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There I was, watching the perfectly harmless Meineke Car Care Bowl, when a truly creepy Government Motors commercial for the Chevy Silverado pickup broke out . . . GM spokesman, and former NFL player, Howie Long is not-so-subtly comparing the merits of the Silverado with an intimidated, younger, Ford F150 owner. View video here.

Congress is fast-tracking legislation to restrict the ability of General Motors and Chrysler to close thousands of auto dealerships as part of their restructuring. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) unveiled legislation late on Tuesday that would expand an arbitration process for dealer closings. The new language has already been added to the financial-services appropriations bill that is part of a broader $447 billion spending package. House Democrats want to pass the bill this week. The Obama administration has been opposed to reversing closures because of the impact that would have on the...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- House and Senate leaders proposed a compromise plan Tuesday to give shuttered General Motors and Chrysler dealers an appeals process to keep their showrooms open. Congressional aides said a broad $1.1 trillion spending bill would include language providing 789 Chrysler dealers closed in June and more than 1,350 GM dealers expected to be shut down next year an improved binding arbitration process to challenge the automakers' decisions. General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC said last week they would reconsider decisions to close the dealers as part of a compromise meant to set aside action by Congress...

America should learn from Britain's disastrous takeover of its biggest auto company. Few of the policymakers currently nationalizing the American auto industry seem to remember the British experience, and fewer still seem to have learned anything from it. British Leyland, Britain's largest automaker, faced bankruptcy in 1975. Fearing that its collapse would leave a million workers unemployed, the Labour government nationalized it. The company remained a ward of the state for 13 years. During that time, the British taxpayers invested 11 billion pounds — the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $22 billion today — in a company whose only sign of life...

BERLIN (Dow Jones)--General Motors Co. has repaid a bridge loan for its Adam Opel GmbH unit to the German government, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday, adding the aid had been crucial to keep the German car maker afloat. "The last aid from General Motors for Opel is repaid," Merkel told attendees of a business conference in Berlin, before adding, "I expect... an extensive 'thank you' letter from GM." Merkel defended her government's decision to offer GM the bridge financing, but added,"I would have preferred that the bridge ended differently, that's no secret."

-snip- The announcements came a day after GM, which was struggling with a bankruptcy reorganisation backed by the US and Canadian governments, stunned the auto sector by abandoning the agreed plan to sell Opel to Canadian auto parts manufacturer Magna and state-owned Russian bank Sberbank. Related article: Magna accepts GM Opel sale halt It said it would restructure the unit itself, just hours after an unwitting Merkel gave a historic speech before a joint session of the US Congress and held talks with US President Barack Obama. "It is truly tragic," wrote the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel, calling the decision...

Well GM and Chrysler begged to be bailed out...... I really don’t like this guy. I didn’t like him when he was appointed and I like him less now. But … GM and Chrysler begged for the money, they got it, and now … well … The Obama administration will soon order the nation’s biggest bailed-out companies to drastically cut pay packages for their top executives, according to several reports published Wednesday.

General Motors said Tuesday it would wind down its Saturn brand after talks broke off with Penske Automotive Group on a bid for the nameplate. GM said in a statement that Penske "has decided to terminate discussions" to acquire Saturn "because of the inability to source new products beyond what it had asked GM to build on contract." "This is very disappointing news and comes after months of hard work by hundreds of dedicated employees and Saturn retailers who tried to make the new Saturn a reality," the US automaker said.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — General Motors’ new 60-day money back guarantee campaign seems to offer something for everyone — except taxpayers, the 362,000-member National Taxpayers Union (NTU) pointed out today. This Sunday, General Motors launched a new marketing campaign, ‘May the Best Car Win,’ and will offer car buyers a 60-day money-back guarantee. It was broadcasted on nearly every Sunday football game.

* GM offers a 60-day money back guarantee—if your car is under 4,000 miles and be current on payment * Government approved chairman Edward E. Whitacre Jr. puts GM’s future on the line * Flashback: Edward E. Whitacre has no experience in the automotive industry Vote in poll: http://www.cardealerreviews.org/?p=118409

General Motors Co. will restore salaried employee pay cuts the company made earlier this year... Workers received an e-mail from GM explaining the situation, thanking them for their sacrifice and that the reinvention of the company is just beginning. The cuts, made earlier this year, that have been restored: Executive level: 10% Manager pay: 7% Other salaries: 5%

Brent Dewar, Chevrolet vice president, told reporters the company expects "to see a modest recovery in 2010 and a better recovery in 2011." The recovery is based on that projection that smaller cars will surge to overtake trucks and SUVs as GM's best sellers. That means the remaining GM dealers will have to get used to promoting and selling smaller cars if they want to survive. Last week GM decided to ax a new Buick compact SUV—just days after it was deemed essential to the success of the brand. So it comes as no surprise that many GM dealers, who...

General Motors has signed up to a 2bn yuan ($293m; £180m) joint venture with the Chinese state-owned carmaker FAW to make light trucks and vans. The vehicles will initially be sold in China under the FAW brand, but could in future be exported under the GM brand. They will be produced at existing FAW facilities in the cities of Changchun and Harbin. GM sold 818,442 vehicles in China in the first six months of 2009, compared with 1,094,561 in the whole of 2008. Demand was particularly strong for its minivans and other small vehicles. "For us in China, this...

Chevrolet announced the 'Cruze' will be coming in 2010. GM claims the 'Cruze' will ‘redefine’ the four-door coupe. However, we think it looks too much like the Honda Civic coupe sedan. Judge for yourself...

GM has decided to remove the ‘Mark of Excellence’ decal from all their cars, starting with the new Chevy Equinox. Obviously people don’t want big government branded on their cars — and that’s the primary reason GM is making the change. If you own a car with a GM logo, and you want it off, you can easily remove the decal in three easy steps. How to Remove the GM 'Mark of Excellence' Badge from a GM Car in 3 Steps

General Motors Co. will begin removing its "Mark of Excellence" logo from vehicles as the company places greater emphasis on its individual brands. GM spokesman Terry Rhadigan said Tuesday the company would phase out the placement of the GM logo on its cars and trucks, leaving just the GMC, Chevrolet, Cadillac or Buick logos on the vehicles.

Can't post an excerpt due to copyright restrictions from Bloomberg, but the gist of the story is that Government Motors announced a new Buick SUV and then pulled it off the market within the week because, to quote a similar article from AP: "The Buick crossover we showed received consistent feedback from large parts of all the audiences that it didn't fit the premium characteristics that customers have come to expect from Buick," Stephens wrote. "We were all struck by the consistency of the criticism of the compact crossover." In other words, it was a dog. You can read...

The New GM is just clever marketing. Advertising Age says this about the so-called new GM: General Motors Co. doesn’t appear to be learning from its mistakes. This is exactly what J.D. Power analyst Gary Dilts warns about in this video. Watch: http://www.cardealerreviews.org/?p=116479

[Early last] week, Government Motors dropped a public relations bomb when new chief Fritz Henderson announced that the forthcoming Chevy Volt would get an astonishing 230 miles per gallon (that's 98 kilometers per liter, for our metric-system friends)...

As American consumers abandon gas-guzzling SUVs for greener alternatives, they also face a new kind of sticker shock -- confusing claims about the energy efficiency of electric cars heading for showrooms. Federal fuel economy standards and household budgets have been built around relatively simple measurements of how many miles vehicles can travel per gallon of gasoline, a number that features on a sticker displayed in the windows of new cars in U.S. showrooms. So what should those stickers show for new battery-powered cars that will draw most or all of their power from the country's electricity grid? General Motors Co...

With great fanfare, General Motors announced this week the Chevy Volt, the car picked by the Obama administration to turn the company around, will get around 240 miles/gallon, if true, certainly a great achievement. What was not mentioned is that General Motors will be selling the Volt at a loss, in other words the company will lose money every time someone buys a Volt. This proves the great influence GM's new owners the Obama administration, has on the new GM, no body in this government understands capitalism. There is more bad news about this Government Motors model that the POTUS...

Conservation: The Chevy Volt is said to be able to get 230 miles per gallon. That's if it's continually plugged into a fragile and overburdened power grid. Where will you be when the lights go out? Since most U.S. electricity generation is not carbon-free, the Congressional Research Service agrees. The "widespread adoption of plug-in hybrid vehicles through 2030 may have only a small effect on, and might actually increase, carbon emissions," it observes. "If you are using coal-fired power plants and half the country's electricity comes from coal powered plants, are you just trading one greenhouse gas emitter for another?"...

General Motors has announced the best expected mileage rating for its upcoming Chevrolet Volt electric car. The 230 mile per gallon best-case-scenario rating seems to have stirred up quite an interest in the vehicle. But at the end of the day can the newly semi-nationalized General Motors really turn expect the Volt to turn the companies falling market share around. Will the American public flock to Chevrolet dealerships in record numbers? And...is the 230 miles per gallon, really that cost effective? Considering the facts, the common sense answer to all of those questions is quite simply NO! And here's why...

According to the person who posted this pic, the driver of this Camaro SS wanted to celebrate his day-old car purchase by doing a burnout. Quickly followed by losing control, crashing, and getting arrested. We can't verify the story, but the photo of the vehicle in what's supposed to be Riley's Bakery seems legit. Seriously, stop destroying these.

Bailouts: You're a once-mighty auto company that's been bailed out by taxpayers, taken over by government and just posted a 22% sales drop. What's your next move? Why, unveil a new men's fragrance, of course!It got little attention, but GM's decision to launch its new fragrance line in honor of Cadillac's 100th anniversary may go down as one of the most absurd moves by a troubled corporation ever. No doubt they kept a team of highly paid MBAs busy for months with the project, while the car end of their business was imploding faster than a black hole. Is this...

General Motors Europe said Thursday it was no longer talking to China's Beijing Automotive Industry Holding (BAIC) about it acquiring Opel, leaving just two bidders: Magna and RHJ International. "We had a good and thoughtful discussion around the key operating metrics and key issues associated with the three final offers we received on Monday evening," said John Smith, GM's chief negotiator for the sale of Opel.

The Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry has ended the government-financed warranty program for Chrysler Group and General Motors Corp, Ron Bloom who heads the task force, said on Wednesday. “With the successful emergence of the new companies, consumers can now feel assured that the companies have the financial wherewithal to meet their warranty commitments on a continuing basis,” Bloom told the committee.

DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors posted Wednesday a 22 percent global sales drop from a year earlier for the first six months of 2009 amid the economic slowdown and the automaker's slide into bankruptcy. GM said its global first-half sales, which include brands the automaker is trimming from its lineup, fell 21.8 percent to 3.55 million vehicles. The automaker's sales in the second quarter fell 15.4 percent to 1.94 million vehicles. The automaker said second-quarter sales reflected continuing economic pressures and production cuts in the United States. It estimated a 12 percent second-quarter global market share, down 0.3 percentage point...

"The No. 2 Democrat in the House promised Tuesday to keep legislative pressure on General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC to save hundreds of auto dealers slated for closure or downsizing, but the No. 1 Senate Democrat promptly poured cold water on the idea. As auto dealers fanned out across Capitol Hill Tuesday to lobby their members of Congress, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer , D-Md., said he wants to keep a plan to help the dealers in the Financial Services appropriations bill (HR 3170) the House is expected to consider this week. "My own view is the provision...

Sara was late for work. The alarm clock didn't alarm, the kids were unusually slow getting ready for school, and nothing went right. She finally got to her car -- a brand new 2020 Chevy Adventure. She touched the finger-print secured start button. Nothing. It wouldn't start. She touched it again. Nothing. Furious, she banged the steering wheel with her fist. Then she noticed the paper hanging from the receipt printer on the dash. "Your designated visa account rejected your Road Use Tax in the amount of $87.32 for the month of June, 2020. You must insert a valid account...

This was inevitable. When the Obama administration effectively took over General Motors, Obama-friendly media hacks were going to tout the company's products . . . And so it was that on his MSNBC show this evening, Ed Schultz offered up an unpaid infomercial for GM's new Camaro. Most grotesque was Schultz's boast that the Camaro was outselling the Ford Mustang. Take that, private-sector company that declined to take Obama's dime! View video here.

There is a groundswell of disdain for the federal bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler, even as polls show that a growing "Buy American" sentiment is boosting sales for the only Detroit automaker that avoided bankruptcy and federal rescue - Ford. GM and Chrysler say some buyers are coming back to support them, even trading in their Mercedes for Chevrolets. But it is bailout opponents who are the most visible - and audible. Conservatives thunder that the country has taken a socialist route with President Obama at the wheel. "I won't buy a socialist car," columnist and radio talk-show host...

When it was deciding where to build its new compact car, General Motors Corp. made a point of saying it would push politics aside and use strictly commercial criteria. So Tennessee's three top officials were astonished last month, in a meeting with GM, when they were told the first two criteria were "community impact" and "carbon footprint" -- or how the choice would affect unemployment rates and carbon-dioxide emissions. "Those didn't strike us as business criteria at all," said Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, who was joined in the meeting by fellow Republican Sen. Bob Corker and the state's Democratic governor,...

So, it's the Fourth of July, and you're feeling a little more patriotic than usual. Sounds like a great time to buy a domestic car, right? Well, first you need to answer the question: "what is a domestic car?" Is a Chevy built in South Korea domestic, or how about a Hyundai assembled in Alabama? Since that debate is not likely to be settled anytime soon, we've decided to keep it simple and list the top 10 domestic cars based strictly on content, as compiled by the National Highway and Transportation Administration. Of course NHTSA's definition of "domestic" includes Canadian-sourced...

U.S. sales at Ford and Chrysler last month offered sharply different views on the downtrodden U.S. market for cars and trucks, while General Motors Corp. held its own even though it entered bankruptcy protection.

<p>DETROIT (AP) — Ford Motor Co. on Wednesday called its 10.7 percent drop in U.S. June sales "steady progress," after a year of sharp declines across the industry.</p> <p>The monthly decline was Ford's smallest since July of last year, a sign that U.S. auto sales may be recovering from the worst slump in 27 years.</p>

GM to pull out of joint venture with Toyota at California plant General Motors says it and Toyota can't agree on what vehicle to build at the NUMMI plant in Fremont. The move jeopardizes the future of the last vehicle assembly plant in California. By Ken Bensinger and Julie Strack June 30, 2009 Reporting from Los Angeles and Fremont -- America's auto crisis has stretched beyond the Midwest all the way to California. The state's last automobile plant is facing potential closure after General Motors Corp. said Monday that it would drop out of the joint venture with Toyota Motor...

Wisconsin officials on Friday reacted with disappointment and outright disdain for General Motors' decision to put a new small-car assembly line at a plant in Michigan rather than Janesville. Officials ranging from the governor to economic development officials in Janesville were wondering out loud whether the state had been used by GM to squeeze more incentives out of Michigan, the eventual winner in the competition that also included a plant in Spring Hill, Tenn. After hearing from GM on Friday, Gov. Jim Doyle issued a statement saying he was "deeply disappointed" that GM hadn't chosen "a very strong package" offered...

GM's recent bankruptcy seemed inevitable to longtime followers of the auto industry. But Barry Ritholtz, CEO of Fusion IQ, believes it could have been avoided. In his recent book, Bailout Nation, Ritholtz recalls an episode of the classic TV series Star Trek, "Mirror Mirror", in which Captain Kirk finds himself in an universe where everything has been altered ever so slightly. Applying this concept to Detroit, Ritholtz asks: What would have happened if Chrysler hadn't been bailed out in 1979?

ValuJet was reborn as AirTran. Philip Morris rechristened itself Altria. Blackwater became Xe. Would a name change work for beleaguered General Motors? It would mean casting aside a brand that stood for almost a century as a symbol of American industrial might, but some marketing experts say it might be just the thing to help the once-mighty automaker make a fresh start. "If the goal is to try and put this company on a massive diet and just turn it into a smaller car manufacturing operation, I'm not sure there'd be that much harm in rebranding," said Jean-Pierre Dube, a...

Video of Congress discussing the bailout & a few GM dealers getting special treatment.

The refusal of the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case of secured investors in Chrysler, who were given the shaft by the Obama Administration's forced sale to Fiat, points to a growing problem in America--the failure of the Courts to uphold the most basic principles of the U.S. Constitution. By refusing the hear the case, SCOTUS exhibited a shocking lack of regard for 5th Amendment principles, as well as the overriding tenet that the Constitution primarily serves as a check on the power of the federal government.

"I don’t know anything about cars," Whitacre, 67, said yesterday in an interview after his appointment. "A business is a business, and I think I can learn about cars. I’m not that old, and I think the business principles are the same."

Many have claimed the federal government was playing fast and loose with the rules surrounding its takeover of General Motors and the circumstances surrounding the selection of which dealerships would remain open and those that wouldn't. Fox News' Gretchen Carlson came forward with evidence of this through a personal account of dealership closings. Carlson, a co-host on the Fox News Channel's morning show "Fox & Friends," appeared on Glenn Beck's June 9 program and questioned the logic behind the decision reached by the government and General Motors (GM) to close down a dealership that has been in her family for...

Only 42% of those who currently own a General Motors car are even somewhat likely to buy a GM product for their next car. That figure includes just 30% who are Very Likely to do so. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 43% of current GM owners are not likely to buy another GM car, while 16% are not sure. Democrats who own GM cars are somewhat more likely than others to buy their next car from GM. This data is the latest evidence of how steep a hill GM must climb as it hopes to increase...

My uncle has a country place, that no one knows about. He says it used to be a farm before the Motor Law. And on Sundays, I elude the "Eyes" and hop the turbine freight - to far outside the wire where my white-haired uncle waits. Jump to the ground as the turbo slows to cross the borderline. Run like the wind as excitement shivers up and down my spine. Down in his barn, my uncle preserved for me an old machine - for 50 odd years. To keep it as new has been his dearest dream. I strip away...

With the government-imposed terms of bankruptcy for GM and Chrysler, Barack Obama has violated the 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution--a serious impeachable offense. Bond holders and investors were deprived of due process of law and were not justly compensated for their investment. Instead, the UAW was given .68 cents on the dollar, although they never invested a dime in the companies, and the investors only received .28 cents on the dollar for their multi-millions they pumped into the 2 automakers.

THIS IS AN UPDATE TO YESTERDAY'S ARTICLE. The citizen revolt against the nationalization of business is beginning to express itself in support for a boycott of General Motors and Chrysler. A new Rasmussen Poll shows rising support, and several national columnists and pundits, as well as citizens, are calling for such a boycott.

"The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belong to one category," hitler said. More photos at link. Obama calls for new beginning between U.S. and Muslims. "I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect," he said. "America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition."

Caption: Adolf Hitler tours the 1939 International Auto Exhibition in Berlin. Three years before, at another Berlin auto show, Hitler announced that Porsche would design the "People's Car," or Volkswagen, an affordable, practical vehicle for the working German family.Photo: Hugo Jaeger./Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images Feb 17, 1939