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Auto parts makers Visteon Corp and Metaldyne Corp filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for their U.S. operations, becoming the latest casualties of the global auto industry. Every time some people here the word "bankruptcy" they think that means companies are going out of business, and that's not really what's going on here...

Things that make you go duh! Car dealers that are slated to be closed by GM and Chrysler are selling cars at deeper discounts than dealers that are going to survive the cut. DUH On the other hand, getting car sales moving again is the whole point of this exercise isn't it?..

AR Index     506.26  -10.37  (-2.01%) Stocks of individual interest Toyota  75.32   -1.15 GM        1.43     +0.25 Ford      5.26     -0.24 Dow 8277.32  -226.76   (-2.67%) Just days until the deadline for GM to come up with a plan and GM has clearly separated itself from the other components of the Index, and not exactly in the way you'd like as the chart for 2009 year-to-date clearly shows. Not sure what I'll do with the index if GM takes the bankruptcy route. Maybe I'll take a poll to see what everyone thinks is representative of the auto industry and retool the numbers.

Saturn lost its way. General Motors had a great idea to revolutionize the way it built and designed cars and this became Saturn. The original Saturn SL sedan wasn’t a class-leading vehicle by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a good American car at a good price...

Spiderman does it again! After evading the tax evasion charges (on which the government has something like a 95% conviction rate), Helio Castroneves wins his third Indy 500 and seems a pretty likely candidate to surpass the record 4 wins of AJ Foyt, Al Unser, and Rick Mears. That's some pretty heady company, and I don't think he's doing it by simply having an owner that can outspend everyone and give him the best car...

High grade gas felt great in the Yaris, anything else just felt sluggish.  Will continue putting only 93 grade fuel in the new ride... The Yaris reacted best to Exxon and BP.  Last week was the first week I re-fueled the Fit, since I got it only two weeks ago.  Exxon fuel may not be the best fit for the Fit... will try Shell or Sunoco next...

Hey Dub, Got any big plans for the holiday weekend? Cookout? Going to a carnival or maybe a classic car show?..

I bet the police hear some doozies when it comes to people trying to get out of tickets. From MercuryNews.com we may have a candidate for one of the worst choices ever for trying to evade the long arm of the law. ELKO, Nev.—Authorities arrested a 27-year-old Elko man after a high-speed chase and a bomb hoax that shut down Interstate 80 for several hours in northern Nevada...

Senators and Representatives debating the benefits and, more importantly, the pitfalls of requiring cars and trucks to get better gas mileage may be in the news, but these same elected officials along with television talking heads seem to forget that this happened 35 years ago. Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) regulations came about in the 1970s as a response to the combination of skyrocketing fuel prices and gas guzzling vehicles. The answer to the problem was to require manufacturers to make more fuel-efficient vehicles...

City Safety from Volvo, it sounds like a wonderful implementation of technology. If you approach a car in front of you going 2 mph to 9 mph, the car will put on the brakes and stop before hitting the vehicle. City Safety is only available in the XC60 models as of right now...