built a time machine...Out of a DeLorean?"

Yesterday, I was working on an article that required a graphic to accompany the title "How Loud Is Too Loud" - what better image, I thought, than the one from the original "Back To the Future," where Marty McFly strikes a chord on his electric guitar and is thrown back from a hyper-amplified super speaker. Well, I found the shot, and decided to post the entire trailer from the movie right here. I forgot what a great flik that was and the dialogue is classic... especially for those of us who recall things like "Tab," "Pepsi Free" and DeLorean. I gotta rent it one of these days.. So we go back to 1985 and go Back To the Future!.

Another Lovely Summer's Day

Yeah, it's a hot one—a great day to play "Car Sauna" (I'm not suggesting you actually try this) -

Source (in case you find the video has been removed) - http://www.topgear.com/au/videos/car-sauna

Favorite line...
"I don't need the government to tell me when to have a drink of water and put suncream on."

So, just how hot is it (in the car) ? -- 

37.8C = 100.04F
53.0C = 127.40F
59.7C = 139.46F
62.0C = 143.60F

 

So, You Think You Drive An American Car

Considering how much of our economy is based on the sale of automobiles, and how many jobs are directly related to automotive production, you'd think we would all want to "Drive American Made."

But that's actually much harder to do than you think. Depending on your needs and tastes, the choices may be limited.

According to Car & Driver Magazine, nearly 8 million cars and trucks rolled off American assembly lines in 2011. (see—"Domestic Bliss: A Graphic Representation of What's Really "Made In America")

See also: "Camry Edges Out F-150 For 'Most American'"

However, the gummint says at least 75% of a vehicle's parts (by value) must come from the US or Canada in order for a vehicle to considered "domestic." And if it's not domestic, well, then I guess it must be foreign. So just because your daily driver is among the 8 million assembled here, that don't mean it's "Made in USA."

So, what meets or exceeds the 75% benchmark?
Of currently available vehicles, pretty much anything that has the "Jeep" nameplate on it—they're still cranking them out in Toledo, OH. The Chevrolet Malibu also qualifies (barely) as does the Buick Verano, Ford Focus and Dodge Dakota. The "Most American" of the American builts is Ford's Explorer at 85%. The least is the Ford Fusion / Lincoln MKZ at 20% (Made In Mexico). Chevy's much touted Volt is only 40% American. So if GM, Ford and Chrysler aren't topping the list, who is? According to C&D's chart, it's Toyota followed closely by Honda.

What's the future of auto production in the US?

Take a few minutes and watch this video—then decide.