ON THE TABLE

June 30, 2010

The Big Ed Report. The short story/gist of yesterday's "I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in" meetings as GM pitched its current and future status with financial analysts and bankers? It's all good. Sort of.

Elon Musk, Tesla. From the "Fools And Their Money" File comes word that Tesla raised $226 million on the sale of 13.3 million shares at $17. That exceeded analysts expectations and by the way, Tesla CEO Elon Musk pocketed more than $23 million on the IPO alone. Does this remind anyone of the Dot Com Bubble? All together now: Oh, hell yes. And just ask yourself, is there any "there" there?

Austin, Texas, GM. Editor-in-Chief's Note: David Shepardson - from the Detroit News Washington Bureau - reports that Big Ed Whitacre will announce tomorrow that the Chevrolet Volt will be available in two additional cities at introduction: New York and Austin, Texas. The GM chairman and CEO will make the announcement during a speech to the Austin Chamber of Commerce. The Volt is already slated to be available in the states of California and Michigan, as well as in the Washington, D.C., area. We're hoping Dr. Bud will weigh-in on this announcement in the next few days too. - PMD

(Mecum Auction)
Mecum Auction will offer the Ed "Big Daddy" Roth "Tweedy Pie" - a 1923 Ford T-bucket - at its second annual Mecum Monterey Auction, August 13-14, 2010, at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Resort & Spa. "Tweedy Pie" became an instant American hot rodding icon when Revell issued it as a car kit in 1963. Featuring custom pin striping by Roth - the wildly popular and irreverent hot rod gearhead best known for his famed "Rat Fink" cartoon creation - the legendary "Tweedy Pie" was featured on the covers of the December 1959 Rodding and Restyling magazine and the March 1962 Rod and Custom magazine.  It has channeled over bobbed Deuce rails, a Corvette V8 engine with six Stromberg 97 carburetors and an Offy manifold. "All enthusiasts from that era remember wanting this particular model car," said President Dana Mecum.  "That first year, millions of 'Tweedy Pie' model cars flew off the shelves comparable to record sales from such pop phenomenon as The Beatles, immediately catapulting this vehicle into mainstream culture." Mecum's Monterey Auction has been expanded to two days as more than 400 vehicles will cross the block.  Cars will be displayed on the beautiful Del Monte Golf Course.  The auction is open to the general public.  For a complete list of vehicles, visit http://www.Mecum.com. 

Editor-in-Chief's Note: Our "quick take" this week covers the 2010 Infiniti G37 Sport and the 2010 GMC Terrain. Our Athens Blue G37S test car was quite striking on the outside and well-presented in its livery. In short, it looked the part. The Graphite interior was well-executed, too, except for the fact that the seatbelt guides were in this horrid milky beige color, which clashed with the nicely-designed sport seats and looked shockingly cheap on a $43,000+ car. I mean, it was so bad that if I were to wander into an Infiniti showroom and saw it I would turn and walk right out. It was that bad and it indicates a tone-deafness that's flat-out indefensible in a product with this kind of sporting mission. Driving the G37S was pretty good, pleasurable even. Again it's the classic case of when it comes to owning/driving a car with sporting intentions - and yet you plod along all day long in the urban jungle - you lose touch with why you wanted the car in the first place. The Infiniti was no different. Drive around doing errands? It's a waste of the car's ability. Take it out once in a while and hammer it? Then you remember why you were attracted to the car in the first place. My problem with the Infiniti wasn't with the level of performance delivered, because it's quite good in hammer-down mode. My problem with the car comes down to one simple question: Why Infiniti? It's the fundamental question that has vexed this brand since it made its debut with the tedious "rocks and trees" ad campaign that almost killed it right out of the gate. And remarkably enough, the brand has never recovered from it. I'm not sure what Infiniti is supposed to be all about. Is it the epitome of Nissan's engineering and technical capability wrapped-up in a dramatic exterior package? If it is I'm not feeling it. The brand has no emotional component to it whatsoever. It's coldly detached and unappealingly so. Infiniti keeps turning up the wick on their products but they keep skipping the fundamental question of Why Infiniti? And until they address that it won't matter how good the products are, or aspire to be. - PMD

2010 Infiniti G37 Sport 6MT: $43,485 ($40,400 base price, 3.7L DOHC, 24-Valve, VVEL V6, 330HP, Close-ratio 6-speed manual,  Rear-Wheel-Drive, Viscous Limited-Slip Differential VLSD, 19" Aluminum Wheels, Sport brakes, steering, suspension, aerodynamic tweaks, etc.; Navigation Package - Infiniti Hard Drive Navigation System with touch screen, DVD video playback, 3-D building graphics and "Birdview" Lane Guidance, 9.3GB Music Box hard drive, etc., etc. - $1850; R-Spec High Friction brake pads, $370; Destination Charges, $865)

Editor’s Note: This week, I drove the 2010 GMC Terrain FWD. I was going to provide a link to my May 12th review of the 2010 Chevy Equinox and be done with it – but that would be mean. But not actually too mean. Really. Before I start ranting, however, let’s look at the vehicle. Our Terrain arrived in Merlot Jewel Metallic with Light Titanium Premium Interior (read: some sort of patterned cloth that was just okay – nothing great and certainly nothing ‘premium’). Was it nearly identical to the Cardinal Red Metallic color on last month’s Equinox? Oh, never mind. More aggressive and bulkier looking than the Equinox, the Terrain looks and feels bigger than it actually is – not necessarily a bad thing in my book. As with the Equinox, the Terrain interior is spacious and comfortable. It was easy to intuit the controls and their operation, and there were plenty of compartments to hold 'stuff' like phones and sunglasses, etc., which I liked. GMC is supposed to be more upscale than Chevrolet, right? So I don't know if the Terrain really is a notch more luxe than the Equinox, or if knowing this about the brand made me think that it is. (Only $1420 separates the two on base price, so clearly my concept of what constitutes 'upscale' here is a bit misguided.) When things are basically good all around, it's always the small stuff that stands out, either for better or for worse. To wit, the standard rearview camera system was the coolest I’ve seen – it takes up the left third of the rearview mirror and that’s it – no gigantic image on the center console nav screen, just a tasteful view of what you're backing into that you can choose to use or ignore. The split-folding seats were incredibly easy to split and fold (finally, after all these years the car makers have figured out how to make this process effortless). On the 'for worse' side: I don’t understand why you can’t have ‘express up’ windows if they’re already ‘express down’ – how much more difficult/more expensive would that really be? Our Terrain came equipped with a 2.4L 4-cylinder, mated to a 6-speed automatic. It didn't feel nearly as underpowered as I thought it would (a bit noisy, however), and the mileage estimates are decent enough (22 City/32Hwy). All in all, the Terrain is perfectly competent, even nice in many ways. But I still don’t get it. I don’t get GMC. At All. Never have. I understand the history of the brand, and I understand that many people buy GMC vehicles (and actually like them!). But I’ve always been down on badge engineering – it seems like the easy (lazy) way out (oh, wait, I keep forgetting about profitability!). Certainly it's much easier to slap a GMC badge on a few Chevys than it is to, oh, say, keep Pontiac around. Why, that would have required some real cash, not to mention some real vision and imagination. -WG

2010 GMC Terrain FWD SLE-2: $28,680 ($25,950 base price, Convenience Package, $440; Rear Entertainment System, $1,295; 18-inch Machined Aluminum Wheels, $250; Destination Charge, $745)

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Publisher's Note: Check-out John McElroy's daily news show covering everything about the auto biz by clicking on the graphic below. Good stuff guaranteed. - PMD

See another live episode of "Autoline After Hours" hosted by Autoline Detroit's John McElroy, with Peter De Lorenzo and friends this Thursday evening, at 7:00PM EDT at www.autolinedetroit.tv.

 

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