Steve Parker Motoring / The Car Nut

NEW PHOTO ALBUM - BEVERLY HILLS' RODEO DRIVE FATHER'S DAY CONCOURS 2009

This Ghia Streamline is powered by a trunk-mounted turbine jet engine and was built as a concept in the mid-1950s ... the crowds at the Rodeo Drive Concours on June 21st showed great interest in this Jetson-style car!

Photos (c) by Steve Parker and Don Kent and www.SteveParker.com.

Click on this line to see the first extensive photo album of one of the nation's best-known Concours!

For over 15 years, the Rodeo Drive Concours d'Elegance in Beverly Hills, CA, has grown into one of the most prestigious and enjoyable Concours events in the world. Held on what's often called "the world's most famous shopping street," the Concours began more than 20 years back as a fundraiser for the Beverly Hills Fire Department at Beverly Hills High School.

The event has moved from the high school to the best-known street in the famously upscale city, yet still raises monies for the local fire department and various other charities. The Concours is free, open to the public, and attended by many stars ... with their cars.

"Eclectic" is the byword of the Concours.

My automotive talk shows this weekend

Join us LIVE Saturday and Sunday at 5pm Pacific time on www.TalkRadioOne.com for our exclusive LIVE motoring and motorsports talk shows!

Steve Parker's The Car Nut Show
Saturday starting at 5pm Pacific

Some good news for a change from the world of domestic cars: GM is re-hiring 900 workers for their Lansing, MI crossover plant ... and Dodge is re-opening their Viper plant, of all things! Makes sense - expensive car with a TON of profit built into it ... Plus the rumor is Fiat will use the existing Chrysler 300 sedan platform for their new large car. And John McCain tweets he's buying a Ford Fusion hybrid. Also, for over a decade the biggest auto event in the world has been the Woodward Avenue Dream Cruise on that legendary road which runs from downtown Detroit to the city's 'burbs ... but this year there's trouble brewing. Learn the details! And Steve reviews the new less-cost-than-a-Prius Honda Insight gas/electric hybrid. Be sure to call-in and join the action!
Honda's new Insight gas/electric hybrid is priced fully-turned-out at under $24,000

Steve Parker's World Racing Roundup
Sunday starting at 5pm

We talk with racing journalist/ex-racer Kurt Hansen about everything and anything in the world of motor racing. Several Formula 1 teams have announced a new "breakaway" series, which has become something of an annual event in that sport. F1 is in the UK this weekend. NASCAR driver Jeremy Mayfield was under the influence of speed, and not the car kind, when he turned-up dirty on a drug test which got him suspended from the sport, probably forever. NASCAR is on the road course at Sonoma, CA, possibly the most fun event of the NASCAR year as drivers struggle to stay on the race track. And IndyCar is at Iowa Speedway for the "Indy Corn 250." Great name. And GM has announced the monetary death knell for some of their NASCAR Sprint Cup teams. Be sure to call- in and let us know what you think!
Ferrari says they're joining a new breakaway F1 series ... again

That's this Saturday and Sunday at 5pm USA Pacific time on www.TalkRadioOne.com!

Follow Steve Parker on Twitter: www.twitter.com/autojourno

UPDATED - No "clunker" over 25 years old ; program shortened to four month lifespan

This Suzuki SX4, set-up for rally racing, was a featured car at the 2008 SEMA Show in Las Vegas...all the parts can be bought over-the-counter from Suzuki and other SEMA member companies

Good news for car collectors - Your pride and joy may not be a clunker, thanks to the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA).

But was was originally supposed to be a one-year program has now been shortened by Congress to only four months (see update at end of post).

SEMA has managed to inject an addition to the clunker law wending its way through Congress which will limit clunker vouchers, ranging in value from $3,500 to $4,500 and given to owners turning-in older cars and trucks for new, cleaner and higher-mileage models, to cars and trucks of 1984 and newer vintage.

Vehicles older than 25 years will be exempt from the program. This is a godsend to the car-collecting community.

President Obama has backed the clunker plan and passage in the Senate is expected soon. Proponents claim that the so-called "Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Act (CARS)" may spur an estimated 625,000 vehicle sales. The program will last for one year (but that was the plan for the original federal income tax, too). The vehicle scrappage legislation was passed by the US House of Representatives by a 298-119 vote last week.

SEMA is a professional/lobbying group representing many of the world's car-makers and especially thousands of "aftermarket" companies, those outfits which dream-up, design, build and sell performance and appearance products for cars and trucks. It's a huge, near-$30 billion annual business in the US alone and thousands of Americans depend on the automotive aftermarket for their livelihoods.

You buy anything lately at AutoZone, Pep Boys or a Goodyear store? You bought it from a SEMA member. I'm a SEMA member, for cryin' out loud (media division).
A custom Dodge Challenger at last year's SEMA Show (all photos by www.SteveParker.com)

PEUGEOT DIESELS WIN 24 HOURS OF LEMANS; DRAMATIC NASCAR FINISH AT MICHIGAN, TOO

Peugeot team members get their due earlier today on LeMans' "victory bridge;" after years of challenging the Audi juggernaut, France's Peugeot finally won their "home" race at LeMans, utilizing the V12 turbodiesel technology developed by Audi; it was, as you might imagine, a popular win among the crowd of several hundred thousand who braved crepes, ferris wheels, the French language and daytime temps in the 80s to enjoy the 77th running of the event (for maximum enjoyment, you may 'click to enlarge' all photos on this site)

There's no greater test of cars, drivers, teams, technologies ... and race fans.

Peugeot broke Audi's five-year domination at the 24 hours of LeMans this weekend, winning the overall victory of the world's most important sports car race for the first time for the French company in 16 years.

Marc Gene, David Brabham of Britain and Alexander Wurz of Austria completed 382 laps in 24 hours, one lap more than the second-place Peugeot No. 8 driven by French trio Sebastien Bourdais, Franck Montagny and Stephane Sarrazin.

Bourdais is best-known in the US as a former Indy Racing League champion and Indy 500 competitor. He was born and raised in the small town of LeMans near the Circuit Sarthe, the track which 77 times counting this year has combined public and purpose-built roads to create the legendary super-high speed racing venue.
Peugeots placed 1-2 in the 2009 24 Hours of LeMans, which, along with the Indy 500 and Monaco Grand Prix, is one of the world's most popular racing events

Both the Peugeot and Audi LMP1-class cars, the fastest and most-exotic on the near-eight-mile long track, were powered by V12 turbodiesel engines producing some 600-horsepower in whisper-quiet, fuel-efficient fashion.

LeMans is closely-watched by even casual sports fans in Europe, Asia and South America, all areas where diesel-powered cars and trucks are major sellers. Over 60% of all vehicles sold in Europe have diesel engines; a diesel winning at LeMans is a terrific marketing tool for the car's manufacturer.

Indeed, because of Audi's recent LeMans wins with their TDI diesel powerplants, "clean diesel" engines are now sold in Audi and Volkswagen models in the US; similar models fro Peugeot are expected in the US within five years. Unfortunately, because the ex-Detroit Three have not embraced clean diesels, mostly for economic reasons, the technology is still not well-known in this country.
2009 was the swan song for the once-dominant C6R factory Corvette, a car greatly developed in part by Canadian road racer Ron Fellows; Johnny O'Connell did double driving stints of several hours each, due to a co-driver's overnight illness, to help bring home this #63 'Vette to its final win in class

Chevrolet won the GT1 class in the final appearance of their C6R Corvette two-car race team at LeMans, a poignant but victorious coda to years of success which saw the Chevy bowtie command the class.

This weekend's www.TalkRadioOne.com automotive shows

The 2007 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance winner --- car show season has begun!

Join us LIVE Saturday and Sunday at 5pm Pacific time on www.TalkRadioOne.com for our exclusive LIVE motoring and motorsports talk shows!

Steve Parker's The Car Nut Show
Saturday starting at 5pm Pacific

Special guest: Bruce Meyer, one of America's premier car collectors, the man responsible for hot rods being shown at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, talks about the upcoming Father's Day Concours on Rodeo Drive ... in Beverly Hills. There's a new man in-charge at GM, someone who admits, "I don't know anything about cars!" Chrysler is now officially part of Fiat, so can I buy the Alfa Romeo 8C supercar at a Dodge dealer next year? Great move: Fiat CEO Marchionne makes former Toyota exec Jim Press the top man at Chrysler. Ferrari is making a hybrid. The US is "churning" the vast government fleet, and buying more cars and trucks from Ford than GM or Chrysler ... And Steve reviews the amazing little Honda FIT. Be sure to call-in and join the action!

Honda's FIT, like Toyota's Yaris and Nissan's Versa, is a new-generation small car for the US which has seen success in its native Japan

Steve Parker's World Racing Roundup
Sunday starting at 5pm

This weekend, it's the greatest sports car race in the world, the 24 Hours of LeMans, and there's lots of live coverage of this monumental event on radio, TV and the Web for us to talk about. Steve reviews the movies "LeMans" and "Grand Prix," "the essentials" for racing fans - and those you'd like to become racing fans! F1, NASCAR, IndyCar and even NHRA continue to produce the same winners week-after-week ... how can racing survive this and the cutbacks coming from Detroit car-makers, too? Be sure to call- in and let us know what you think!
Peugeot (shown) and Audi will be running turbocharged V12 diesel engines at LeMans this weekend in the world's most prestigious sports car race

That's this Saturday and Sunday at 5pm USA Pacific time on www.TalkRadioOne.com!

OBAMA PERSONAL PLATE ON SO CAL FREEWAY

As we've often demonstrated on this site before, you never know what you'll see on Southern California's freeways, always the world's greatest in-action car show. On the liberal Westside of Los Angeles, it's not unusual to see Obama bumper stickers on cars and trucks and motorcycles and bicycles of all manner and form ... what is strange is this: On the northbound I-405 this afternoon, the San Diego Freeway, just one mile south of its interchange with the always-left-leaning Santa Monica (I-10) Freeway, we spotted this bright new Maserati coupe with not simply an Obama bumper sticker, but the car festooned with a personalized "Obama 08" license plate ... from a foreign nation ... but apparently properly registered, legal and road-worthy. (iPhone photo by Steve Parker)

LIMBAUGH - GM AND OBAMA MUST FAIL

From The Detroit News:

A pair of right-wing radio hosts says there's only one choice for conservatives angry about government involvement in the auto industry: Boycott GM.

"Nobody wants to support an Obama company," Rush Limbaugh told his audience Friday, citing a poll showing that 17 percent of Americans backed a boycott of GM.

"Every dollar spent with GM is a dollar spent against free enterprise," conservative talker Hugh Hewitt wrote online last week.
Rush Limbaugh

Conservatives in Congress and elsewhere have criticized the federally sponsored restructuring plan GM will seek to execute in bankruptcy court.

The plan would give the federal government a 60 percent ownership stake in the company; lawmakers such as Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., have labeled that socialism.

The popular, controversial Limbaugh didn't outright call for a boycott, but said he understood why people would want to avoid GM vehicles. "They don't want to patronize Obama. They don't want to do anything to make Obama's policies work."

A GM spokesman declined to comment Monday.

But the Democratic National Committee, which has spent plenty of time in recent months cataloging Limbaugh's calls for the failure of President Barack Obama's economic policies, leapt at the chance to do so again.
Sen. Richard Shelby

"While it's not surprising that Rush Limbaugh would root for the failure of a national institution for partisan political gain, it is surprising that the other so-called leaders of the Republican party are silently going along with him given how many hard working Americans rely on GM for a living," said DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan.

So far, there is little evidence that the government's involvement is turning off buyers. In bankruptcy for the entire month of May, Chrysler had its best sales month of the year.

GM MUST CUT BUICK, GMC --- AND DO IT NOW!

Will the 2010 Buick LaCrosse see production? Should it?

General Motors must drop their Buick and GMC divisions. And do it now.

The number of people already put out of work by the Amazingly-Shrinking General is sickening, outrageous; these workers didn't bring this on themselves, it's been forced on them and their families and the businesses where they trade by GM's own shortcomings and the collapse of the credit market precipitated by the sub-prime mortgage crisis through the banks and Wall Street.

Yet the real horror of unemployment, no health insurance and in too many cases homelessness is going to continue to fall on the backs of America's working men and women.

Lay-offs at GM and its suppliers and the numbers of those put out of work by the thousands due to planned dealership closings will continue for at least another two years. The closing of Pontiac alone has resulted in 20,000 workers put on the street from GM and its suppliers; the sales of Hummer and Saturn will result in more people gone as will the bankruptcy and ultimate disposition of Saab.
2009 Chevrolet Malibu gas/electric hybrid

Estimates of "displaced workers" from GM's announced dealership closings range to well over 100,000, spread throughout the nation.

No one wants to see this trend continue or grow.

(In one humorous aside, GM and the Sichuan, China-based industrial firm which has agreed to buy Hummer stated in their joint press release that Hummer executives are part of the deal between the two companies; hope those GM and AM General folks in Detroit and Mishawaka and South Bend, IN, enjoy spicy Asian food; well, a job's a job these days).

Yet if the Obama Administration really feels that this ritual death and resurrection of GM is so crucial to the economic and psychic health of America, this part of their plan leaves a lot to be desired.
Orange, CA's Robby Gordon driving his Chevy off-road race truck to victory this past weekend in the 41st SCORE-Tecate Baja 500; Chevy's long-time racing activities give it a high profile

EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS - LOS ANGELES CONCOURS d'ELEGANCE!

This Dodge Bros. car was a hit at the 2009 Los Angeles Concours d'Elegance. The Dodge family was surrounded in mystery and intrigue, with both Brothers dying early deaths; the company built Conestoga wagons for settlers heading west in the 1800s, and the corporate logo was a Mogen David, or Jewish Star, though no one knows quite why!

Yesterday we visited the fourth annual Los Angeles Concours d'Elegance. Benefiting the Assistance League of Southern California (www.AssistanceLeague.net) the show was held at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, attracting well over 200 vehicles and thousands of spectators. Finally, a proper Concours for Southern California!
A new car at the Concours among the old -- a 2009 Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione

We shot a lot of photos and invite you to view them.

To view our exclusive photo album of this event, just click anywhere on this line ... and enjoy!

This weekend's auto shows on TalkRadioOne.com

Join us LIVE Saturday and Sunday at 5pm Pacific time on www.TalkRadioOne.com for our exclusive LIVE motoring and motorsports talk shows!

Steve Parker's The Car Nut Show
Saturday starting at 5pm Pacific

Legendary mega-dealer and race team owner Roger Penske is buying Saturn and a Chinese company is buying Hummer as GM divests itself of ... itself ... as fast it they can. The state of Indiana is taking Chrysler to the US Supreme Court saying their deal with Fiat is unfair to state investment funds. And Ford keeps rolling along, introducing a new program which has put their crucially-important 2011 Fiesta in the hands of a few dozen 20-something's for free for six months. Plus Steve test-drives a couple of new cars sold in the US for under $10,000. Call-in and be part of the show!
Roger Penske in the Long Beach Grand Prix pits (www.SteveParker.com photo)

Steve Parker's World Racing Roundup
Sunday starting at 5pm

The racing continues unabated as the season builds momentum towards it half-way mark. The IndyCars are in Texas, F1 is in Turkey, NASCAR is in Pocono, where naturally it's been raining all weekend NHRA is just outside Chicago for a huge racing weekend. Cole Coonce, author of TOP FUEL WORMHOLE, a wildly alternative, grass roots history of American drag racing, will be our guest. Has Tony George found a job yet? How will the GM an Chrysler failures affect their privateer and professional racing sponsorships? Call the show and join us!

That's this Saturday and Sunday at 5pm USA Pacific time on www.TalkRadioOne.com!

 

New GM, Chrysler leaders - Wrong for the jobs

End of the line for cars like this 2009 Chevy Corvette ZR1?

It took fewer than 60 years for America to forget the causes of the Great Depression, unbridled greed and avarice in the banking industry and on Wall Street, until we made all the same mistakes again, and invented some new ones, too.

But throughout the reorganization of the US auto industry, some of the much more recent lessons of the past 30 years have already been forgotten.

Frighteningly, at least to those of who focus on the product side of the auto industry, few if any of the Obama Auto Task Force members and the new leaders of Chrysler and GM taking over after the bankruptcies have product-sector experience.

And as you'd have thought Detroit and Washington might have learned the past few years, the Harvard MBAs in the auto executive suites wouldn't know a good car if they got run over by one.

And ultimately it's the cars which are going to save GM and Chrysler.
Steve Rattner is yet another finance person involved in the auto industry debacle; he's heading up the Obama Auto Task Force

The announcements this weekend that GM will build a series of small cars in the US rather than make them in China, and that Fiat will sell their Mini-like Cinquecento (500) in some Chrysler dealers within the next 18 months were welcome, but not nearly enough to guarantee these companies' futures.

With the sad facts now well-known, with Chrysler's assets being sold to Fiat and General Motors entering bankruptcy, the men appointed to lead these companies post-bankruptcy don't have any background in the automotive business.