TO WHET YOUR PALETTE

After 12 days of State-side vacation, Good Car Bad Car is up and running again. You may have noticed a few posts in the last two weeks and realized that there was nothing new discussed. So before the real roundup of articles start, here's a taste of TGCGuy on GCBC stuff to get you revved up for eight days worth of PT Cruiser in Virginia, DC, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. This is some of the issues to watch.

Speculation is running rampant that BMW wants Volvo, and that Ford may want the cash infusion that would thither follow. The last major exchange between Ford and BMW was in the year 2000, when Ford bought Land Rover from BMW for $2.7 billion. I just did some tire kicking on an older Volvo in Pittsburgh last week, but I have no intentions to spend the billions required.....

Remember the story mentioned here regarding John Schneider's Dukes of Hazzard car, the General Lee? Well, that all that furious eBay bidding that drove the price to $10 million apparently came out of a hacked-into account. So Bo Duke gave it another go-round on eBay Motors and one bid reached $100,000. Niot enough for the General Lee, so Mr. Schneider will head for the next Barrett-Jackson auction in Arizona where, with 725 bhp, Viper brakes, the Charger will likely fetch a killing......

GM is a confident car company right now. Saturn dealers will soon have a Toyota Camry in their showrooms. Or perhaps a Honda Accord. Chevrolet dealers might soon sit a Camry or Accord right beside the new Malibu. General Motors will encouraging you to sit and steer both, and feels that they compare more than well with the Japanese. Hopefully the sales consultants know well enough not to hammer the Camry/Accord when it is the goodness of their Aura/Malibu that will make the sale. Nobody will believe you when you start attempting to defame the two best selling cars in the USA.....

69 percent of Americans want better fuel economy when they purchase their next car. 52 percent said they would be willing to drive a smaller car to make that happen, while only 41 percent said they'd sacrifice performance for fuel economy and 45 percent said they'd take less lux for more bucks saved at the pump. You want to complain about fuel prices and then you tell me this? I think I'm going mental......

News of Toyota's new Tundra V8 having camshaft problems could hurt. Twenty of their biggest V8's - and I mean big and powerful 5.7L V8's - have camshafts which cracked and failed. Toyota's execution and marketing of this truck seem so good, but crash ratings are worse than Ford's F150 and the reliability is already being scrutinized. Incentives have begun.....

Hyundai has upped the cost of entry on their Sonata. By $200.00. However, you can actually get into a V6 for less money now..... Renault has a new Twingo, on sale in a couple weeks. Unimportant to those of us on this side of the Atlantic, of course, but an event in Europe. Renault has sold 2 million Twingos since 1993. A little car with a little power makes a lot of sense in France. The UK gets their own right-hand drive model this time around.... By 2010, you should be able to buy RWD cars called Pontiac G8, Buick Park Avenue, and Chevrolet Camaro. GM seems to offer some assurance....

Recaps, stories, and issues from 12 days away start soon. Check back.