THE CHURCH OF THE SUV . . . AND WILL WAGONER BE THE SCAPEGOAT?

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Pressure for Congress to act in time to save General Motors is apparently reaching heavenly heights. Detroit's Greater Grace Temple -- better known as the site for the funeral of civil rights icon Rosa Parks -- held a prayer meeting for the Detroit 3 on Pearl Harbor Day.

"'We have never seen as midnight an hour as we face this week,' the Rev. Charles Ellis told several thousand congregants at a rousing service at Detroit's Greater Grace Temple. 'This week, lives are hanging above an abyss of uncertainty as both houses of Congress decide whether to extend a helping hand.'"

"Local car dealerships donated three hybrid SUVs to be displayed during the service, one from each of the Big Three. A Ford Escape, Chevy Tahoe from GM and a Chrysler Aspen were parked just in front of the choir and behind the pulpit."

Some undoubtedly saw a bit of symbolism in that the stage which once held Rosa Parks' casket now holds what some may see as three emblems of the death of Detroit.

More than invoking Divine intervention, the Greater Grace Temple photo-op was likely intended to remind the OBAMAcrats to the centrality of auto workers to the left-center voter coalition that boosted Obama into power.

So far, the OBAMAcrats have produced nothing but tedious lectures, CEO humiliations and a homework assignment. Efforts at a broad solution apparently have stalled.

The developing Congressional aid plan merely seems to be an interim measure calculated to push the Detroit 3 credit crisis into Obama's first term. And the cost for the interim financing may just be the job of General Motors' CEO Rick Wagoner.

Wagoner's GM is approaching its sales and financial crisis with unexpected candor.


"'While we're still the U.S. sales leader, we acknowledge we have disappointed you,'" according to a new mea culpa advertisment from GM.

"At times we violated your trust by letting our quality fall below industry standards and our designs became lackluster."

"We have proliferated our brands and dealer network to the point where we lost adequate focus on the core U.S. market."

"We also biased our product mix toward pick-up trucks and SUVs." [Which, given Federal policy and market demand, was a necessity for survival]

All of this self-flagellation is probably not enough to save Wagoner's job. As the only one of the "insiders" left helming a Detroit 3 company, the OBAMAcrats and skeptical Republicans will likely have to make an example of him as "evidence" that Detroit has "repented" from its profligate ways.

Of course the politicians will not require the same level of "sacrifice" from Ron Gettelfinger or anyone in leadership at the U.A.W.

Maybe Wagoner's a praying man . . . .

Perhaps unintentionally, the prayers at Greater Grace Temple were offered on the 67th anniversary of the "Day that will live in infamy" -- Japan's premeditiated and heinous slaughter on American soil at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Ironically, the imported cars of the Japanese invaders (despite all of the overinflated claims of their inherent superiority) are not selling now either.

Of course, buying a Japanese import under the current economic climate sends a profoundly insensitive, selfish and -- frankly -- anti-American statement to everyone who sees that new paper license plate flapping in the breeze. And an anti-Christian one, considering that the percentage of Japanese who claim to be Christians hovers in the low single digits.

Certainly, most car and light truck buyers don't think much about nationalism or religion when buying a motor vehicle. But the congregants at Greater Grace Temple and scores of other churches that will be hard-hit if one or more of the Detroit 3 fails certainly do.

Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee continues his not-so-subtle war against any assistance whatsoever for the Detroit 3. On Huckabee's Fox News program, he repeatedly pointed out that "Main Street" was not going to get the same kind of "help" as GM, Ford and Chrysler. Along with Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, Huckabee has become a leading mouthpiece for the "let'em fail" crowd.

Of course, Huckabee -- for all his virtues -- is merely pandering to the "Club For Growth" wing of the G.O.P. on this one. He fails to recognize that decades of Washington's policies "broke" the Detroit 3. He fails to notice that the Detroit 3 are abnormally vulnerable to this credit crisis because the playing field is tilted away from the Detroit 3 by government policy. He cannot see that the Detroit 3 have been intentionally bled to near-death from thousands of cuts produced by government hatchets. He apparently cannot see the impact that a failure of the Detroit 3 would have on the greater U.S. economy and American society as a whole.

Instead, he's as myopic as one of those broke seminary students that he used to be --one of the self-centered ones that will buy the cheapest available car from "godless Japan" instead of supporting the jobs of more of his fellow American brothers and sisters, many of which are tithe-paying, devout Christians.

Another irony is that Governor Huckabee -- unashamedly a praying Christian and former minister -- may be praying at cross purposes to those devote folks at the "Church of the SUV" in Detroit. Of course, such irony is virtually always present in contested political battles (and even shooting wars).

It would seem that the Greater Grace Temple "prayer force" has its work cut out for it. But then, according to the bible, "Nothing is impossible with God."

Just tell that to Rick Wagoner and thousands of other soon-to-be-pink-slipped auto workers.

IS TURBO MAGAZINE THE LATEST VICTIM OF THE BAD ECONOMY?

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As the Detroit 3's "Drive On Washington" has arrived and the honchos of the General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Chrysler are fighting for the very life of the U.S. Auto industry, here's a grim diversion.

The Turbo Magazine message board has a post questioning whether Turbo Magazine is about to be shuttered by corporate parent Source Interlink.

While the poobahs at Turbo apparently can't put down the latest "JDM" bits off the boat from Tokyo long enough to squelch or confirm this nasty rumor, the question did prompt this prescient response from one reader:

It wouldn't surprise me if it did [shut down].

I started reading Turbo with Volume 1, Issue 1 back in the mid '80s. I have a copy of every issue of Turbo ever published (except one that the post office lost back in 1993).

The quality of the magazine has declined precipitously over the past fifteen years. When Turbo started it had a balance of American and import cars, as well as D-I-Y hacks and all-out pro builds.

When the U.S. automakers abandoned OEM turbocharging in the early 1990s, Turbo started changing into a blingy Japanese tuner rag. At some point, it even became hostile to power-adder V8s, notwithstanding huge advances in big-inch turbocharging and an explosion of "heads-up" V8 turbo cars in drag racing.

Turbo missed out on grassroots legends such as Mike Sitar They ignored the huge "turbomustangs" message board and on-line community. They never covered the sorts of budget hacks and hops common to Australia's Autospeed magazine. They ignored a whole generation of American high-tech performance cars.

Instead, they concentrated on trying to push Japanese products and bottomless-wallet professional builds.

If someone relies only on Turbo these days, they'd be mislead into thinking only four- and six-cylinder cars of 3.8 literes or less are ever turbocharged.

Sure, Turbo had to do what it took to survive and it needed to serve its advertisers (readers are the product magazines deliver to their real customers -- adverstisers). But Turbo's myopic shift to an exclusive focus on the trendy "JDM" tuner "lifestyle" has left it very vulnerable.

The latest USPS report on subscribers, sales and readership shows that Turbo is not delivering very many eyeballs to their advertisers anymore.

TURBO DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO ACKNOWLEDGE OR CELEBRATE ITS 25th ANNIVERSARY! That ought to be a sign that the current editors don't really have a clue.

The collapse of the Japanese tuning scene hurts the American imitators,too(In Japan there's been lots of bankruptcies, fewer big-buck builds, too much "youth market" action in the 660 cc micro-vehicle class).

One of the Turbo editorials this month attempted to downplay the collapse of the tuner scene, claiming that the "hard core" would keep advancing the sport. But it sounded a bit like whistling past the graveyard to this "OG" reader.

Now with the American economy in the tank, weak books like Turbo are not well-equipped to weather the crisis.

A broader readership base might have saved Turbo. But spending 15 years running off almost all of the readers interested in "turbos and high-tech performance" as applied to (a) V8s,(b) cheap used cars, (c)American cars, and (d)in innovative home-builds is a formula for ruin.

Perhaps I fall outside of Turbo's coveted Wii/PlayStation demographic (after all I'm still ticked over that Pearl Harbor thing & post-WWII Japanese protectionism in their domestic auto market), but my subscription money spends just as well as the duckets of somebody born in 1990.

If Turbo folds, I just hope that they don't start sending me garbage like Super Street or Sport Compact Car to fill out my subscription . . . .

Well said! Let's hope that the staff of Turbo takes this criticism to heart.

ALAN MULALLY MAKING A "DRIVE ON WASHINGTON"

[Get the latest "Truth With Speedzzter" here]

[Read more "Truth With Speedzzter" on the "Detroit Bailout" here]

Truth With Speedzzter (and a legion of more influential pundits) previously suggested that the Detroit 3 CEOs should have lead a "Washington Dream Cruise" convoy new products together with a few thousand of soon-to-be-unemployed workers to the Senate "bailout" committee "turkey shoot" this week.

Detroit 3 supplier Dura Automotive was among the first to adopt the idea.

Dura President and CEO Tim Leuliette said that during the weekend they contacted the automakers, suppliers, dealership groups and the United Auto Workers and the movement began building.

“The proper people are talking to the proper people, and things are getting put together,” said Leuliette. “This really picked up momentum over the weekend.”

But initial report suggested that none of the Detroit 3 CEOs would participate. That false move could dampen the impact of the event.

Then Dura wimped out for "logistical reasons."

Now reports are that Ford Motor Company CEO Alan Mulally will drive a new electric hybrid Ford in the "Drive on Washington."

And why shouldn't he? Nothing would show a skeptical Congress the future potential of Ford and the Detroit 3 better than a demonstration of near-horizon products. As the legendary Charles Lindbergh once pointed out, the way to convince bankers of the value and potential of aviation wasn't to meet with them in their offices, but instead to show them the aircraft out on the airfield.

Mulally's participation, if true, should ramp up the pressure on the other Detroit 3 CEOs to join the "Drive on Washington."

Let's all hope that Dura, Ford and the UAW do this thing right and build a massive convoy. They probably won't. But we could hope.

ANOTHER SUPPORTER OF THE "THEY SHOULD HAVE DROVE TO WASHINGTON D.C." IDEA

[Get the latest "Truth With Speedzzter" here]

Truth With Speedzzter previously suggested that the Detroit 3 CEOs should have lead a "Washington Dream Cruise" convoy new products together with a few thousand of soon-to-be-unemployed workers to the Senate "bailout" committee "turkey shoot" this week.

Instead they failed to grasp an impending public relations debacle and flew in their "private jet/flying conference rooms" at great expense to weakly ask for more money.

Now others are suggesting similar plans. CNBC's Mike Huckman is one of them:

"The "Detroit 3" (I can't call them the "Big 3" anymore) CEOs knew they were sitting ducks, that Congress would be loaded for bear and ready to haul these guys out to the woodshed. So, what did they do? They each flew in corporate jets to DC. I get that bigtime CEOs are busy and that there can be security concerns. But at a time when the American automakers are burning through cash at an alarming rate, laying people off left and right and asking the feds for billions of dollars to help them survive they or their handlers couldn't see the benefit of traveling on a budget?"

"For example, imagine the media bang General Motors could have gotten if Rick Wagoner had driven himself to Washington in one of the new Chevy Volt electric hybrids?

"

Certainly the Volt would have been an out-of-the box grandstand play. But what about a whole fleet of Detroit's latest world-class products. It could have been a moment as grand as the dramatic ending of Francis Ford Coppola's "Tucker: The Man and His Dream," albeit on a much larger and more blue-collar scale.

Sure, it would have cost a lot more in lost production and expenses than $20,000-$60,000 in private jet time. It would have been a logistical nightmare to organized on such short notice.

But America couldn't have ignored the streets of D.C. filled (and shut down) with American automobiles and trucks driven by hard-working fellow Americans who are poised to lose their jobs and homes if Congress fails to act. Nor could it have ignored a "Hot Rod Power Tour" phalanx of new, quality products that should make all fair-minded consumers forget about the dark ages of the 1970s and early 1980s.

They could have even added into the mix a few of the celebrity professional racers who depend on the Detroit 3 for their livelihoods. Why not even ask Jay Leno to ride along? The Detroit 3 had many popular public opinion leaders that they failed to tap in their darkest hour.

Such a display would have demonstrated the urgency of the situation and the need for immediate action better than mere words from a pack of $20,000,000-per-year CEOs ever could.

Even the threat of a "Drive On Washington" would have shaken Congress to the core.

It would have been a road trip for the ages.

It would have been a real-life, legal-speed "Two-Lane Blacktop" moment on a much grander scale. (Remember, the "Two-Lane Blacktop" allegory involved mailing the titles to the race cars of G.T.O. and The Driver to Washington, D.C. -- a metaphor for the impending loss of automotive freedom symbolized in the film)

Alas, the Detroit 3 CEOs played into virtually every negative stereotype the general public holds against them. And they lost . . . for now.