IS HIGH PERFORMANCE IMPORTANT TO FORD MOTOR COMPANY?

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Ford Motor Company's rumored decision to abandon efforts to create a RWD sedan from the Australian Falcon and Speedzzter's negative reaction have triggered a debate about the importance of high performance models at Ford over on Autoblog.

Red Star: Why is performance so much important? How many performance vehicles does Toyota have? NONE. And they are doing better than any other manufacturer in the world.

Speedzzter responds:

1. As any Lexus dealer will be overjoyed to tell you, Lexus (a marketing division of Toyota) offers more RWD vehicles with in excess of 280 horsepower than does the now-Jaguar-less Ford Motor Company. Moreover, Toyota has heavily marketed the performance of the DOHC V8 version of the Tundra pickup truck. So it's wholly inaccurate to claim that Toyota offers no performance vehicles.

2. Toyota is also outspending Ford on world motorsports competition, strongly suggesting that Toyota recognizes the importance of at least the perception of "performance" to a significant number of vehicle buyers.

3. Every Scion (a marketing division of Toyota) catalog from the inception of the marque has featured page-after-page of tuner information and Toyota Racing Development (TRD) parts in an effort to position the Scion brand as a credible youth market alternative to Honda, Subaru and Mitsubishi.

Thus, it's a vast oversimplification to suggest that because Toyota's mainstream sedans (Corolla, Camry, Avalon and Prius) are as bland as warm milk and as fun to drive as a flaccid rental car that Toyota has no interest in "performance."

However the success of Toyota and the other members of "Team Japan" is a far more complicated topic.

A couple of other Autobloggers weighed in on that point.

The Other Bob @ Mar 26th 2008 10:19PM
Red Star- The American companies already tried to "out Toyota" Toyota. That did not work. They are succesful [sic] when they return to their roots, as Chrysler used to do and GM is now doing.


Mike Ishi @ Mar 27th 2008 1:44AM
The Other Bob - (Please note that this is just my opinion.)

The American companies did an awful job at trying to beat Toyota. They didn't offer reliable, easy to love, family oriented vehicles. They didn't find a vaguely defined niche like Honda and offer reliable, easy to love, and fun vehicles over purely powerful vehicles like the pony cars of the American companies.
* * *
The American companies have to offer universality over testosterone. It changes the entire feel of the company and the company's products. It makes the company more universal. For the most part, niches aren't useful unless they're vague. And I know a lot of people will pull up the "oh yeah, but in the late 60's the pony car niche did excellent!" Well, times are completely different now and focusing too much on a "pony car" niche (that truly isn't as big as domestic fans wish it was) is an excellent way of walking closer and closer toward bankruptcy. The American companies should still offer a pony car, but leave the whole "pure performance" thing in that car and not let it trickle out into the company's other products. And here we learn the lesson of diversifying.

As a financial analyst, I have absolutely no idea how they cannot understand what they've been doing wrong for so long.

Speedzzter responds:

It's a given that the bean counters always hate niches and, more specifically, performance cars. Such "specials" always offend the bean counter's inherent "lowest cost per unit" mentality.

Yet the success of Toyota and the other Japanese brands cannot be reduced down to empty platitudes such as the "easy to love, fun vehicles" or "universality over testosterone." Such oversimplification ignores both the sweep of automotive progress and the unique factors which positions Japan to capitalize on the marketing automobiles in the "regulated age" of motoring.

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Legendary road tester Tom McCahill once ran a retrospective comparison test between a couple of well-preserved 1946 cars with their descendants then being sold in 1966. The performance difference was virtually night and day. From the 1946 baseline, the rather ordinary, non-"muscle car", bread-and-butter 1966 sedans were supercars.

One could run a similar test between current mass market models and an average 1966 "mainstream" model today, and while the differences wouldn't be as dramatic as McCahill reported, the modern cars would be significantly higher performing in virtually every measure.

If one could somehow transport an average 2008 car back to 1966, it would be instantly viewed as a supercar and would outperform virtually 98% of what was offered for sale during the "First Musclecar Era."

The point is that progress in automobility has always focused on improved performance at ever lower relative price points.

One only need to watch a collector car auction or walk through a well-stocked automobile museum to see evidence of this phenomenon. An 1886 Daimler has as much in common with a current Mercedes-Benz as a hacksaw does with a plasma cutter.

Henry Ford -- who arguably is the inventor of the "universal car" and of the mass marketing of automobiles -- could not have conceived of even the performance in a Hybrid Escape as a mass market vehicle during the days when he was promoting the Model T as the apogee of the "universal car." But the market quickly passed the Model T by, and Ford was forced to respond.

The brilliant monoblock flathead V8 eventually resulted. And Ford's "democratization" of V8 power fueled explosive growth in the social movement of "hot rodding" and created the expectation that advanced performance wasn't an entitlement limited to those who could afford large, handbuilt, state-of-the-art luxury cars.

Of course, Ford's flathead V8 was soon passed by as high compression, overhead valve technology took hold.

Automotive progress, for the most part, is a history of improving the performance of virtually every aspect of motoring.

Thus, what stands in a particular age as "high performance" is that which is on the leading edge of progress. However it is usually objectively benchmarked by objective and subjective factors of acceleration, lateral acceleration, deceleration, and speed.

Given human psychology and physiology (which change, if at all, much more slowly than automotive evolution), our collective perceptions of legendary high performance start forming a consensus around easily recalled objective measurements and our subjective perceptions of them. Most people would "feel" that a vehicle pulling over .8g in lateral acceleration has a high level of grip. Most would "feel" that 0-60 m.p.h. (or 0-100 k.p.h.) times of less than 6-7 seconds are quick and times under 5 seconds as extremely quick. Most would "feel" that the ability to hit 100 m.p.h. or better in the standing start quarter mile is very potent.

Certainly, the bean counters would start pointing out the law of diminishing returns and claim that nobody "needs" such performance. Speedzzter has previously addressed many of these arguments in "Click, Clack and the Five Hundred Horsepower Ford."

Certainly, even if the "need" point is conceded for the purposes of argument, an influential and loyal segment of the automobile market "wants" such performance.

However, the important point to remember is that real progress requires continuing to "push the envelope." It requires continuing to press for greater subjective and objective performance.

We wouldn't have light, efficient twin-cam, multi-valve engines or sticky radial tires or life-saving anti-lock disc brakes as mainstream features if prior generations of automakers hadn't developed such technologies in motorsports and high-performance road cars.

German cars are held in high esteem not simply because of Germany's traditions of detailed craftsmanship. German cars are respected and used as benchmarks (even by the Japanese) because they are typically engineered to withstand the rigors of the unlimited sections of the German Autobahns. Consequently, Germany has developed a strong tradition towards advancing the art of the automobile and broadening the availability of its performance.

America, on the other hand, has too often focused on the myopic bean counter's mentality. Although American automobility experienced significant developments in the years immediately after World War II, after 1957 Detroit's pursuit of new performance technologies ossified toward the end of the unregulated age (Although some of this was the fault of economic conditions and the emerging power of the trial-lawyer-driven safety lobby, the predominant American motorsports sanctioning bodies and the hegemony of the bean counters deserve the lion's share of the blame). Thus, for all of its celebration as the ultimate expression of the unregulated automobile, the 1960s American muscle car was a primitive, inefficient and under-developed machine.

The first regulated automobiles of the 1970s and early 1980s regressed in many objective measures of performance as the automakers struggled with scores of unfunded mandates and inflationary pressures. But the regression of the 1970s and early 1980s has proven to be an anomaly, as once regulatory stability and technology caught up, the march towards improved performance resumed in full force.

It was during the doldrums of the 1970s and early 1980s that Toyota and other Japanese manufacturers started asserting their power.

The success of the Japanese has been built on a complex foundation. Japanese automakers, even in their domesticated transplants, have traditionally had a much better labor cost structure.

Japan, as a small country, has been forced to become predatory in international trade. Japanese automakers were allowed to incubate in a totally protectionist home market and have received massive governmental subsidies at critical times from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. Even recently, Toyota-ex Jim Press admits that the Japanese government funded virtually 100% of the electric hybrid and battery technology that is showcased in the iconic Toyota Prius.

At the same time, the U.S. government has maintained an almost adversarial relationship with Detroit automakers, only easing a bit at times -- such as when Chrysler faced bankruptcy in the late 1970s and early 1980s. With the exceptions of the so-called "chicken tariff" on imported light trucks, the Reagan Administration's voluntary import quota system, and the North American Free Trade Agreement, Washington has done almost nothing to help Detroit adjust to the world of the highly-regulated automobile. Instead, it has piled on regulation after regulation and unfunded mandate after unfunded mandate. It has sided with organized labor at most every turn (except NAFTA) and has expected the Detroit manufacturers to do more with less. And Detroit has underwritten the vast majority of the costs for developing compliance technologies which the World's other automakers have grabbed at fractions of the price.

But fundamentally, Japan had (and still has) another advantage over Detroit: a one-thousand year tradition of miniaturization and reductionism.

Over twenty years ago, Tom Peters wrote the following in Thriving on Chaos:

[I]n Smaller is Better: Japan's Mastery of the Miniature, Korean writer O-Young Lee suggests that "Japan, with its tradition of smaller is better . . . its sensitivity to information, is perfectly positioned to take the lead in the coming age of reductionism." . . . The language is the most important clue. For instance the Japanese word for "craftsmanship" is literally "delicate workmanship," and that for feminine beauty is "detailed woman. On the other hand, "large" is literally "not delicately crafted" and "worthless" is "not packed in" There are so many more prefixes, more frequently used, that mean "small" than "big." And so on.
The folding fan, miniature gardening, the tea ceremony, and other ritual staples of Japanese life all stem, according to Lee, from a passion for reductionism . . . . In fact, the Japanese are contemptuous of almost everything large, says Lee, adding "Nothing comes harder to the Japanese than living with objects of no use. They cannot bear the unnecessary, the excess." . . . "It has been a thousand years since Sei Shonagon wrote 'All things small, no matter what they are, all things are beautiful.'"

W. Edwards Deming's statistical process control of quality and "continuous improvements" thus fell on very fertile soil when it was introduced during the post-World War II industrial reconstruction of Japan. Its focus of efficiency through quality obviously dovetailed with Japan's thousand-year tradition toward smallness, detail and miniaturized efficiency.

Thus, when it came to competing with the hastily conceived, rushed-to-market Chevrolet Vega, Ford Pinto, AMC Gremlin and other early U.S. subcompacts in the 1970s the Japanese -- and Toyota in particular -- responded with a diverse and highly- developed FULL LINE of brilliantly miniaturized vehicles. And as the Japanese OEMs have steadily moved upmarket, they have blended their thousand-year tradition for detailed miniaturization with the best European technologies and Western aesthetics.

Detroit's cost structure and its bean-counter driven pressure for economies of scale have never permitted it to efficiently compete with "Team Japan." For three decades, Detroit has been playing catch up. But given Toyota's huge lead, merely focusing on inferior duplicates of Toyota products would not be sufficient to insure Ford's survival.

That's not to say that Ford shouldn't be focused on diversifying its small vehicle line up. Ford clearly does not have sufficient model diversity in the U.S. to take on a full-line powerhouse such as Toyota, notwithstanding any differences in perceived quality.

As Tom Peters also wrote (back in the days when Ford was setting the standard for profitability) "There are no excellent companies. The old saw 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' needs revision. I propose: ' If it ain't broke, you haven't looked hard enough.' Fix it anyway."

Peters' philosophy is wholly consistent with a drive toward increasing the performance and efficiency of every aspect of the automobile. Yet Ford basically coasted for over a decade on the inertia of the burst of creativity borne out of its near-death experience in the early 1980s. And for the better part of this decade, Ford has been reaping the bitter harvest of failing to advance.

Ford's D.N.A., for all of its weaknesses, contains a virulent strain of racing and performance. Toyota's heritage is as an automatic loom maker. It has to hire legions of outsiders to copy what seems inherent to the soul of Ford in motorsports. For Ford to limit this persona to a single heritage/retro "pony car" is as foolish as believing that it could fend off Toyota's diverse, highly practical model line-up in the 1970s with the Pinto, Mustang II and the imported Courier.

Ford is at the point where it can either choose to integrate the strengths of its heritage with the demands of the modern World vehicle market, or it can retreat to merely aping the current "flavor-of-the-month." Ford failed when it attempted to copy GM in the 1950s. And it will surely fail if it merely seeks to copy Toyota today.

But on the few occasions since the days of the Model T when Ford has stood out, Ford soared when it adapted elements of its heritage with advances in the art of automobility and packaged them in practical forms that were accessable to middle-class niches. Icons such as the Flathead V8, the Mustang, the Thunderbird, the Explorer and the modern F-series trucks are all examples where Ford took something good at its core and "hit'em where they ain't."

But a practical RWD sedan which can also be offered as a performance niche model has even more important psychological aspects.

The laws of physics and overwhelming amounts of data from motorsports prove the superiority of rear wheel drive for enthusiastic driving on most common surfaces. Thus, RWD remains as an essential element of the modern sports/touring car. A modern RWD Ford sedan would be a statement that Ford is committed to building "athletic, state-of-the-art" vehicles on an architectural par with the market leaders in Germany and Japan (and across town at Cadillac).

It would, at a minimum, also help Ford retain its loyal performance customers when they "outgrow" pony cars, or when pure sports cars prove impractical. Just because one's family is too large to fit in a cramped Mustang or a two-seat GT supercar doesn't mean that the alternative must be the universal blandness of an "orthopedic-shoe-on-wheels" such as an FWD Camry knock-off. There is an obvious middle ground.

Advancing the art of automobility with high performance cars also makes a statement of engineering prowess and an intention towards innovation. BMW is respected as the "Ultimate Driving Machine" because BMW has never remained complacent. Instead it has continued to push the development of all its models with a strong emphasis on high performance. Although most BMW buyers don't select an M model, the engineering and performance image of these BMW halo models permeates the entire lineup. Moreover, BWM's high performance cars are evolutions of its mainstream models. They are not just dedicated sports cars. Developing such vehicles disciplines the entire organization and helps define BMW's unique and exciting niche in the marketplace.

To anyone attending the various automotive events around the U.S.A., it's clear that virtually all remaining enthusiasm for Ford's various brands is heavily centered around performance. Thus, Ford's largest mass of loyal customers are performance customers. One seriously doubts whether there will ever be an outpouring of enthusiasm for the boring Ford Five Hundred/New Taurus or even the SVT-less Focus, notwithstanding their obvious appeal to those bean counters who demand "cost efficiency at all costs," fuzzy niches, economies of scale, and "universal cars."

The dustbin of automotive history is littered with companies that failed because they pursued blandness and boredom instead of uniqueness and excitement.

(In fact, in 1908, when Henry Ford first offered the prosaic Model T, it was muscular in comparison to legions of other cars at that price point. How many of those other companies survive today?)

To truly compete in the marketplace, it's common sense that you need to offer a product that is superior to your competitors in some aspect -- price, quality, functionality, style, value, etc.

RWD performance is one area where Ford is historically and strategically positioned to offer such products. To shrink from doing so merely to imitate Toyota would be gross mismanagement.

A famous quotation from the Bible is "So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth." (Revelation 3:16). The surest path to oblivion is for Ford to avoid excellence and concentrate on building passionless, "lukewarm" copies of FWD Toyotas.

For Ford to have any hope at surviving, it must generate excitement about its products. A RWD sedan with potential appeal to Ford's traditionalist V8 gearheads is merely one large step toward this critical goal.

TA, TA, MANGY KITTEN AND DOG.

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It's official.

Ford Motor Company (R) has finally unloaded Jaguar and Land Rover on India's Tata Motors, Ltd. for $2.3 Billion.

Reportedly FoMoCo netted only about a third of what it blew in acquiring them.

(Of course, considering that the entirety of Ford itself is apparently only worth less than a third of what it once was, the "bargain" price is not altogether surprising)

But that's insignificant compared to the huge sums of intellectual and monetary capital that FoMoCo wasted on its "English Patients."

FoMoCo's "big cat and dog" adventure resulted in the abandonment and collapse of Ford's proud Formula One tradition.

It caused the alleged product planners in the Glass House and elsewhere to deprive Lincoln-Mercury of the resources to compete with Cadillac.

It resulted in millions spent attempting to remake a Ford Contour/Mondeo into an abortion of a "Jaguar."

It yielded odd mechanical alliances as Ford sold vehicles powered by derivatives of the antique Buick/Rover/MCT pushrod V8 and a BMW V8.

It failed to yield much in the way of volume or platform synergies or new technologies.

The largest failure of FoMoCo's foray into upscale British motoring is that it abjectly bombed in insulating Ford against poaching from the German and Japanese luxury marques and from market downturns. FoMoCo never achieved the necessary sales quantities of high-profit "quality" models to hedge them from downturns in the broader "quantity" market.

Certainly, FoMoCo should be commended for saving Jaguar from almost certain extinction. When Ford took over, Jaguar quality was legendarily awful and its product line almost entirely obsolete. Ford shepherded the development of the Jaguar AJ-V8, which for a time was considered one of Ward's 10 Best Engines. While Ford never achieved parity for Jaguar with BMW, Audi, Mercedes or even Lexus, it did manage to update Jaguar's model lines and reconnect them somewhat with the brand's historic D.N.A.

However, after Ford's disastrous Jaguar Formula One program, Ford mostly neglected the motorsports involvement that is essential to Jaguar's luxury sporting brand image. And Ford was never able to turn Jaguar into the next destination for FoMoCo customers who had graduated to pure luxury.

Ford's stewardship of Land Rover (the "Dog") was even more uncertain.

BMW had done a lot of the renewal work necessary to rehabilitate the brand from the neglect of the failed British Leyland years. Yet BMW's willingness to hand Land Rover over to Ford ought to have been a warning sign.

Range Rover's uber-luxury niche seemed to decline with the bloat of the luxury-badged SUVs and CUVs (including from competing products of other FoMoCo divisions) as well as Ford's mixed attempts to broaden the Land Rover line. Land Rover advertising always seemed to keep its distance from any identification with Ford. And Land Rover, for all of its storied history, always seemed to run behind legendary brands like Jeep and even upstarts such as Hummer.

Moreover, Land Rover seems ill-positioned to fend off growing Japanese power and increased pressures on fuel economy.

Both Jaguar and Land Rover undoubtedly held down FoMoCo's "import" Corporate Average Fuel Economy numbers in the U.S.A. and would have been an increased drag as the draconian 35 M.P.G. CAFE standard is crammed down on all participants in the U.S. market.

Unlike Ford's unnecessary fire sale of Aston Martin, it was past time for FoMoCo to spin off the Mangy Cat and its aging off-road Dog. It's just too bad that FoMoCo had to spend so many precious development dollars to learn of and extricate themselves from the mistake.

THE COMMENT ON SIMON COWELL THE EVENING STANDARD LIKELY WON'T PUBLISH

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While Speedzzter could wade into the Rev. Jeremiah Wright morass . . . or how Barack "Who's Sayin" Obama's threw his "typical White person" grandma "under the bus" in defense of Rev. Wright . . . or the story of the lawless thugs that apparently weren't really shooting at Mrs. Clinton's aircraft in Bosnia, or New York's growing string of philandering governors . . . Speedzzter will, in the prevailing zeitgeist of the age, focus on a softer, more superficial target.

The "This is London" website and the Drudge Report are propmoting some paparazzi shots of American Idol judge Simon Cowell in a story entitled The good life: Simon Cowell roars up in his $1 million supercar to view his $8 million mansion.

Overseeing construction of his new, giant Beverly Hills, California, mansion, This is London reports:

With former model girlfriend Terri Seymour by his side, some might say that he's absolutely living the good life.

Cowell arrived in his $1 million Bugatti Veyron to cast his eye over work being done on his luxury home, which has risen from the ground after he razed the original building in 2005 to make way for a new five-bedroom, six-bathroom mansion. . . .

Girlfriend Terri Seymour will be sharing the new mansion with boyfriend Simon, but they have no plans to marry.

SWELL.

Thus, according to the fawning press, just another decadent example of the "good life" to be coveted, imagined and imitated by wantabes everywhere.

Don't you believe it.

Simon Cowell is emblematic of nearly everything wrong in America's superficial, overly-secularized pop culture.

Dreadful wardrobe . . . Hyper-materialistic set of values . . . Wasteful, ostentatious and pretentious "lifestyle" . . . Crass . . . Rude . . . Selfish . . . Self-absorbed . . . Cynical . . . apparently agnostic. . . Unable to "commit" to his sleazy, "shack-up" squeeze . . . A Promoter of vapid, disposable "entertainment" that shamelessly panders to the lowest common denominator. . . .

In short, Simon Cowell is a horrible example for our young. His is hardly the "good life."

"There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death." Proverbs 14:12 NKJV

On the other hand, that Bugatti is a trick ride . . . But (in this banal context) "what a waste of machinery!" (Quoting American Graffiti)

And too bad his "milk-for-free," gold-digging honey can't sport a decent pair of pumps for the paparazzi. . . .

No doubt that the Evening Standard will refuse to print such a candid, politically-incorrect assessment.

On the other hand, given that Simon's stock-in-trade is brutally "honest" sledge-hammer blasts of the "truth" to kids who imagine (or more accurately, delude) themselves as undiscovered "pop icons," he ought to appreciate Speedzzter's candor.

Certainly, while insignificant, racist charlatans such as the alleged Reverend Jeremiah Wright or exotic terrorists such as Osama Bin Ladin grab most of the headlines as the great vandals of Western culture, it's really people like Simon Cowell, Sumner Redstone (chief of Viacom), Rupert Murdoch and Michael Eisner who are the greater threats.

These entertainment moguls are on a greedy, selfish jihad to destroy all common decency and even any hints of traditonal moral values. They are the high priests in the egocentric, self-indulgent "religion" of secular, epicurean hedonism.

And most everybody will think they are living "the good life."

As the character Aaron Altman said in the 1987 film "Broadcast News" opined:

What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he's around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. No. I'm semi-serious here. He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing... he will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance... Just a tiny bit. And he will talk about all of us really being salesmen. And he'll get all the great women.

While Cowell and the other entertainment moguls aren't nearly as outwardly blameless as Altman's devil personified, each of them have directed a multi-billion dollar attack on our moral and cultural standards. Each of them have, along with scores of others in the overlapping worlds of entertainment and sports, been influential in coarsening and debasing Western culture and diverting our attention from the things which are really important. Each of them have helped corrode our values and practices, bit by bit.

Ergo, the extravagant, immoral lifestyle of Simon Cowell is hardly something to be celebrated.

IS THE V8 "DEAD" UNDER THE 35-M.P.G. CAFE STANDARD?

The Eco-wonks at Autoblog Green apparently think so.

The Greeniacs are celebrating a Bloomburg/Detroit News report of an interview with GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz.

Much as Speedzzter predicted during last summer's CAFE "Rope-a-Dope" debate, the draconian increases in the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard will have harsh and adverse consequences for vehicular freedom of choice.

More diplomatically, Lutz claims that "around 2015 we're going to have to sell a ton of hybrids whether people want them or not." Lutz added, "it's basically going to result in the quasi-disappearance of V-8 engines."

Lou Grinzo, typical of the Greeniac reaction, wrote in response:

"Once again: Bob Lutz speaks, so there is comedy."

"I'm convinced now more than ever that the number one thing that needs to change at GM is some of the people at the top of the management food chain. Why do we see Honda and Toyota, among other companies, leading the charge on more efficient, sustainable transportation, while GM (and Ford and Chrysler) have to be dragged kicking and screaming every inch of the way? Are the laws of physics different for them? Do they sell to a different America than those other companies? No, it's purely a cultural issue."

"The Big Three still haven't completely accepted, down to their DNA, the immense changes that peak oil and global warming are forcing on almost everything we humans do."

Of course such ignorant "Detroit bashing" wholly misses the point. As Business Week pointed out yesterday:

"It hardly seems fair to Detroit to compare its efforts in the hybrid arena to Toyota's. Chrysler's Press says when he was at Toyota, 'the Japanese government paid for 100% of the development of the battery and hybrid system that went into the Toyota Prius.'"

Thus, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to beat on GM (or other Detroit-based companies) when the playing field is hardly level.

Notwithstanding CAFE, V8s will disappear when the market for them is gone.

The V8 was originally supposed to "die" in the mid-1980s. However, market forces have kept it alive and thriving for decades.

Europe has been living with $5-$7 fuel prices for decades, and a few V8 models still exist (albeit reserved for wealthy auto-philes).

That's little comfort for wage earners who dream of a return to the halcyon, egalitarian days of the First Musclecar Era, or even the days of the cheap, quick and tunable 5.0 Fox-body Mustang.

Thus, what Lutz is really saying is that ordinary "Joe-six-packs" can kiss their chance at a V8 goodby.

And as Speedzzter predicted last year, the ominous signs this time around are rapidly growing.

"Mark LaNeve, GM North America's vice president of sales and marketing, said of the new Camaro, 'We won't position it as a muscle car. The mainstream positioning will be fuel economy, design and a V-6.'"

The Greeniacs, insofar as they can applaud something as "selfish" and "inefficient" as the upcoming Chevrolet Camaro celebrate the denial of high performance options.

It's time the pureists [sic] accept that it is a Brave New World.
Posted at 7:55PM on Mar 21st 2008 by Wildgoosechase73

At some point these companies are going to have to realize that this march to higher horsepower is INSANE. Far better to top out at 200 HP and buy a Go KART and get some Saturday Track Time for your thrills.

Because there's nothing stupider then building a transportation infrastructure using 340 hp cars to pick up milk at the grocery, drive to work, church or even long trips on vacation. None of which is well suited to a 340 hp car.

And then there's the safety factor, using 340 hp on the streets is for the profoundly stupid and will get plenty of innocent people killed.

Posted at 11:51AM on Jan 26th 2008 by mike

This Insane levels [sic] of horsepower again makes me question auto industry compensation. The oil industry is the only benefactor in this horsepower race.

[T]he US consumer is the most profligate, arrogant and ignorant on the planet. Cars aren't mere modes of transportation, they are status symbols and recreation. Many Americans also cannot drive a stick. Accordingly, the fuel efficiency and fun factor that one could get from smaller displacement (2-3L) forced induction (or naturally aspirated) engines just doesn't translate well into English on this side of the Atlantic.
Posted at 4:35PM on Jan 27th 2008 by terrence_bethea

"[T]o do a 0-60 test you actually have to PUT YOUR FOOT TO THE FLOOR FOR 8 SECONDS. That gives you 1 mpg, and there isn't enough OPEN ROAD available to hold your foot down for 8 seconds."

"Secondly, most people think they're destroying the engine when they hear it SCREAM. But, they've GOT to BUY that V8 they'll never use."

Sorry, but the "profligate, arrogant and ignorant " Speedzzter does "it" (PUTS THE RIGHT FOOT TO THE FLOOR) at least twice every day (except that in a "real car" it takes WAY less than SIX SECONDS to hit 100 kph).

These "big-brother-knows-best" anti-performance sentiments are similar to the hysterical reactions from the Greens to Speedzzter's "Click, Clack and the Five Hundred Horsepower Ford" post.

Given the expected weight of the New Camaro, the Ecotec GDI Turbo will likely prove adequate if not overly exciting. Of course it's hardly a new idea (see, e.g. 1984-1986 Mustang SVO, 1987-1988 Thunderbird Turbo Coupe).

Ford may be following suit.

[The] new 3.5L EcoBoost V-6 . . . will likely appear elsewhere including the 2010 Mustang. . . . The V-6 will likely be rated at a minimum of 340hp to start and be lighter in weight than the current 4.6L V-8 leading to better handling and considerably better fuel economy. At some point the 2.0L four-cylinder EcoBoost will probably become the standard engine in the base Mustang as well.

One suspects that the rumored four-cylinder "Ecotec Camaro" is more about "import tuner" image and fuel economy window dressing than actual real world mileage increases (although it should be 2-3 mpg better in the city portion of the test cycle than a heavily-overdriven, naturally-aspirated V6/V8 of equivalent maximum output).

What the Greens simply cannot understand is that some of us ENJOY (and know how to safely and responsibly use) powerful motorcars.

Common sense would suggest supporting improvements in efficiency within each class, rather than mandating a one-size-fits all "lawn-mower-car/phone-booth" "solution" that will force performance enthusiasts to hold on to older, less efficient vehicles or explore other, less sensitive avenues of circumvention.

Speedzzter has been blogging here for an EcoBoost version of Ford DOHC V8: A twin-turbo (or "twincharged") GDI four-valve V8 (with electric accessory drives, a "6 x 2" overdrive transmission, a mild hybrid "engine stop" system, cylinder deactivation, "on-boost" auxillary alcohol fueling (perhaps combined with the MIT water injection system), variable valve lift and timing, variable geometry "ram tuned" intake manifold," two-stage intercooling (i.e. the Coletti "SuperCooler" system), and a multi-program ECU with a big "power volume" knob).

Such a V8 could achieve dramatically better off-peak fuel economy than the current Mustang GT/Bullitt/Shelby GT/Shelby GT500, while still satisfying a large majority of performance vehicle buyers.

Such a V8 would make the "green" pill a tad easier to swallow. Moreover, off peak fuel economy represents about 95-98% of performance vehicle driving on the street, thus such improvements would be significant.

Naturally, the bean counters will be against all of this. The cheap and easy solution to the "fuel economy problem" would be for FoMoCo to turn its back on over 75 years of V8 heritage by crushing the hopes and dreams of legions of its loyal customers. The bean counters will want to ash-can rear wheel drive while they're at it.

But killing the V8 and RWD simply to satisfy the reckless power grab of the Greens and their lackeys in Congress and at the EPA and NHTSA, however, is the wrong solution. FoMoCo owes its customers and its faithful supporters more.

Just don't bank on it. The list of MBA-driven FoMoCo disappointments is far, far longer than the list of Ford legends.

Notwithstanding what the Detroit automakers eventually do, the V8 won't truly be dead until they pry millions of "cold dead hands" off of our "pistol-grip shifters . . . ."

SPEEDZZTER BOOK REVIEW PREVIEW

Speedzzter drafted the following comment for Racecar Engineering:

As an enthusiast publication, Turbocharging Performance Handbook, by Jeff Hartman (MBI Publishing Co., L.L.C., 2007, ISBN 978-0-7603-2805-7) is toward the top of the middle of the pack. Turbocharging Performance Handbook is much more colourfully illustrated than almost all of the other popular turbo manuals in print.

In comparison to the standard work by which all enthusiast turbo tech books are usually judged (Turbochargers, by Hugh Macinnes), Hartman's book has the clear advantage of 30 years of technical developments. And Hartman travels further down the paths of some speculative scenarios, such as staged intercooling. However Hartman's book probably is not as broad or as comprehensive as Macinnes. Macinnes' book contains some valuable reference material that is absent from Hartman's book.

Moreover, Macinnes' step-by-step turbo selection algorithm may be easier for some to follow (Macinnes treats it as integral to the process, whereas Hartman relegates most of the "turbo math" to almost an appendix at the back of the book). However, the compressor maps and turbocharger information in Hartman's book are much more contemporary. Hartman's book is not generally a threat to sending Macinnes's "classic" out-of-print, but perhaps it may motivate Macinnes' publisher to commission a much-needed revision and update.

Hartman's book is much better written than Corky Bell's Maximum Boost: Designing, Testing, and Installing Turbocharger Systems. And Hartman's coverage of water injection is much more fair and balanced than Corky Bell's knee-jerk condemnation of it. However, Corky Bell's book contains a number of fabrication insights that Hartman omits. Corky Bell's book will likely continue to have strong appeal to hands-on builders, while Hartman's book is more oriented toward customers who want a better grasp of the engineering basics.

Hartman's book is weaker on alternative fuels and supplemental fueling systems than A. Graham Bell's Forced Induction Performance Tuning: A Practical Guide to Supercharging and Turbocharging. While Hartman's book is better illustrated and probably significantly better on turbo math and emerging developments, A. Graham Bell's work is generally more comprehensive on a number of topics of interest to enthusiasts and small kit engineers. While Hartman's book is grounded mostly in Texas and California-based tuning shops (Norwood, Bell, Banks), A. Graham Bell's book has a more international and historical perspective. A. Graham Bell's book is also superior on the comparative merits of the various forced induction systems.

Hartman's book will most likely compete with Mark Warner's Street Turbocharging: Design, Fabrication, Installation, and Tuning of High-Performance Street Turbocharger Systems. Warner's book isn't as flashy and is more narrowly focused (and a bit cheaper to purchase). Warner's book has also been criticized by some for niggling typographical errors. However, Warner's book is probably a bit more oriented toward small shops and home-based kit builders using petrol engines. Warner's book also includes a series of case studies and some empirical test data (but, like Hartman's book, Warner's book tends to be weak on specific tuning protocols). Warner omits niceties such as an index, which Hartman includes.

Hartman's book contains an interesting retelling of the General Motors Performance Division struggle to turn the production Ecotec four cylinder engine into a high-boost land speed record and drag racing engine and the consequential development of the production GDI turbo version. However, other than the GM saga (which at least proves that blowing up development engines is not limited to the aftermarket) Hartman's book tends to be thin on empirical test results and source documentation. Instead, Hartman liberally peppers the text with photographs of various exotic, custom turbo systems (and provides few specifics as to specifications or results achieved) As with most competing publications, Hartman's book does not follow academic conventions of documentation.

Hartman's book has little to say about recent trends such as "twincharging" and rear/remote-mounted turbochargers and almost no insights into engineering such systems. This is a major disappointment given the recent publication date of the book.

Hartman's book ought to be a good seller in the enthusiast market, notwithstanding the price. It is a good introductory book as well as confirming of some recent trends and expected developments. However, it is a supplement, not a replacement, for some of the more time-tested works in the field.

"LIL' JOHN" BUTTERA -- DEAD AT 68

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"LOS ANGELES (AP)—“Lil’ John” Buttera, an innovative creator of hot rods, dragsters and Indy cars who was praised as much for his artistic designs as his engineering, has died. He was 68."

FoMoCo hot rodders who grew up in the '70s and '80s remember Buttera as one of the legends and innovators of the resurgence in street rodding and the emergence of "billet" parts. His small block Ford-powered Center Door Model T wowed millions of Hot Rod readers in the early '70s. His hand-built billet creations in the late 1970s and early 1980s set the standards that inspire high-end pro shops even today.

Buttera was an artist with machine tools. Speedzzter recalls that Buttera once told a magazine writer that making parts out of a chunk of aluminum billet is just cutting away everything that doesn't look right.

Buttera brought a racers sense of lightness and efficiency to his creations. He was a leader in the "smooth" movement which included his friend Boyd Coddington and, of course, ex-Coddington designer Chip Foose, as well as many others.

Buttera lived to see "billet" trim become both a mass market item in street rodding and development of a huge "billet-proof" retro backlash. When Buttera started, "billet" represented high art and creativity. But now it's often seen as "credit card/catalog rodding" by its detractors.

Buttera and his artistry, of course, transcended the "billet" controversy.

While the "greatest generation" of post-war hot rod pioneers are passing at an increasing rate, the deaths this month of Boyd Coddington and now "Lil' John" hopefully really bring home how fragile and brief our lives are.

May God bless the Buttera family. And thanks "Lil John" for inspiring millions of hot rodders and racers across the globe.

FERRARO IS PARTLY RIGHT ABOUT OBAMA

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Geraldine Ferraro, former New York Congresswoman and 1984 Democratic nominee for Vice President has roiled the politically-correct waters of the 2008 personality pageant also known as the Democratic Presidential Primary.

As has been reported across the mainstream media, Ferraro said last Friday (March 7, 2008):

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

Of course, both Barack “middle-name-rhymes-with-McCain” Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton have fueled the media fixation on Ferraro’s observation. HRC grabbed the mic to disavow Ferraro’s jab, claiming:

"I do not agree with that . . . It's regrettable that any of our supporters - on both sides, because we both have this experience - say things that kind of veer off into the personal."

Naturally HRC’s politically-correct rebuke guarantees that Ferarro’s remarks are reprised over and over in the media as “background.”

Barack “Who’s-Sayin-his-middle-name” Obama has also pumped up the controversy for all it’s worth in high-profile television appearances.

The chief prophet of Obama-mania is always quick to point out how TOUGH it is for a young telegenic and articulate liberal-of-Color to navigate the shoals of the Chicago Democratic machine and to parlay his sudden appearance on the National scene into an identity politics-driven run at the White House. And then Obama dove-tails his poor-pitiful-Barack sob story into his stump speech riff about the evils of the old-timey politics of race, sex and partisanship.

So was Ferraro right?

Partly.

Now Ferraro ought to be considered an expert on identity politics, given that fact that the only reason we’ve ever heard of her is that Walter Mondale needed a huge gamble to have even a prayer of upsetting Ronald Reagan in 1984 and picked an obscure female member of Congress as his running mate.

In other words, had Ferraro been a man, she “would not have been in [that] position. [She] happen[ed] to be very lucky to be who [she was].” But thankfully, the country did not get “caught up in the concept."

But Obama-mania cannot be solely attributed to the fact that “the candidate” is a media-friendly Mulatto.

While Ferraro correctly observed that much of the fuel behind the ballistic rise of Young Barack is the complex interface of liberal white guilt and the assertion of African-American voting power in the Democratic party, she failed to account for the generational dimension.

Obama’s fluffy gibberish is calculated to position him as a new generation of politician, notwithstanding that he’s arguably just as much of a baby boomer as HRC. Thus, every time Young Barack mouths something about “old” or “change,” he’s sending a powerful metamessage that plays into the angst and covetousness of the younger-than-baby-boom generation.

In a Nation that is fixated on both staying young and the myth of the underdog, Obama’s rhetorical seed has thus far fallen on fertile soil.

Of course, none of this is particularly new. Breezy appeals for youth-driven “revolution” have been frequent in American political history. Scores of pundits have analyzed to death the comparisons between John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Obama. Notwithstanding the arguable differences in experience and gravatas Obama, like JFK, apparently has the “street cred” to pull off the appeal to restless youth voters.

The fact that Obama’s behind-the-empty-speeches radicalism has attracted strong support from the limousine/private jet liberals and intellectually-vacuous Hollywood celebrities further “blows up” Obama’s appeal to the impatient MTV Generation.

The same shallow illiterati who absorb “slasher” video games, Lila Tequila, and hyper-politically-incorrect “gangsta rap” as the currency and pinnacle of American culture undoubtedly see Obama as SOMETHING DIFFERENT from the stodgy old fogie politicians of their parents’ generation – who fight all the time like some trailer park trash in divorce court, spend millions and billions on incomprehensible wars that trash the Planet, jibber-jabber incessantly about sleep-inducing arcana “like” 401Ks, accelerated depreciation and Wall Street, but just cannot ever seem to do anything about the IMPORTANT stuff, “like” making a decade of partying in college free.

Obama’s incredible “liteness” of being and his young, “Kool,” waif-like, non-Caucasian look are tailor-made to appeal to the inexperience and untested idealism of youth.

Ferraro is obviously right in her observation that if Barack “Rhymes-with-Hugh’s-stain” Obama were, say whitebread Billy Olsen, he’d likely still be some well-spoken but obscure Chicago lawyer. If you throw a cat at an American Bar Association convention, you’d hit a hundred young lawyers who could “talk the talk” as well as Obama.

[Of course, throwing anything in a room with more than its share of "ambulance-chasing" trial lawyers is an invitation to get sued . . . .]

QUICK! Name one thing significant that Obama’s accomplished in his aphoristic political career . . .

Unless you’re a hard-core political junkie or an Obama operative schooled for this question, your mind is blank. As are the minds of the overwhelming majority of Obama’s worshipers, voters and fanatics when pressed to identify any real “change” that their hero has marshaled through the legislative system.

Amazingly, Ferarro is surprised at the backlash against her.

She should know better.

Race, not Social Security is the real “third rail” of American Politics.

While candidates such as Obama and even old Bill Clinton can tap it for “juice” to power the electorate, if you touch it in the wrong way, you get zapped. And it’s clear that telling the truth about it in the modern, politically-correct, identity-driven, Affirmative Action world of the Democratic party is a quick ticket to becoming a pariah.

IS IT TIME FOR THE "NASCAR NATION" TO STOP COMPLAINING?

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Yesterday, Yahoo Sports blogger Jay Busbee picked up Speedzzter's "The Day NASCAR Died" entry on the "From the Marbles" blog.

The resulting explosion of blog traffic was much greater than from Speedzzter's political fare or posts about Ford Motor Company issues.

Thanks Jay and "From the Marbles."

Of course, the well-placed NASCAR paid propagandists are trying to pacify the natives of the so-called "NASCAR NATION," claiming that all's well or even better than ever.

For example, Turner's Joe Menzer, over at the NASCAR-restricted NASCAR.com website sings the praises of Toyota's sudden dominance in an attack piece clearly aimed at Jack Roush and Roush-Fenway Racing:

But to all those who say that this long-predicted and much-feared emergence of Toyota means the end to all that is sacred and good about NASCAR, it's time to say this: Grow up.

Menzer's screed (which could have been drafted either by Brian France's public relations rep or Toyota's TRD) is entitled "To deal with Toyota, stop complaining, go compete."

Of course, Menzer claims that Toyota's [not so] "long way to the top" is simply the product of good, old-fashioned 'Merican hard work.

But Menzer ignores virtually all of the legitimate criticisms about how the Brian France regime has stage-managed and bootstrapped Toyota's NASCAR trajectory. Because Jack Roush has been the most vocal critic among the elite and insular club of Sprint Cup owners, Roush is, unfairly, Menzer's villain.

However, Menzer's myopic "all is wonderful" view of the Toyota Cup . . . oops . . . Sprint Cup and the bush-league Nationwide and Craftsman Truck Series ignores that the status quo in NASCAR is wholly unsatisfactory to millions of "fully grown up" consumers who used to be in the stands or watching on TV.

Moreover, The obvious problem with the "go compete" canard is that unless one is willing to spend 100+ million dollars to snag a "factory deal" field a huge superteam (and then be prepared for NASCAR to give away, restrict or outlaw any non-production technology you might spend millions and millions to develop) there is "no competing" with Toyota's buy-out of NASCAR.

NASCAR didn't make Toyota build and sell to the general public what they wanted to race.

Instead NASCAR let Toyota (and Dodge) crib the best from Ford and GM's 40+ year investment in NASCAR as a baseline. And NASCAR gave Toyota (and Dodge) essentially the same aerodynamics with the hideous COT. Thus we have a freakish "common-template" non-production rear-wheel-drive pushrod/carbureted V8-powered "Toyota Camry" funnycars dominating in laps led, if not yet wins.

And Toyota's capture of Joe Gibbs Racing is disloyal, "checkbook racing" at its most shameful (not that Speedzzter would be complaining if Gibbs moved to Ford . . . .)

You could likely put all of the production-based parts on the NASCAR "Toyota Camry" in a large suitcase and still have plenty of room for a case of whatever Brian France must have been drinking when he concocted this disaster plan.

And all of the overpaid NASCAR shills are pushing this mess as some sort of Second Coming for the sport of "stock car" racing.

So should the "NASCAR NATION" just "grow up?" Just give up and go along with the path the France Family has dictated for us to follow?

No sale!

Sorry, but NASCAR's "gimme" to Toyota is another huge step down the road to the extinction of OEM production-car-based AMERICAN stock car racing.

At least there are still V8 Supercars racing in the Land of OZ, so there's a little something left for us old-fashioned "Walter Mitty" OEM production stock car fans to identify with.

And that indicates how disappointed and disgruntled NASCAR fans could "go compete:" By watching more relevant racing elsewhere. Or spending their time and money engaged in other motorsports activities. Such "starving of the Brian France Beast" is the sort of competition that would get NASCAR's attention.

Hopefully, some dangerous fans with paving equipment and other promoters that NASCAR has left behind will someday develop a production-based alternative to the Brian France COT circus -- an alternative which returns to real, OEM production "stock car racing" (with suitable safety systems added, of course)

Now that would be a real way to "go compete."

. . . An alternative which does not require 100-person teams or a million dollars per race to compete. An alternative that equalizes the "playing field" with production parts sold in the showroom, and not fabricated in the secret labs of superteams. . . .


Yahoo Sports NASCAR blog's Daily Dose column by Bob Margolis, asserted a different defense of the 2008 NASCAR season. He claims that the season in which NASCAR DIED has "shown all the signs of . . . being a classic year . . . ."

Margolis then gives ten reasons why and threw down a dare for NASCAR critics to proffer ten reasons why not. (Possibly Bob was standing down wind from where Goodyear was burning all of those "junk" tires that didn't get the Tony-Stewart-Stamp-of-Approval at Atlanta).

Several NASCAR traditionalists have responded. Of course "Truth With Speedzzter" is more than happy to pick up the gauntlet of a challenge . . . .

2008 is shaping up to be a dismal year for "NASCOT" because:

1. Too much "single file" riding instead of racing.

2. Too many "fans disguised as empty seats."

3. No "renewal" of the Southern 500 (again).

4. Too many "cookie cutter" 1.5 mile ovals on the schedule.

5. More overhyped Indy 500 winners riding around laps down at the back than at the Indy 500.

6. Tony's [Stewart's] brain and razor aren't working (Maybe ol' Smoke could stuff that Old Spice towel into his mouth).

7. The Wood Brothers keep missing the show. ]

8. Impending sell-out of Petty Enterprises.

9. Toyota dominance in an ugly "common-template," freakish "NASCAR" which has nothing to do with anything sold anywhere, in any showroom, to anybody, anywhere.

(not that any consumer would pay for something that looks like Bob-the-Builder mocked it up out of cardboard, plopped on a "tuner wing" and "splitter" from the Pep Boys, and slathered it with fake-looking "brand identification" decals).

10. No competitive single car teams.

11. Yates Racing #28 (Travis Kvapil) struggling on the pick-up-sponsor-of-the-week program.

12. "Rowdy" Busch is a wreck waiting to happen on nearly every lap.

13. The "24 hours of California."

14. Backmarker Dale Jarrett still hasn't retired.

15. Dale Jr.-- New team, new number, new driving suit . . . and same old losing streak.

16. Mark "Viagra" Martin -- still stroking around, but in a Chevy.

17. Jeff Gordon -- still hated as a gutless turncoat by Ford Racing fans, but still running better than he should be.

18. Still too much of shameless Toyota pitchmen the Waltrip Brothers on television.

19. Fox Gopher cam.

20. New Hampshire is still a boring death trap with two dates (thanks oldcorps116).

Bonus: BRIAN FRANCE . . . .

How's that list, Bob?

THE VEEPSTAKES: THERE IS AN OBVIOUS LOSER

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Uberpundit Fred Barnes, of Fox News and Weekly Standard fame has plunged head-first into the Mitt Romney for Vice President campaign.

Barnes, apparently writing directly from the talking points paid for by Willard Mitt Romney (a/k/a the Gucci Chameleon, "Mitt-the-Flip," Bishop Mitt, the Vain Bain Capitalist, "Flipper Mitty," "Slick Willard" and that "guy who made hundreds of millions by outsourcing your job to China"), claims that Romney is the "obvious winner" as McCain's choice for Number Two.

R-i-g-h-t.

And New York Governor Elliot "Mess" Spitzer is a committed monogamist who'd never pay a floozie $5,000-an-hour for some nookie . . . .

Barnes' "analysis" (e.g. Romney commercial) ranks about as credible as Bill Clinton's infamous claim that he "didn't inhale."

Fred appears to be inhaling something (perhaps the sweet smell of beau-coup Greenbacks from Mitt's unlimited bankroll . . . or maybe the same stuff that Professor Benny Shanon was apparently on when he claimed Moses hopped-up on psychedelics at Mount Sinai)



[Of course Fred is probably just parroting the News Corporation company line as a dutiful employee]

Selecting Mitt Romney as vice president is a sure-fire way to torpedo John McCain's chances in November.

Just punch the "Mitt Romney" link below on this website for more about Romney's Mormon Tabernacle-sized list of political defects.

But here's the "Executive Summary" for those otherwise occupied at the "19th hole."

"Pit-Bull-Mitt" is a flip-flopping political novice who used his huge personal fortune to attack fellow Republicans.

"Bishop Mitt" overwhelmingly alienates at least 1/3 of the GOP base.

"Mitt-the-Flip" lost in many of the Red States where the GOP must win. (Romney didn't win any place that McCain was uncompetitive so he adds virtually no regional balance to the ticket.

"Slick Willard" stands for almost nothing solid (he's grossly flip-flopped on nearly every issue important to social conservatives).

The Vain Bain Capitalist also is the perfectly-coifed poster child for almost every negative stereotype the electorate holds about the GOP.

If Five hundred million dollars worth of free media from Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and a host of other GOP "attack radio" stars couldn't sell "Mitty" to the GOP base (who were primed and ready for SOMEONE to rescue the GOP in 2008), why does Fred Barnes believe that Romney would sell any better among the more moderate (and more skeptical) general electorate?

Mitt as Veep would be a disaster (and a guarantee that this card-carrying Republican wouldn't even put a McCain-Romney sticker on the old Powered-By-Ford SpeedWagon . . .)

Central to the Romney-ian argument for the "superiority" of Slick Willard as Veep is the claim that he's been anointed by Karl Rove and George W. Bush.

Rove, of course, has been an in-the-tank Romney-ian for months. And , given the obvious fact that Rove and Bush have lead the GOP nearly to the abyss (including with sterling picks such as Donald Rumsfeld and Bush's gross negligence in not using the veto pen to stop profligate spending while the GOP still had control of Congress), it's hardly a ringing endorsement of their collective wisdom in selecting personnel or sensing the direction of the political waters.

But Rove and Bush pushing the Gucci Chameleon is certainly a fact that will make for a nice Democrat attack ad in the fall.

Mitt Romney is only the "obvious" winner of the Veepstakes if the GOP has a death wish in November.

THE DAY NASCAR DIED

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March 9, 2008 . . . a date that will live in motorsports infamy.

March 9, 2008, is the date when Brian France’s plot to destroy American “stock car” racing and hand the cold, dead carcass over to the Japanese began to bear rotten fruit in the highest echelons of the sport.

March 9, 2008, is the day when the ersatz, “common-template” funnycar, powered by a never-production, never-sold-to-the-general public, purpose-engineered and built pushrod “Toyota” V8, garnered the first Sprint Cup win for the burgeoning, billions-of-Yen Toyota take-over of NASCAR.

Plenty of fans “dressed as empty seats” witnessed Kyle Busch -- possibly 2008's most unpopular non-Southerner to slide through a “common-template” window opening– and his traitorous teammate, scruffy Tony Stewart, wheel their hideous, Joe Gibbs “Toyota Camry [sic]” common-template funnycars to the top two spots at the Atlanta Motor Speedway in the 2008 Kobalt Tools 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup race.

Now it’s official.

There’s simply no reason for a red-blooded American who appreciates the storied traditions of Southern-style stock car racing to ever watch or attend a WWE -on-wheels NASCAR show ever again.

NASCAR has “jumped the shark” . . . and the shark is now a fine plate of overpriced sushi being served up in an air-conditioned luxury box to some golf-shirt wearing corporate hacks from Tokyo.

They might as well change the meaning of the NASCAR acronym to the Nippon Association of Schizoid Car Auto Racing.

Brian France -- who is quite possibly the best living argument for a 100% inheritance tax in America (perhaps second only to William Clay Ford, Jr.).-- has been trying for years to give NASCAR over to Toyota.

First, the moronic Brian France let Toyota make up a “clean sheet” pushrod NASCAR racing engine, learning from the best Ford Motor Company and others had taken years to develop.

Then the vapid Brian France allowed Toyota to become the dominant make in the Craftsman Truck Series, ruining whatever limited appeal that bogus “funnytruck” series ever had.

Then Brian-the-Buffoon countenanced Toyota’s concocting of a rear-wheel-drive, pushrod V8 powered “Toyota Camry” (that’s wholly unlike anything the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, Ltd. and its successors ever sold to any consumer, anywhere, at any time, ever.)

Brian France, the latest patriarch of the dictatorial France family and the one who has killed or assisted in the killing many venerable Southern traditions, such as racing at the North Carolina Motor Speedway and on Labor Day in Darlington, South Carolina, at the Southern 500, as well as pushing full-throttle on the non-stock, “common-template” aesthetic abortion known as the “Car of Tomorrow,” apparently sees allowing huge superteams funded by millions and billions of dollars from Japan as the ultimate in progress for the formerly, all-American sport of “stock car” racing.

And the France family’s iron-handed monopoly on racing facilities that could theoretically support the birth of a new TRUE STOCK CAR series (i.e. racing of cars that the general public can actually purchase, just like when NASCAR began “strictly stock” competition 60 years ago), likely means that Brian France’s gift of the last major American motorsports series over to the Japanese will go mostly unabated.

(Note that already, due to Tony George’s idiotic Indy Racing League power grab, Indy/Champ Car racing is now exclusively powered by Honda).

The warning signs of the Toyota take-over have been gathering all season.

Toyota has dominated the lackluster warm-up days in the bush-league Nationwide Cup and the aforementioned Craftsman Truck mess. And “Shrub” Busch has been recklessly flinging around his horrendously ugly “common-template” “Toyota Camry [sic]” Sprint Cup funnycar like a crazed PCP addict.

(Of course, wild recklessness, along with a fair amount of fan hatred, is what many believe cost “Shrub” his ride with the Hendrick Chevrolet superteam)

And NASCAR tipped everyone to its growing fondness for all things Japanese when it heavily penalized the Roush-Fenway Ford team for a loose oil tank cover after Carl Edward’s win last week in Las Vegas, handing the season points lead over to a Toyota team for the first time ever.

Whether or not NASCAR gave Toyota and Gibbs “the Call” on March 9 will undoubtedly be the subject of debate for years. But from Speedzzter’s perspective, NASCAR has already given Toyota so many “calls” to bootstrap them to this point, that one more probably wasn’t necessary.

Of course, for traditionalists, the irony of Toyota’s “first big win” is that it was at Atlanta. Atlanta was the site of perhaps the greatest race in NASCAR history (and no, Dale Earnhardt didn’t win it).

The 1992 Hooters 500 probably was the pinnacle of the “modern era” of NASCAR, and likely for the foreseeable future.

In that storied race, owner-driver Alan Kulwicki took the NASCAR Winston Cup championship with his non-common-template Ford “Underbird” Thunderbird (which still featured a number of production-based body panels, an engine derived from parts Ford had at one time sold regular Joes in production cars, and had its drive wheels on the same end as the production Thunderbirds of the day).

Kulwicki battled Ford heros Bill Elliott (driving for Junior Johnson) and Davey Allison (driving for Holman-Moody alumnus Robert Yates) for the championship that day.

Also that day, the hated FoMoCo turncoat Jeff Gordon infamously started his first “Cup” race in a Hendrick Chevrolet and The King, Richard Pettydrove his last.

Petty, incidentally, drove Fords as a protest during the 1969 season and strongly lobbied hard for this boring, common-template mess decades later)

Kulwicki was the last owner-driver to win the championship.

Kulwicki was the last driver to win the championship who was not a member of a huge, factory-backed superteam.

And Kulwicki was the last driver to win a championship in a car that was not based (loosely) on a prosaic front-wheel-drive model converted to pushrod V8 power and rear-wheel-drive.

Of course, the old-fashioned, brutal oval layout that began in 1960 as Atlanta International Speedway and on which Kulwicki won the 1992 Winston Cup has now been turned into another bloated, boring, cookie-cutter “tri-oval.” (According to the Speedway’s website, “When the 1.5-mile track, then called Atlanta International Raceway, finally made its debut on July 31, 1960, it became the seventh superspeedway,a paved facility of one mile or more, to play host to a Cup race. Only three of the original seven; Darlington Raceway, Daytona International Speedway and Lowe's (then Charlotte) Motor Speedway are still in operation.”)

The little-guy owner/driver teams are all gone as well.

And there’s probably not one OEM production part left in the repugnant common-template funnycars that Brian France claims are the “cars of tomorrow” today.

And now, in the daze of huge corporate dominance, massive superteams with obscene budgets, sagging attendance and flat television ratings, Brian France’s little gift to Toyota is the final insult to true stock car-loving traditionalists.

Also ironic is that Toyota's racing arm is known as Toyota Racing Development or TRD -- which is exactly what a Toyota winning a NASCAR race is: A TRD.

Perhaps the old fans who are watching the weeds grow at North Wilksboro and Rockingham and recalling the Old NASCAR are seeing a better show these days. At least they have their memories . . . .

The NASCAR we knew is dead. Absolutely dead.

NO "GREEK TRAGEDY" FOR THE DEMOCRATS

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Now that Mike Huckabee's gone and McCain coasting to the GOP nomination in September, what is there left to blog about in the 2008 election?


The Democrats . . .

Fuel for the blogging fire today comes from a Real Clear Politics hand-wringer entitled "Are Dems Headed for a Greek Tragedy?"

The thesis for the "Greek Tragedy" theory is that a sagging Hillary Rodham Clinton and an upstart Barack "John-McCain-has-forbidden-us-to-use-his-middle-name-that-rhymes-with-McCain" Obama will somehow manage to turn their contest-of-personality into a party-splitting internecine hate-fest that cannot win in November.

(The longer the Democratic nomination show runs, the more we will see these sorts of wonkish "inside baseball" angst-ridden opinion pieces from the mainstream media political set)

But the "Greek Tragedy" speculation prompted Speedzzter to whip up a somewhat sarcastic comment that turned out to be such a fun piece of writing, it should be posted again here:

As much as Speedzzter would enjoy seeing the Democrats break out into a metaphorical civil war or collapse into a Chicago '68-style chaos, don't bet the taxpayer-subsidized, all-organic family farm (or the welfare check) on it.

A large number of radicalized Democrats (including a significant plurality of irresponsible losers scamming for yet another big government handout) would vote for a rotten, maggot-filled watermelon for president if it ran as a Democrat in 2008.

Obama's "9-to-1" supporters will NEVER, EVER, EVER stray from the Democratic "plantation" in '08 . . . even if the cult of Obamamania totally collapses or if the sneaky Clintonistas were to engineer a complete and total "theft" of the nomination. That's a solid, bet-every-devalued-Dollar-in-your-pocket-and-take-out-a-second-subprime-mortgage-for-some-more-coin-to-wager lock.

Should HRC fail to pull it out, nearly everyone supporting her will enthusiastically leap to another free-spending, tax-hiking, weak-on-defense, fetus-hating, lose-in-Iraq liberal.

Just the chance that a liberal (any liberal) would likely appoint 3-5 "living Constitution," make-it-up-as-you-go activists from the ranks of the "pirate" trial lawyers bar and the ACLU to the U.S. Supreme Court is enough to drive the looters and freeloaders on the left to vote "early and often" regardless of whether Obama or HRC prevails.

Moreover, the elite "Superdelegates" and the limousine/private jet liberals who run the show in the Democratic party will force an Obama/HRC liberal dream ticket as a made-for-HDTV show of left-wing unity.

(Sorry, Al Gore will have to be satisfied with outsourcing his massive carbon footprint and remaining the left's richest and most celebrated loser).

Such a mulatto/female Democratic ticket, regardless of which of the two almost indistinguishable tax-hiking, wild-spending, surrender-first leftists heads it, would be about enough to send your average superficial liberal into hallucinations of ecstasy (and that's without any assistance from drugs).

And that's not even counting all of the dead people who will somehow cast a ballot for the Democratic nominee . . . .

Republicans simply cannot count on an imaginary Democratic split to yield any tangible benefits for the GOP in 2008.

[Okay, so Ann Coulter has nothing to fear from "Truth with Speedzzter," but hopefully you enjoyed reading this post as much as Speedzzter enjoyed writing it]

HUCKABEE CROSSES THE “FINISH LINE” WITH HONOR

[UPDATE: After posting this, Truth with Speedzzter became aware of an eloquent blog by campaign correspondent Joy Lin. Ms. Lin's blog makes many of the same points as the blog entry below, but with the elegance and grace of a highly-paid network journalist. All Huckabee supporters should read Ms. Lin's blog]

“Little Rock, AR – Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee concluded his 2008 bid for the Republican nomination for President tonight, calling upon his supporters to embrace the candidacy of U.S. Senator John McCain (AZ).”

“Huckabee, a champion of conservative values, said: ‘I extend my congratulations – and my commitment to John McCain and the Party – to do everything possible to unite our party and our nation, to be the best country we can be, not for ourselves, but for future generations. I am grateful that Senator McCain has led an honorable campaign because he is an honorable man.’”

“‘It's now important that we turn our attention, not to what could have been or what we wanted to have been, but what to now must be, and that is a united party,’ Huckabee stated in his speech to supporters gathered in Texas tonight.”

“Huckabee said, ‘Not only have we fought the good fight and finished the race but more importantly, we have kept the faith. I would rather lose an election than lose the principles that got me into politics in the first place.’”

“‘While many in the establishment never really believed I belonged, there were many in the country that did,’ he said. ‘Thanks to their sacrifices, I had a voice – and I only pray that I have been able to give them a voice.’”

“Huckabee said he represented average Americans who work two jobs to meet ends meet; conservatives who want less – but more efficient – government with less corruption; people who believe we should overhaul our tax system, implement the Fair Tax and get rid of the IRS; the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines, who keep us free; those who cherish life and those who have yet to be born.”

“Huckabee, who ran an extremely small but cost-effective campaign, concluded his remarks by stating, ‘Our battle was never about us. It was about our country and its liberty. Now, we join with Senator McCain in the rest of that battle, not for who gets elected, but for what we can do when we get elected.’”

“Huckabee finishes the race with delegates from his victory in eight primaries and caucuses. He won caucuses in Iowa, West Virginia, and Kansas. Huckabee also won primaries in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana, and his home state of Arkansas.”

Almost immediately, a huge outpouring of support flooded the blog at www.mikehuckabee.com.

A number of pro-Huckabee bloggers also posted heart-felt reactions and support for Mike.

FIVE SMALL STONES WEREN’T ENOUGH THIS TIME

The bottom line is that more conservatives chose Senator John McCain over a true Reagan Conservative with an excellent record of executive public service.

Thus, the conservative carping over John McCain’s nomination should end now.

McCain won the GOP nominating contest “fair and square.” (Of course, McCain still has to be voted the nominee in September, but baring a disaster of some sort, such a vote is a fait accompli at this juncture.)

So why did Huckabee “cross the finish line” in second place?

Why weren’t “five small stones” enough to fell the Goliath of the GOP establishment and paid “attack radio”/Fox News Channel elites?

For Huckabee’s faithful Evangelical Christian supporters, the ultimate conclusion is that it wasn’t God’s will for Huckabee to win at this time.

The miracles of young David vs. Goliath or of Gideon’s small band against the Midianites are milestones because of their improbability and abnormality.

Mature Christians know that they are often called to be faithful in apparently “lost causes.”

Mike Huckabee “fought the good fight” and “kept the faith.” It is of no dishonor whatsoever that he did not prevail. He obediently did what he was supposed to do according to the dictates of his conscience.

Mature Christians know that obedience isn’t about achieving a particular result (although reaping a bountiful harvest can be a blessed temporal reward).

“We sow the seeds but God gives the increase.”

In other words, obedience is about the PROCESS of stepping out in diligently in faith, doing what’s right and following the leading of the Lord -- often times in spite of what the elites and the know-it-all wags of this World say.

For more secular pundits, theological excuses aren’t tangible enough. They will point to the following Huckabee failures:

1. Not enough money: Huckabee’s lean campaign was simply too anorexic to compete nationwide. And it wasn’t well-funded enough to beat back the misrepresentations of the Gucci Chameleon, “Slick Willard” Mitt Romney and his bought-and-paid-for surrogates over at the Club for Growth.
2. Not enough organization: Little money meant Huckabee had to rely on spirited volunteers acting without leadership in too many places. Although this worked in Iowa, it wasn’t enough in the states which came to dominate the primary season: the large, winner-take-all Northeast and Florida. It also meant that the Huckabee campaign had to concede several Western caucus states to the huge Romney/LDS organizations.

3. Inability to deflect skepticism about Evangelicals: The elites and Romney-ians tagged Huckabee with the label of “Evangelical candidate” early on. In much of the U.S., Evangelicalism is grossly misunderstood and is a “suspect” movement. Notwithstanding Mike Huckabee’s sterling sense of humor, his base guitar playing and other attempts to diffuse the rigid, fundamentalist “Southern Baptist minister” stereotype, Mike Huckabee was not able to attract enough “secular conservatives” to his cause.

Evangelicals should be somewhat troubled that millions of ordinary Americans are so ignorant or skeptical of conservative Christians that they would categorically reject one for national leadership. Obviously, had Evangelicals been more effective at spreading both the culture of Evangelical Christianity and in obeying the “Great Commission” in the decades leading up to this election, the seedbed necessary for Huckabee’s success would have been much more fertile in the Northeast, Midwest and Pacific Coast.

The harsh, often Anti-Christian rhetoric heard during this campaign and the pervasive, unreasonable bias against a high-profile Evangelical such as Mike Huckabee ought to awaken all Evangelicals of the need to become more obedient and active in spreading the Gospel – not so that some future Evangelical could be come President or so that Evangelicals are more popular in general, but so that millions of lives are transformed by the saving power of Christ.

4. Foreign Policy Deficit: Mike Huckabee never gained much traction with the Foreign Policy Conservatives.

Although he said the “right” things about the War in Iraq, Israel, and U.S. strength abroad, Huckabee never spoke with sufficient detail to overcome the skepticism of foreign policy wonks (who naturally distrust the international inexperience of state governors). McCain, of course, used this issue to his advantage against the entire GOP field.

5. Talk Radio: Justice Clarence Thomas once complained about a “high tech lynching,” but we’ve now seen what a concerted effort to destroy an honorable conservative looks like.

Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and a whole host of lesser lights never gave Mike Huckabee any fair treatment. Instead these elite GOP “attack radio” shills became the de facto arms of rival campaigns. The irony is that their attacks against Huckabee yielded an arguably even worse outcome for their conservative followers: the nomination of John McCain.

6. Fred Thompson: Thompson was a lazy, uninspiring spoiler.

[Speedzzter would like a refund of the money he contributed to Thompson’s effort before Speedzzter became convinced that Mike Huckabee was the best choice in 2008]

His lackluster campaign flourish in South Carolina slouched in just enough to turn McCain into the clear front runner. Had Huckabee garnered a fraction of the conservative votes that Thompson bled away, he would have won the Palmetto State and the subsequent course of the election could have been significantly different.

7. Evangelical disunity: Mike Huckabee said that if he couldn’t hold his base together, he couldn’t win.

Yet a whole host of self-anointed Evangelical leaders, such as Richard Land, Pat Robertson and others imbibed deeply the Romney-ian/Club for Growth/Elite GOP Attack Radio Kool-Aide and focused their support on other, more flawed alternatives.

Certainly some of Huckabee’s inability to unify the Evangelical community (at least among Southern Baptist leaders) was a lingering consequence of apparently choosing the wrong side twenty years ago in the Southern Baptist “Holy War.” But other Evangelical leaders apparently viewed pragmatism and secular opinion over principled voting.

8. Too high of a mountain: Jumping from being a little-known Southern governor to being a national candidate is a daunting task.

Only Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter have been able to do so in recent times. But Carter and Clinton were successful during a virtual vacuum in the power structure of their party. Although the GOP primary had no strong front runner or heir apparent, the GOP did have a massive field of potentially viable candidates.

Unlike Carter, who in 1976 could build grassroots support during an attenuated primary season and capitalize on an overwhelming wave of anti-Washington, post-Watergate, Post-Vietnam, "anti-Stagflation" sentiment, Huckabee had little time to capitalize on his upset win in Iowa. Huckabee’s effort was overly dependant upon “retail politics” and he was under-equipped for a multi-million dollar “air war.”

And unlike Clinton, who could occupy the “moderate Southern Democrat” slot mostly alone in 1992, Huckabee had to split the analogous conservative vote with a whole host of other candidates. Thus, Huckabee had to rise too far, too fast to have anything better than a long-shot chance at success.

9. Taxes: Huckabee rose and fell with his “Fair Tax” plan. Some realists rejected it outright as impossible or impractical. And the radical nature of it turned scores of special interests who bank on tax breaks and subsidies in the current byzantine tax code against him.

Ladle on the Romney-ian/Club For Growth/Attack Radio distortions of Huckabee’s fiscally-responsible Arkansas tax record, and the tax issue became a problem for Huckabee that his lack of funding and organization couldn’t overcome.

10. Conservative disunity: Conservatives were unable to coalesce around any alternative to John McCain.

Rudy couldn’t win Social Conservatives.

Fred Thompson couldn’t generate any grassroots excitement.

Romney had a “snowball’s chance” of winning in the South and among Evangelicals and blue-collar conservatives.

Still, all of these competed with Huckabee for conservative voters.

Thus, Huckabee couldn’t position himself early enough as the conservative alternative to McCain. By the time it was mostly a two-man race (not to discount the fervor and fund raising of the libertarians/drug dealers supporting Ron Paul), Huckabee could only strive for a brokered convention, and not an outright win. At that juncture, too many conservatives chose party unity and pragmatism over principle.

Mike Huckabee far exceeded any expectations that the political chattering classes had of him. He is a new star rising in the GOP. He has energized a critical segment of the Reagan coalition in a year when the GOP is somewhat dispirited.

Sadly, he didn’t win, though. His five small stones, "happy warrior" Charisma, folksy charm, and rock-solid faith simply weren’t enough to overcome a Katrina-sized hurricane of skepticism and lies about him and his supporters.

America is better for the fact that Mike Huckabee used this campaign to spotlight the issues that matter most to social conservatives.

And America is worse off in that the same old Eastern Establishment/Country Club/Wall Street/special interest elites who mostly run (and ruin) the modern GOP choked off the process and denied the voters the choice of a true, traditional Reagan Conservative in November.

FEBRUARY SLUMP DEMONSTRATES FORD’S WEAKNESS IN CARS

It could have been worse.

General Motors (GM) took a 12.9% dive in February 2008, down to 268,737 units sold in the United States of America market(But GM is only down 6% for calendar 2008 to date in the U.S.A.).

Cerberus’ Chrysler L.L.C. plummeted 14%, to 150,093 and the MoPar brands have fallen 13.1% in calendar 2008 in the U.S. market.

According to Business Week:

“Ford Motor [Company](F) sales, including Jaguar, Land Rover, and Volvo, dropped 6.6% from the year-ago month, to 196,060 [in the U.S. market]. Year to date, Ford dropped 5.4%, to 355,336. Ford, like GM, has been intentionally cutting back on low-margin sales to daily rental fleets; that business was down 20% in February, accounting for about 60% of the company's decline. But the result wasn't much different for retail sales: Not counting fleets, sales were down 6%, the company said.

"What we're seeing today is definitely the downside of a business cycle, whether or not it's ultimately designated a recession," says Emily Kolinski Morris, Ford senior economist for North America.

However, Toyota, which has a better mix of small cars than FoMoCo, only fell 2.8% in the U.S. market.

All of the blame cannot be laid on the faltering U.S. economy.

Nor can all of the blame be placed on the assumed nexus between the liberal environmental/consumer movement (e.g. Consumer Reports obvious anti-Detroit bias) and the Asian auto makers.

A large chunk of blame rests in FoMoCo’s failure to update and diversify its automobile line-up.

Based on strong sales of the Civic and Fit (both of which are arguably fresher designs than Ford’s Focus), Honda actually increased sales in February by 4.9% and is up 1.5% for calendar 2008.

FoMoCo’s gross neglect is demonstrated in Four critical market segments:

1. The Youth Market: While the Mustang certainly is an iconic car that millions of young drivers lust after, the vast majority of youths will never be able to swing the huge insurance/fuel/monthly payment burden of purchasing a new one.

And even if they could, a whole generation of parents brought up on the “Consumer Reports” mythology (which constantly and consistently dogs rear-wheel-drive sports models) would never sign off on one.

Instead, car buying youth end up in Civics or a variety of more “sensible” Asian cars.

Ford’s problem is that it hasn’t developed a sporty, affordable Sub-Mustang model which mixes practicality with style and panache. Recent small Fords (excluding the underpowered SVT Focus) have had all the youth market appeal of a hair shirt.

Some would say this die was cast back in the 1970s when virtually all of the Detroit automakers conceded the majority of the entry-level car market to the more diversified imports.

But with 35 m.p.g. Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards looming (even if the NHTSA “attribute” regulations eventually soften the blow a bit for FoMoCo), and the graying of FoMoCo’s loyal customer base, Ford must figure out how to build a desirable and affordable youth market model so as to offset enough high-performance V8 Mustangs to satisfy the adult market.

Of course, the Mustang should not be compromised as it was during the infamous Mustang II era (1974-1978) or during the pre-Fox body Mustang GT “daze” (1979-1981) just to chase a few more youth market sales.

Instead, FoMoCo needs to develop a “Sub-Mustang” that is more affordable, practical, fuel efficient, sporting and grassroots “tunable” than the late Mercury Cougar or Ford Probe. Obviously, the halo version of such a youth model should master Mitsubishi’s EVO and Subaru’s WRX STI. But the grassroots “mainstream” model should offer a high level of insurable performance potential at a value price.

Ford also needs to be the first to bridge the import tuner and hybrid worlds with a VW-style twin-charged gas-electric hybrid version of the “Sub-Mustang.” Such an out-of-the-box model would surely generate a wave of youth market enthusiasm.

The “Sub-Mustang” is not a replacement for more “mainstream” models such as the Focus. But as Toyota demonstrated long ago (while Ford was wasting time and money on the Pinto), the small car market is highly segmented and diverse. As fuel prices and environmental pressures increase, more diversity in small cars and more sporting models are essential.

2. Large Sedans: It’s clear that renaming the prosaic Five Hundred as the Taurus didn’t fool anyone. GM’s Chevrolet Impala and Toyota’s Camry still handily outsell Ford’s oversized FWD lump. FoMoCo is reportedly cutting back to only one shift at the Chicago Assembly Plant to cut supplies of the slow selling Tauri/Sable models.

Ford must find a way to build a sedan that generates some sort of mass-market excitement. Impala has achieved a modicum of success in spite of its lackluster FWD specifications because it doesn’t appear be an automotive equivalent to a corrective shoe. Instead, Impala offers an “SS” model with a somewhat fuel-efficient V8, as well as a number of lesser models.

Curiously, Carl Edward’s second 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup win (at Las Vegas on March 2, 2008) in his Roush-Fenway “common template” Ford Fusion funnycar was paced by a Dodge Charger in police livery. This reminded FoMoCo viewers that Dodge is making serious inroads into FoMoCo’s Police Interceptor market share and of FoMoCo’s general neglect of the Panther lines.

Of course, no Police Interceptor can run with a Hemi-Cop Dodge because FoMoCo has withheld Hemi-killing 4-Valve/DOHC Modular V8s from the Panther line (save the nearly forgotten and underdeveloped Mercury Marauder). And FoMoCo hasn’t significantly updated the specs of the Panthers for five years (and has held onto the styling for ten model years).

To be sure, FoMoCo needs two large sedans.

It needs both an anvil-tough body-on-frame Panther-based RWD model for fleet and traditional sedan buyers and a smaller Impala/Camry fighter. And it needs to leverage its V8 heritage with superior DOHC 4-valve direct injected eights as halo models in both lines. (The V8s don’t have to be huge, but optional eight cylinder power (combined with cylinder deactivation and other fuel saving technologies) offer an important psychological link with Ford’s glorious past.

Moreover, both large sedans need a lot more “American swagger” and sportiness than either the Crown Victoria/PI/Grand Marquis/Town Car or the lackluster Taurus/Sable. The old Ford Interceptor concept car showed that some at FoMoCo may have understood this. But typical FoMoCo inaction has caused Ford to continue to miss this market.

Additionally, FoMoCo must take a page from the Europeans and offer torquey turbo diesel options in both of its large sedans.

3. Sports Sedans: Pontiac’s exciting new G8 and Cadillac’s CTS (along with a whole host of RWD BMW, Audi, Mercedes and Lexus models) point to a serious deficiency in FoMoCo’s line: A lack of serious sports sedans. Sports sedans are not high volume models, but are high profit and high profile ones. Sports sedans make a serious statement about the engineering acumen of an automaker.

Ford, of course, has produced serious sports sedans in Australia based on its RWD Falcon. Ford Performance Vehicles (FPV) offers more than one exciting Falcon-based grand touring sedan in the Land Down Under. But Ford’s hapless North American operation has been content for decades to bleed sales to BMW, Audi, Lexus, Cadillac and now Pontiac.

Ford has also occasionally built a flabby, overpriced sport sedan at Jaguar. But Jaguar’s impending release from the FoMoCo fold (as well as its historically poor sales performance) suggests that Ford needs something a bit more disciplined and serious in this segment to be competitive.

A serious RWD sport sedan (with optional turbo diesel and “Eco Force” twin turbo V8 and six) is an essential statement that Ford must make to be taken seriously as international automaker. Without one, Ford will continue to lose owner loyalty to GM and the luxury imports.

4. Small trucks: How old is the Ranger? Who can even remember?

Yet with huge gas prices weighing down the entire American economy, FoMoCo is not very well positioned to sell smaller, more fuel efficient trucks. An updated Ranger with more powerplant and cab/bed options is critical to leading the shift to smaller, more fuel efficient trucks and vans.

A street-going, all-wheel-drive high-performance model inspired (loosely) by Baja 1000 trophy trucks would also be a segment breakthrough.

Ford will continue to suffer -- boycott or none and regardless of the state of the American economy -- as long as it fails to provide a diverse line-up of affordable, exciting and desirable vehicles.

ARE OHIO & TEXAS “MAKE OR BREAK” FOR CONSERVATIVES?

Contrary to the Elite GOP media spin, John McCain has not “mathematically eliminated” Governor Mike Huckabee.

McCain does not have 1191 COMMITTED delegates yet.

As many have pointed out, uncommitted delegates are UNCOMMITTED and can vote however they want at the GOP convention in September. Thus, until McCain has 1191 COMMITTED delegates, Mike Huckabee has at least a theoretical path to stop McCain.

However, too many conservative Republicans are acting as if winning 1191 COMMITTED delegates and then staying politically viable for the next six months until the GOP convention is a mere formality.

For his part, McCain is already “counting his chickens.”

Like a chicken, he’s ducking and dodging debates with Mike Huckabee.

Like a mother hen, he’s apparently sitting on what’s left of his campaign "nest egg" because he’s reportedly nearly at the FEC spending limit for the primary season.

And he’s “crossed the road” and “flown the coop” by campaigning more against the one he assumes will prevail in the Democratic Donnybrook instead of shoring up the conservative base of the GOP “back home.”

Of course, McCain’s mostly “big blue state” plurality path to the GOP nomination has undoubtedly (but incorrectly) taught him that conservative power in the GOP is waning.

As Speedzzter has previously written, if conservatives are not wholeheartedly behind John McCain, then voting for Mike Huckabee is the last clear chance to avoid his nomination and to send a powerful message to the Eastern GOP elites.

It is now up to true conservatives in Texas and Ohio to vote their consciences.

If true conservatives in Texas and Ohio fail to send McCain and the Eastern GOP elites a message in sufficient numbers, Conservatives in those states may be fairly labeled as “all hat and no cattle” or “all talk and no action.”

It’s clear that Mike Huckabee has energized many social conservatives. That much is evident from the continuing enthusiasm that many conservative voters have for his campaign (even after the monolithic chorus of GOP media elites have screamed for “Huck’s Army” to “cease fire”).

But it’s also true that the lingering effects of the corrosive propaganda war funded by Mitt Romney and his paid surrogates at the hypocritical “Club for [No] Growth” has taken its toll.

Conservatives who fail to stand in 2008 (not in 2012 or 2016) for true, rock-solid Reagan conservatism by voting for Mike Huckabee deserve John McCain as a nominee.

It’s not enough to pine away for 2012.

It’s not enough to wistfully dream of an “ideologically pure” third party.

It's not enough to turn toward Congress or local elections (neither of which can stop Hillary/Obama from packing the U.S. Supreme Court and the Federal Judiciary with appointed-for-life liberal ACLU/trial lawyers who will make up the meaning of the Constitution and our laws as they go.)

And it’s certainly not enough to float ridiculous, jack-legged trial balloons, such as a McCain-Romney ticket. (The Gucci Chameleon, “Slick Willard” Mitt Romney lost in the vast majority of the bedrock Red States that the GOP must hold and he de-energizes a sizeable plurality of the voters that ANY GOP nominee must have to win in November)

True conservatives in Texas and Ohio – if they are serious about their convictions -- must take a hard look at John McCain and Mike Huckabee. A hard look that’s independent of all of the paid GOP media spin, public opinion polls and the conclusions of the elite pundits.

If Texas and Ohio conservatives are willing to make a fair, honest, objective comparison, Speedzzter is certain that they will adjudge Mike Huckabee as the true, Reagan conservative choice for the GOP nomination.

The truth about Governor Huckabee is as follows:


1. With ten-and-a-half years of experience running state government, Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas has more relevant executive experience than any candidate in the race – either Republican or Democrat.

2. Recognized and tapped by his peers for leadership, the National Governor’s Association selected Governor Huckabee as it’s Chairman,

3. TIME Magazine honored him as one of the five best Governors in America.

4. Governor Huckabee is a fiscal conservative who cut taxes almost 100 times in the state of Arkansas, including the state’s first broad-based tax cuts, and turned a $200 million deficit into an $850 million surplus.

ISSUES

1. TAXES/ECONOMY –Governor Huckabee supports The FairTax because it will restore the “Made in America” label, making American goods 12-25% more competitive, boosting economic growth, increasing our exports, and securing American jobs. It also prevents criminals or illegal aliens from avoiding taxes, and makes the taxes we all pay 100% transparent.

2. GOVERNMENT SPENDING – Governor Huckabee is committed to reducing government spending. One way he’ll do this is by reducing the cost of welfare. Governor Huckabee will work with states to reduce welfare roles through programs like the one he implemented in Arkansas, which reduced welfare roles by 50%.

3. HEALTH CARE –Governor Huckabee will implement a consumer-based healthcare system that emphasizes preventative medicine and wellness. Because 70% of our $2 trillion dollar healthcare costs is spent treating chronic, preventable diseases, this approach will make healthcare more affordable for everybody while keeping us healthier.

4. FAMILY VALUES –Governor Huckabee supports a federal constitutional amendment to protect the right to life. He Successfully fought for Arknasas’ marriage amendment and strongly supports a similar, federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

5. IMMIGRATION –Governor Huckabee will secure the border (with physical barriers, electronic surveillance, and more border-patrol personnel and detention facilities). He will also end sanctuary cities and increase penalties on, and enforcement against, employers who hire illegal immigrants. Governor Huckabee will make sure the border patrol has adequate funding to end our “catch and release” system so that everyone caught trying to enter illegally, overstaying their visa, or committing a crime will be held until they’re tried, convicted, and deported. Gov. Huckabee has also signed the Numbers USA "No Amnesty" Pledge.

6. WAR ON TERROR AND IRAQ – Governor Huckabee knows it takes a large, well-equipped military to ensure our national defense and to deter conventional military confrontations. He also knows we need large, well-equipped intelligence and Special Forces operations for our national offense – so we can effectively find and eliminate terrorists threats at home or abroad. Governor Huckabee will be a Commander in Chief who knows that IF WE HAVE TO FIGHT A WAR, our President has to fight it the way our GENERALS tell him it can be won, not the way we wants it to be won.

7. ENERGY INDEPENDENCE –Governor Huckabee will implement a program to end the import of foreign oil in the next ten years by increasing domestic oil production in the short term, and then replacing oil-based energy infrastructure with alternative and renewable energies.

8. CLEMENCIES – Arkansas Governors grant clemency, but the parole board grants parole. Wayne DuMond’s parole was granted by the board and NOT Governor Huckabee.

9. TAXES –When Governor Huckabee left office, the tax rates remained exactly the same as when he first came into office. Governor Huckabee returned almost $400 million to Arkansas taxpayers, and he also DOUBLED the standard deduction for individuals and married couples, DOUBLED the childcare tax credit, and eliminated the marriage penalty. He also repealed capital gains taxes for home sales, lowered the capital gains rate by 25%, expanded the homestead exemption, and set up tax-free savings accounts for medical care and college tuition. Gov. Huckabee has also signed the Americans for Tx Reform's pledge not to raise taxes.

10. SECOND AMENDMENT-
• Lifetime member of the NRA, member for over 15 years
• First Governor to have concealed-carry permit
• Removed restrictions on carry permit holders • Protected gun manufacturers from frivolous lawsuits
• Opposes reauthorization of the Assault Weapon Ban
• Opposes expansion of the unconstitutional “Brady Bill”
• Opposes waiting period for purchase of firearms
• Opposes background checks on private firearms transactions at gun shows
• Will nominate judges who interpret the Constitution a the Founders intended, rather than as a “living document reflecting current political trends or opinions”
• An avid hunter and conservationist, and a member of the Ducks Unlimited, National Wild Turkey Federation and BASS.
Governor Huckabee has also been a rock-solid supporter of the right to life (unlike Mitt Romney -- proud father of the $50 abortion co-pay health plan).

Governor Huckabee has said "No candidate has a stronger record on the sanctity of life than I do. I have always been actively and aggressively pro-life. I first became politically active when I helped pass Arkansas' Unborn Child Amendment, which requires the state to do whatever it can to protect life.""As Governor, I used that Amendment to pass pro-life legislation. The many pro-life laws I got through my Democrat legislature are the accomplishments that give me the most pride and personal satisfaction. I banned partial birth abortion, I required parental notification, I required that a woman give informed consent before having an abortion, I required that a woman be told her baby will experience pain and be given the option of anesthesia for her baby, I allowed a woman to have her baby and leave the child safely at a hospital, and I made it a crime for an unborn child to be injured or murdered during an attack on his mother."

"What I accomplished as Governor proves that there is a lot more that a pro-life President can do than wait for a Supreme Court vacancy, and I will do everything I can to promote a pro-life agenda and pass pro-life legislation. If I'm saddled with a Democrat Congress, I'll veto any pro-abortion legislation they pass. I will staff all relevant positions with pro-life appointees. I will use the Bully Pulpit to change hearts and minds, to move this country from a culture of death to a culture of life. I have no desire to throw women in jail, I just want us to stop throwing babies in the garbage."

Unlike McCain, Governor Huckabee is not best remembered for being a “hyphenated politician” (i.e. McCain-Feingold, McCain-Lieberman, McCain-Kennedy . . .)

Governor Huckabee, instead, is a true, consistent Reagan conservative.

Hundreds of true, grassroots conservatives in Texas have endorsed Governor Huckabee.

March 4, 2008, is a time for choosing.

Will true conservatives simply choose to “go with the flow” or will they vote their heart-felt convictions, notwithstanding what the elite leaders of the GOP say?

March 4 is the time when all true conservatives in Texas and Ohio should rally for their Country.

March 4 is the time when true conservatives must take a stand against the Washington D.C. belt-way of doing things.

In other words, it’s a time for choosing Governor Mike Huckabee – the last true Reagan conservative standing.