truth about domestics

In what can only be seen as great news for GM, its employees, customers and dealers, General Motors has announced that they will be sending out letters of intent to reinstate over 600 dealerships.  661 to be exact.  This is over half of the nearly 1,100 that appealed GM’s decision to close them down after Congress forced GM to make cuts to its dealer network.  GM originally announced that it would be closing 2,000 of its nearly 6,000 dealers across the country.

The thing that bothers me here is the members of Congress.  First they tell GM to shed 1/3 of its dealers in a four month window.  GM figures out which ones to cut and sends out the letters.  Then the dealers complained and Congress passed a law requiring an appeals process for the dealers.  Maybe Congress should have just made up their mind and say close the dealers within a year, or close them and be done with it.  Instead they rush to tell GM what to do (like any of our politicians have any business sense inside their greatly over-inflated heads) and then back pedal when dealers started to complain.  Maybe they should have thought about those dealers before jumping to conclusions and assuming they knew what the automaker needed to do to survive.  For more on this story, head on over to MSN Autos.

(Image source: bloggingvegas.com; thanks for the tip Megster!)

S.O.B!  What does a 16 year old need a brand new Camaro for?  Oh well, better than getting him a Hyundai Genesis Coupe or some other foreign garbage like that.

Corvette Racing has decided to release a 12 part series of webisodes where they show you behind the scenes looks at the C6.R GT2 racing program.  Stay tuned for more, or head on over to Corvette Racing’s official website.

GM saw sales figures jump 12% over the February 2008 figure which was an encouraging sign.  For March, the General wants to keep that momentum going and is offering 0% financing on most 2010 models and almost all remaining 2009 vehicles.  For more details, head on over to Autoblog.

(Image source: The Torque Report)

Ford Motor Company has another great story to tell about its One Ford transformation plan.  This chapter talks about the 2011 Mustang V6.  The 3.7L V6 will produce 305 horsepower while returning 31 mpg on the highway when equipped with an automatic.  This makes the 2011 Mustang V6 the first car to ever produce more than 300 hp and hit 30 mpg + in EPA testing.  Think about it, the first time ever a car has hit 300 + hp and 30 + mpg.  Kudos to the Mustang team for showing people that performance and fuel efficiency can go hand in hand.  It may not be as frugal as the boring and very homely Toyota Prius, but it wasn’t designed to be.  For the full press release, head on over to Autoblog.

(Image source: Ford)

Jeep dealers are complaining that they are running low on hard top Wranglers.  While I was never really a fan of the Wrangler in the past, my in car ride experience sure changed that.  When I originally saw this story I thought, “man, Jeeps are selling that well huh?”  Well sadly, I was wrong.  In this day and age of supplier bankruptcies, everyone is getting affected in one way or another.  Well the original supplier for the hard tops has gone under, and during the transition to the new supplier, production has been halted.  This means dealers have been forced to order soft top models, which just aren’t as popular in most markets as the hard tops.  For the full story, head on over to Autoblog.

(Image source: Jeep)

A Danish garage door company is offering a 20% discount on garage doors…if the customer’s door was damaged by unintended acceleration. I don’t want to laugh in light of the situation, but that is a winning advertisement!

Awesome news for the domestic automakers: sales were up for February! GM posted a sales increase of 12% over prior year’s results with sales of 141, 951 vehicles, Ford posted a sales increase of 43% with 142,285 vehicle sales, and Chrysler posted a sales increase of 1% with sales of 84,449 vehicles. Plagued by recent recalls, Toyota posted a sales decrease of 8.7% for February with sales of 100,027 vehicles.

The second piece of the story is even more exclusive: Ford overtook GM in sales for the first time since 1998, when a strike caused a large decrease in sales for GM. The last time before that was 1970, when a walkout caused a similar situation. I’m not rooting for one company or the other, but this can only be good news for the consumers – competition generates better quality and better value for the customer.

Read the full article at BusinessWeek.

Chrysler will report a slight increase in sales for February over previous year’s results. Chrysler sold 84,050 vehicles in February of 2009. This will be the first sales increase in 26 months for Chrysler!

News courtesy of Bloomberg.

Ford has announced that 2.0L and 1.6L four-cylinder EcoBoost engines will be available for the first time in Europe this summer.  The engines will produce power ranging from 200 horses down to 148.  These engines will debut in the updated S-Max and Galaxy MPVs and also the C-Max and Grand C-Max.  This 2.0L will also show up in the revised 2011 Edge sometime later this year, as well as potentially making an appearance in the next generation Explorer (as previewed by the Explorer America concept.)  For more details, head on over to Autoblog.

(Image source: Ford)