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BUSH CLUELESS ON $4/GALLON GAS: "THAT'S INTERESTING --- I HADN'T HEARD THAT"

Apparently, the leader of the free world is as clueless about living in the "real world" as was his father. The ghost of President George W. Bush's father's failed presidency came to visit him at a White House press conference today, not once, but twice. And it wasn't pretty.

First, Bush was asked if he felt that the current bad economy would doom his party's 2008 presidential candidate, as the bad economy under his father led in great part to the election of President Bill Clinton. Bush's answer was scattered and hesitant; he did say that the US economy, though, is not in a recession, it's just "slow".

But when asked about the many predictions of economic analysts, widely covered in the media, that gasoline would be at $4 a gallon later this year caught the current Bush completely unawares. Bush stated that he had not heard these predictions, and reiterated that more than once in his answer.

"That's interesting, I hadn't heard that," Bush said after a reporter asked about the prospect. "I know it's high now." (Photo - His overseer seems to approve of how well his protege is doing).

Bush's father, George HW Bush, was widely derided as being removed from the "real world" when he was   caught on-camera expressing his wonder, during a visit to a National Grocers Association meeting in Orlando, FL in 1988, at a laser bar code reader at a check-out stand, which had been in wide use since at least 1980, Bush's first year as president.

Maura Reynolds wrote the following for the Los Angeles Times: In the news conference, Bush said, however, that a tax increase by a new Congress and president is as troubling as a prediction of the price of gas.

"If you're out there wondering ... what your life is going to be like, and you're looking at $4 a gallon, that's uncertain," Bush said. "And when you couple that with the idea that ... taxes may be going up in a couple years, that's double uncertainty."

Bush again touted the benefits of alternative fuels and conservation. But he chastised Congress for talking about an $18-billion tax increase for large oil companies.

"All that's going to do is make the price even higher," he said. -30- (end of LA TIMES story)

Bush also made it clear that, in spite of record 2007 profits reported by several oil companies last month, the need for "more research", such as opening up the protected area of Alaska known as "ANWAR", was more important than taxing those oil companies.

Bush also said that "making the tax cuts (on the richest Americans) permanent" was the most important factor in helping the economy, as will be the public spending the "rebate" money they'll be receiving as part of a federal stimulus package, he said, sometime in May.

But the oil companies sure got what they paid for in both Bush presidencies; stalwart protectors, to the last moment, of their employers.

BOYD CODDINGTON, 63, HOT ROD ARTIST EXTRAORDINAIRE

When I read this afternoon that Boyd Coddington had died at the age of 63, it came as no great  shock or surprise. Coddington had gained and lost large amounts of weight during his lifetime, and they say that's tough on anyone's heart, but what struck me most about him was his tenacity, patience, ideals of perfection, and his determination to recover from adversity ... and that's not to mention his gorgeous cars, truly worthy of what someone once called "applied art with a practical purpose". Coddington saw great success, watched as it mostly disappeared, then built himself, his name and his business back up again. What he went through, the tremendous ups and downs, personally and in business, were enough to do-in ten people. I'm just happy that towards its end, his life had become, again, a pretty good success.

While custom car and motorcycle creators have today, thanks to cable TV, become big media stars, like Chip Foose and that family from Orange County Choppers, Coddington was the first.

A decade-and-a-half-or-so ago, we held the "Coolest Car in LA" contest at KTLA MORNING NEWS, which was, at the time, the by-far #1 morning TV show in Los Angeles (and KTLA being one of the first "Superstations", it was also seen nationally). We producer- and on-air types sat down to plan the event, including who we might want to be judges of the contest's finals. The contest ran for about five weeks; there were some 700 entries and all sent a tech sheet about their vehicles along with photos, and the photos were real photos, as this was well before the ubiquity of the Web, and certainly way before digital cameras were priced so to be available to the general public.

As for these judges, one name we all instantly agreed upon the first time it was mentioned: Boyd Coddington. (Photo - "Boydster 2").

JAGUAR, LAND ROVER SALE TO INDIA'S TATA ANNOUNCEMENT NEXT WEEK

Jaguar and Land Rover will soon be owned by Tata, the gigantic Indian car- and truck-maker,  thrust into world view when they introduced their 'Nano' $2,500 (wholesale) four-door, five-passenger sedan at the recent auto show in Delhi. Ford announced several weeks ago that Tata was the preferred buyer for their two UK-based luxury vehicle manufacturers. In the past few days, a flurry of newswire stories detailing the history and success of Tata, led many to believe, correctly, that an announcement from Ford and Tata about the Jag-Land Rover deal was imminent. Today, February 25th, industry weekly Automotive News reported that "Tata Motors will announce its purchase of Jaguar Land Rover on March 5th or 6th."

Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo), like General Motors and the recently privatized Chrysler Corporation is suffering from huge losses and slow sales. The US economy, close to recession, is slamming car and truck sales as many potential car-buyers are having trouble making their house payments, and rents are rising as many people who have lost their homes are suddenly finding themselves back in the rental market. Rental property owners are taking advantage of the situation by raising rents across the board throughout the country. (Photos - Above, The 2000 Jaguar XKR 100, a classic supercharged British drophead coupe, and below, the 2004 Jaguar F1 car driven by Mark Webber; the new 'Force India' F1 team may benefit by bringing some Jaguar engineers and much telemetric and testing information to India).

BLING, BLING! HOT WHEELS' 40TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATED NATIONWIDE!

(Make sure you click on all the photos to enjoy them in large format) When I did a bit of research on HOT WHEELS a few years ago, I learned that, if one were to take the number of people under 18 years of age worldwide and used that number to divide the number of HOT WHEELS ever sold, you'd come up with "6" ... That's right, so many of these things have already been sold that there are enough in the marketplace to equal six HOT WHEELS for every person under 18 on the face of the earth.

And HOT WHEELS had a great exhibit in the main lobby at last year's SEMA Show in Las Vegas, exhibits which caught the attention of just about every one of the 100,000-or-so show attendees. I mean, who didn't have a HOT WHEELS toy ... or many of them ... as a kid? And more than a few of us, truth be told, have them today, too.

There are a lot of stories about how Mattels' HOT WHEELS toys came to be ... The one I've  written about concerns Harry Bradley, a paraplegic instructor at Pasadena's world-renowned Art Center College of Design, one of the very few schools worldwide which produces the majority of designers for car, truck and motorcycle manufacturers --- As well as toy-makers of all types. All these artists come under the more general name of "industrial designer", the people who create can-openers to car door handles to sun glasses to milk bottles to Ferrari V12 engines to, well, just about anything which consumers buy and use. In short, everything! Pasadena's Art Center has a sister school in Switzerland. Bradley, the story goes, drove his customized car to Mattel to interview for a job there, and when his future boss looked out the window and saw Bardley's van in the parking lot, Bradley got the job on the spot and his van was one of the very first HOT WHEELS ever produced. Anyway, that's the story told to me ... by Harry Bradley. Anyone has a problem with it, they can talk to Bradley about it ...

So here's the news, and I'm content to let the Mattel people tell it in their own voice, with perhaps an  interruption or two from Yours Truly (all our photos are of the HOT WHEELS 40th anniversary car "under construction"):

GM's BOB LUTZ: GLOBAL WARMING IS "A TOTAL CROCK OF SHIT"

Bob Lutz, a Vice President of General Motors in charge of North American products, told a group of reporters recently that global warming "is a total crock of shit". Yes, mothers, get your daughters in the house, because Lutz, in his seeming never-ending attempts to become at least as quotable as Lido A. Iacocca, was either just kidding around --- as he is wont to do, and in which case the media would give him a break, as they (we) have done so many times  --- or he really meant it. Now, we find that not only did he absolutely mean it, but he meant it in a way so ethereal and universal in scale that most of us mere mortals simply would not understand.

If any of you ever thought, "Well, you know, this guy Lutz ... He seems really smart, and he says he has balls made of iron ... But does he, you know, 'get it'?"

Well, the official answer is in: No, he doesn't. Lutz,  somewhere north of 74 years of age, wrote a book called "Guts", spends his off-hours collecting, restoring and driving vintage cars, which is to be expected, and he also does the same with vintage fighter jets (no kidding) and has also, by the way, been in-charge and the force behind all of General Motors North American product planning for the past few years and some of that actual product, too.

CHAMP CAR, INDY RACING LEAGUE SIGN AGREEMENT ENDING 12-YEAR SPLIT --- SERIES COMBINE UNDER IRL NAME; RACING STARTS AT HOMESTEAD-MIAMI, FL MARCH 29th

ESPN Bulletin (2-22-08) 1:00pm EST Detroit, MI - The Indy Racing League and the Champ Car series have signed a deal to unify the two American open-wheel series.

IRL spokesman John Griffin said Champ Car co-owners Kevin Kalkhoven and Gerald Forsythe signed the agreement with IRL founder Tony George on Friday. As many as six of the nine teams expected to compete in Champ Car in 2008 could field cars in the IndyCar Series, including Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing, PKV Racing, Forsythe/Pettit Racing, Conquest Racing, Walker Racing and Dale Coyne Racing. The addition of up to 10 regular entries from Champ Car teams would increase the size of the IndyCar field to more than 25 cars for the first time since the late 1990s.  -30- (End of ESPN bulletin)

SPEEDTV's Robin Miller, America's best open-wheel series journalist, broke the story about the rift being healed earlier this week, and we carried it on this website. And now, the papers are signed, the champagne uncorker and "Let's go racing!" is the call heard throughout the land. Well, at race tracks, anyway.

HERE'S THE BACKGROUND

There could not have been a better Valentine's Day gift for open-wheel racing fans around the world, and there's also poetic justice, with the split between Champ Car and the Indy Racing League (IRL) being repaired the same week that Roger Penske's Penske South Racing team won their first NASCAR race at the Daytona Speedway; that's because IRL founder/Indy track owner Tony George often held up Roger Penske as an example of everything that was wrong with CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams). George would typically complain on and on at press conferences about how big-time team owners in the sport also had a say in the way the sport was being run, and George thought that a terrible idea. It's poetic justice because at the time of the CART/IRL split, George himself was a quiet-partner in the ownership of at least two IRL teams.

BUSH ORDERED TO FORCE THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY TO DO ITS JOB

Recently, it's been said that the "hot" cars and trucks of tomorrow will be those which feature the latest hardware gadgets and software updates to make driving safer, more enjoyable and go much farther on a gallon of gas (or use no gasoline at all). Experts and analysts in the industry (including this one) think the "musclecars" of tomorrow may still offer horsepower, but their real "beauty" will be reflected in the vehicle's design and styling, inside and out, and online capabilities, as much as in the size of its engine.

We thought you would be interested in reading the following Sunday, February, 17, 2008 NEW YORK TIMES editorial about the Bush Administration, which has been ordered by both the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the Supreme Court, no wild-eyed radical bunch, to force the Environmental Protection Agency to obey the law and take action to control mercury emanating from industrial smokestacks and to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles. (Photo - The Environmental Protection Agency's headquarters building is in Washington, DC's "Federal Triangle" area, which is just off what's sometimes called "the nation's front yard", the National Mall).

Car Nuts want to know, and indeed need to know, that the government, and especially the EPA (whose creation was by Richard Nixon, of all people, working together with the US Congress), has, by law, specific obligations which it needs to uphold. This editorial from the NEW YORK TIMES defines just some of the problems facing industry, specifically the auto industry.

February 18, 2008

Editorial

Judicial Rebukes on Clean Air

The federal courts have been a bulwark against the Bush administration’s relentless efforts to weaken 40 years’ worth of environmental law, including statutes protecting the nation’s forests, wetlands and endangered species. The courts have been especially important in resisting the administration’s assault on the 1970 Clean Air Act, which began with Vice President Dick Cheney’s 2001 energy report and continues to this day. (Photo - A gold 1964 Pontiac GTO; GTO was, and still is, touted as the "first musclecar" and perhaps doomed due in an oil-less future).

In 2006 and 2007, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the Supreme Court ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to follow the law and require utilities to install pollution controls when upgrading power plants. Another Supreme Court decision last year held that the Clean Air Act required the E.P.A. to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, an obligation the agency continues to duck.

This month, the D.C. Circuit ruled that the E.P.A. had once again ignored the law by failing to require deep and timely reductions in mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. Like most clean air cases, this one was mind-numbingly complex. The gist of it was that the E.P.A. — seeking as usual to please industry — had approved a weak set of regulations that would let many plants off the hook for emissions reductions that would be required under any honest reading of the law. (Photo - "Tri-Power" was stock in 1964 GTOs; it was a 389cid V8 with three carburetors, hence the Tri-Power sobriquet).

The D.C. Circuit, by no means a radical group of judges, has become so exasperated that it has taken to quoting Lewis Carroll. In 2006, in a reference to “Through the Looking Glass,” the court said that the E.P.A.’s reading of the law would make sense “only in a Humpty Dumpty world.” This month, invoking “Alice in Wonderland,” the court said the agency’s reasoning recalled “the logic of the Queen of Hearts, substituting the E.P.A.’s desires for the plain text” of the law.

Desire still burns bright at the E.P.A., which reportedly intends to make one last-ditch effort to weaken the rules requiring new pollution controls on upgraded plants. Our advice to the agency would be to take a dispassionate look at its losing streak in the federal courts and, for once, leave the law alone. (end of editorial)

Brand-New Corvette Z06 Smashed After Multiple Collisions; Valet Accused Of Expensive Joyride

Because the Corvette Z06 does not come with a "valet key" or some other type of power-robbing setting, as far as I can remember, Chevrolet engineers and product planners might seriously think about making one available after the people at Bowling Green, KY (the only facility where Corvettes are built) read the news item which follows below.

When a Z06 owner leaves their trusty steed, which carries a starting price over $72,000, in the care of what more-often-than-not is a pimply-faced 17-year old valet with a white shirt and red vest at some restaurant or elsewhere, a "valet key" feature would easily rob some of the horsepower from the machine's 505-horse 7-liter V8 (a 427cid, for you old-timers out there --- Like us!), in order to avoid incidents exactly like the one described below. (Photo - Huge, drilled discs haul Z06 down from high speeds very quickly; the valet in this story should have used them while he had a chance).

We can attest from much personal experience that the car is definitely and absolutely one which  should be driven only by someone with quite a bit of experience with high-horsepower automobiles ... In spite of all the modern safety systems in and on the car, 500 horsepower is still 500 horsepower, and this was certainly one wreck about which it could honestly be said: "It could have been a lot worse!" Thanks to KNBC/TV4, the NBC "O and O" (owned-and-operated) station in Los Angeles. That's the same station which carries the new NBC auto show, "Whipnotic", every Saturday at 3pm --- Be sure to check-out the Whipnotic page on this site; we provide that program's Whipnotic.com site with much of its content. Here's the story the way it ran on the website for KNBC/TV4, Los Angeles:

A valet at Van Nuys (CA) Chevrolet dealership is accused of a joyride that culminated in the crash of a 500- horsepower Corvette, police said Saturday, according to (Los Angeles') City News Service. (Photo - Cutaway of Z06's 505 horsepower 427 V8).

The man walked away without injury, police said.

The high-performance Z06 model Corvette hit a fire hydrant, a light pole and several parked cars on Oxnard Street near Van Nuys Boulevard about 9:30 p.m. Friday -- about a half-mile from Rydell Chevrolet, according to Los Angeles police with the Valley Traffic Division and a camera crew at the scene.

The driver suffered minor injuries and declined to be taken to a hospital, according to On Scene Video. (end of KNBC story) (Photo - Z06 interior).

And we might add: This fellow doesn't want to spend any of his time at a hospital; he'll be too busy looking for a job.

ILLEGAL STREET RACE KILLS 8 IN MARYLAND

The scourge of illegal street racing, which this website has been attacking since its inception, and which we've been very vocally against for decades (and which has not always been welcomed among certain people in the auto industry), has resulted in an "accident" so terrible, so horrifying and wasteful that we're simply going to reprint the entire NEW YORK TIMES story about the incident and let it stand as is (photos are from the NY TIMES, KTLA/TV5 Los Angeles and the LOS ANGELES TIMES).

We'll just repeat what we've been saying for many, many years: Unless and until local civic, religious and community leaders, businesses and governments make available safe, sane and well-managed sites where 1/8-mile and/or 1/4-mile straight-line, classic head-to-head drag racing can be held on a regular basis, these stories will be repeated, again and again and again ... These sites must also be used for proper "driver instruction", which has fallen by the wayside in our nation's high schools as budget cutbacks have done away with other popular programs, such as sports and music instruction.

Every other industrialized nation promotes driver training; in those countries, driving is considered a privilege, definitely not a right, and people are proud of their driving skills. In many European and Asian nations, a single incident of driving while impaired in any way can result in that person's driving privilege taken away ... for life. In America, attorneys specializing in DUI cases advertise freely, turning impaired driving into a "sport" which is won or lost in a court room, no matter what may have happened on the highway.

2009 ROLLER COUPE' IMPROVES ON SEDAN'S LOOKS

OK, now that we've seen the first official photos of the 2009 Roller Coupe', we take back almost everything bad we've said about the sedan version of the car ... from those box-shaped headlights to the overwhelmingly massiveness of the entire car, from front to rear, from tires to roof, in the engine bay and the car's interior ... the intimidating Phantom sedan is simply too much. But this Coupe' is something else again. The front end is a bit more friendly than it's four-door sister, and the whole thing appears, at least in these photos, more balanced and attractive, inside and out, than the sedan. The huge 6.75 liter BMW V12 (that's 412 cubic inches) sitting in the engine bay no doubt provides plenty of low-end torque (531 foot-pounds) and top-end horsepower (453hp) for this vehicle which weighs ... who knows how much? They ain't saying.

Times have changed, though. There's a lot more known about these cars than in years past. When my good friend Reg Abbiss (whose new book, "Rolls-Royce From The Inside; The Humour, The Myths, The Truth", Tempus Publishing Ltd, United Kingdom, 2007, is available everywhere and more-than-worth your few US Dollars or Euros or Yen) was in charge of public relations for Rolls and Bentley here in the US for many years, the company would never release horsepower figures or top speeds. When asked, the world's most-skilled and most-British of all automotive PR people would answer only, "Adequate," to the horsepower question, and, "Rather quickly", when the top speed query inevitably was raised. By the way, there's a wonderful photo of Yours Truly and Reg in his new book, both of us hard at work, with Reg no doubt begging me to interview the thoroughly and happily sleazy Howard Mosher, who ran Rolls/Bentley in the US from 1998 to 1994.

Car Nuts know for certain that times have definitely changed greatly when one mentions "BMW" and "Volkswagen" in the same breath as "Rolls-Royce" and "Bentley". The world used to be much simpler; as far as most Americans were concerned, the two-door, coupe version of Rolls was most always a Bentley.