‘City Car’ – TATA Motors Nano: “looks like the bastard offspring of a one night stand between the Prius and a Ford Aerostar”…
BWAAAAHAAAA!! Gawd I love that line and had to do a post just to share it :0)
Title quote found in comment by Brian DR1665 on June 09, 2009 at 10:36 AM on CarLust found by way of Glenn at Instapundit..
Video Courtesy of autocar:
From David Colborne’s Nano review at CarLust:
…But wait – it gets better. As numerous news outlets are pointing out, Tata is planning on bringing this little bastion of affordable motoring to the United States. Naturally, this begs the question–will it follow the path laid down by the VW Beetle, burrowing a place into our automotive hearts, or will it simply rust out of our consciousness like the Citroen 2CV?To help us answer that question, let’s run through the specs:
- 2 cylinder, 33 horsepower engine
- 4 speed manual transmission
- 0-43 mph in 14 seconds
- Top speed of 75 miles per hour
- 47 miles per gallon
- Drum brakes all around
- Seats four
Nano ‘luxury’ model, with air conditioning!
>But guess what? Someone has already made a ‘car’ smaller and cheaper than the Nano:
the only small car I liked was Laura Holt’s convertible Rabbit on Remington Steele., nifty Cabriolet ….but that was a German engineered car (and I think they still had electrical problems)…..not a Pelosi engineered shxtbox or cheap collapsible SUBcompact like the Nano…imo… …not for use with NYC cab drivers in the vicinity thats a fer shure
Courtesy of calayo29
More after the break..
UPDATE: Saturn goes under- Penske drops bid, GM says it will not seek alternate buyer; The New GM – CNBC.com
Wow! 1992 (the album!) !? Damn am I old!
Update: 9/30 -Commenter Thomas Stewart notes GM called the end of Saturn today as Penske withdrew its bid.
General Motors will close Saturn and wind down its dealership network after a deal to sell the faltering brand to Penske Automotive Group collapsed, the automaker said Wednesday.The breakdown of a deal that had been widely expected to close this week will force some 350 Saturn dealerships to close and could cut thousands of auto retail jobs that would have been preserved under a plan by auto magnate Roger Penske.
Shares of Penske Automotive ..were down almost 10 percent Wednesday in aftermarket trade. The breakdown of the deal was announced after the New York Stock Exchange closed.
GM’s failure to complete the deal also adds uncertainty to the automaker’s production plans as it struggles to regain its footing following a $50-billion taxpayer funded restructuring.
“This is very disappointing news and comes after months of hard work by hundreds of dedicated employees and Saturn retailers who tried to make the new Saturn a reality,” GM Chief Executive Fritz Henderson said in a statement…
WSJ: Govt will provide massive additional financial aid to GM
We have already given GM 19 billion….
Vodpod videos no longer available.
You Belong to Me: The Chrysler Files: Senior non-Tarp Lenders fight back, file motion citing Radford ruling…
Video Update with extended clip of the interview with Thomas Lauria in MI this weekend courtesy of MM who has it covered in detail at her place:
Clip courtesy of PaulFVillareal2:
(5.1.09) — This audio comes courtesy of The Frank Beckmann show on WJR 760 AM Detroit. Visit WJR here:
http://www.wjr.net/And visit Beckmann’s personal page on the WJR site here:
http://www.wjr.net/Sectional.asp?id=6552
HA!!!!! HA!!!! Thank GAWD they are fighting back!!!!! Absolutely frakkin A right! The attorneys for the bondholders MUST WIN or American contract law is dead IMO and with it, the influx of capital to America that has always made us strong, would YOU lend your money to ANY American business if Team TOTUS can arbitrarily rule by FIAT going forward?, ha ha pardon the pun had to do it
Good song for this one is YOU BELONG TO ME, not to UAW or Uncle Sam to the Senior Bondholders!
Via HA, here is the pdf of the motion filed by Case & White (Thomas Lauria) on behalf of the Senior non TARP lenders of Chrysler who will FIGHT and NOT GO QUIETLY INTO THAT DARK NIGHT! A nice summary here under 17., of the easy peasy ruling this should be and the precedent:
17. Finally, that the Treasury Department would take these unconstitutional actions to help the United States address difficult economic times is not an answer. Indeed, the same justification was expressly rejected in Radford, where Justice Brandeis noted that a statute which violated secured creditors’ rights, but which was passed for sound public purposes relating to the Great Depression, could not be saved because “the Fifth Amendment commands that, however great the nation’s need, private property shall not be thus taken even for a wholly public use without just compensation.” Id. at 602.
Victims of Changes: Rasmussen Poll: Americans hopin’ the change stops soon; Chrysler Debtholder Firms Threatened by WH
Victims of Changes: That’s my interpretation, maybe the Thug like tactics we saw in the primary and which reappeared in the attacks on Tea Party Protesters and threats to Chrysler bondholders like Perella Weinberg to take the deal or be destroyed by Teh One’s Media Handmaidens in the WH Press Corps. aren’t going over as well with the General Public as they did with the Democratic neo Progressive UberOBots….
Via Gateway Pundit by way of Instapundit:
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows that 33% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-two percent (32%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of +1.
Judas Priest can sum this up for us:
Courtesy of TWBalls:
Judas Priest Performing Victim of Changes. Recorded Dec. 12 1982 at Mid South Coliseum, Memphis, TN. on the Screaming for Vengeance Tour.
Video is from the DVD that is bundled in the Metalogy Box Set.
GM to kill Pontiac Brand…
Say goodbye to an old friend, Pontiac..Treasury gave GM another 2 billion and made them kill Pontiac in exchange no doubt…
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Video Update: GM CFO Ray Young says co won’t make June 1st $1Billion debt repayment…
Update 2: CNBC’s Phil LeBeau
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Update: Bloomberg:
General Motors Corp., trying to avoid a U.S.-backed bankruptcy on June 1, may close plants and scrap models as much as four years sooner than planned to lower its break-even point, people familiar with the effort said….
…The new plan may require GM to complete many of the reductions in models and dealers planned by 2014 as soon as next year, allowing earlier plant and job reductions, people briefed on the talks said. GM said March 31 that by 2014 it would trim dealers to 4,100 from 6,122, nameplates to 36 from 43, and U.S. assembly capacity to 2 million vehicles from 2.8 million.
The bond offer may include some framework of GM’s plan to cut $20.4 billion in obligations to a United Auto Workers union- run retiree-medical fund by more than half, two of the people said. The bond offer may disclose what portion, if any, of U.S. loans would be converted to equity, one person said.
–the flintstones car at the new york international auto show–
Breaking from WSJ on CNBC Chyron…
This is in addition to GM CEO Fritz Henderson commenting bankruptcy more likely…
they are really putting the hammer down on the bondholders..were I they, I would NOT cut a deal, I would wait for my bankruptcy judge, but the pundits say a MI bankruptcy judge will be under HUGE political pressure to wipe the bondholders out anyway…
say hello to Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman’s Little Friend..a Flintstone mobile, perhaps all we will be allowed to purchase until they reinvent the wheel..
A vehicle that meets Waxman/Pelosi emission standards
We will then get sued by people behind us as our feet produce a cloud of dust they can claim MIGHT somehow damage them as a pollutant…
Good Grief….
Moderate in the Middle 