ON THE TABLE #444

May 7, 2008

Chrysler. The rapidly fading Auburn Hills, MI-based car company offers shoppers $2.99 per gallon gas for three years if they agree to take one of their vehicles off of their hands in their Let's Refuel America campaign. Too bad Suzuki beat Chrysler to the punch with their "Free Gas For Summer" promotion announced on May 1. It won't matter much in the scheme of things, however, especially with Chrysler having to spend $8200 per vehicle in incentives to move Dodge Ram pickups off of their lots, with dealers around the country offering as much as $13,000 off sticker and still having trouble getting people to buy them. It's going to be a long hot summer for Cerberus.

The Jerry York Show. Well, that took all of about five minutes, didn't it? The news that Tracinda was buying into Ford had barely been out on the Internet for a couple of days before Jerry York started telling Alan Mulally what he would do, which would be to sell Volvo and Mercury. The thing you all have to remember about this Kerkorian-York thing is that while Kerkorian lives for "the game," York lives for the adulation. York is frustrated by the fact that he was never considered to be an Automotive Titan, and he views this as a major slight. So with Kirk's bottomless pockets he gets a forum to grace us all with his views, and everyone has to listen to his bullshit until Kirk grows weary of the whole thing and decides to move on. But the fact of the matter is that Jerry will always play Sideshow Bob to Kirk's Krusty the Clown. And that's never going to change.

Hillary Clinton & John McCain. These two vote whores will say anything to get elected, apparently, including pushing the ridiculous notion that this country needs a "break" from the high price of gas this summer. The very last thing this country needs is to start thinking these high fuel prices are temporary, because they're not, and the sooner we all realize it the better off we'll be. We expected this kind of performance from Clinton, but McCain? Get a grip, John.

Barack Obama. "Barry" slams Detroit for making large SUVs and for not anticipating the high price of gasoline, then he and his entourage get in large SUVs to make his next campaign appearance. Nice.

The UAW, Ron Gettelfinger. All of that touchy-feely garbage in the mainstream media characterizing UAW president Ron Gettelfinger as being some sort of saint (the words "statesman-like" was used) for looking at the Big Picture and agreeing to an "enlightened" deal with the Detroit Three last fall has been blown to smithereens with the American Axle strike and now the harassment strikes aimed at crippling GM's hottest selling vehicles, including the Malibu. Local issues? Yeah, right. The true colors of the UAW are once again being exposed for everyone to see, in case you didn't get the message the three thousand other times before this that they've exhibited their "one-trick pony" behavior. The UAW's sense of entitlement knows no bounds, but this latest episode is convincing everyone from the media to the people who care about this state and this industry that the UAW era is well and truly over, and by acting out they're only hastening their way to oblivion. The future for the Detroit Three, if there is any, will consist of off-shore manufacturing and non-union manufacturing sites, it's that simple. And the future of the UAW? It's toast.

Microsoft. Ford's exclusivity deal with Microsoft to use its "Sync" system comes to an end in November, so what does Microsoft do? It signs a global, non-exclusive deal with Hyundai and Kia to supply Sync in their vehicles. Memo to Microsoft: Good luck dealing with the Krazy Koreans in the car business, who know all of the answers and who are never wrong, even if they don't have the first clue as to what they're talking about. In other words, this is going nowhere good.

Harley-Davidson. Publisher's Note: It's rare when a company not only understands its brand, but knows when it is in desperate need of shoring it up and reaffirming its reason for being. Harley-Davidson, which is facing the big cool down in sales after years of explosive growth, is just such a company. In a print ad that ran last Thursday (May 1) in USA Today, Harley let it all hang out with the following copy, which gets at the very essence of what makes the brand unique and special: "We don't do fear. Over the last 105 years in the saddle, we've seen wars, conflicts, depression, recession, resistance, and revolutions. We've watched a thousand hand-wringing pundits disappear in our rear-view mirror. But every time, this country has come out stronger than before. Because chrome and asphalt put distance between you and whatever the world can throw at you. Freedom and wind outlast hard times. And the rumble of an engine drowns out all the spin on the evening news. If 105 years have proved one thing, it's that fear sucks and it doesn't last long. So screw it, let's ride." If you want to read more, go to www.harleydavidson.com/screwit. Congratulations to all involved at Carmichael Lynch in Minneapolis, and here's to Mark-Hans Richer, for making it happen. - PMD

Aeroscraft. It's a bird, it's a plane, it's "the fourth dimension of flight." Check it out just for fun here http://www.aeroscraft.com/.