U.S. AUTO SALES BY NATIONAL OWNERSHIP - U.S. LUXURY AUTO SALES FOR MAY 2009

General Motors is bankrupt. Chrysler is climbing out of bankruptcy. Toyota is losing money hand over fist. Porsche isn't sure if it can take over the Volkswagen group. It appears no auto manufacturer has the money (or clout) to purchase troubled GM children in Europe (Opel/Vauxhall) so Magna will grab that. Meanwhile, another troubled GM kid, Saturn, needs Penske to step in.

Ah, the golden age of the automobile is upon us. No, really. Cars are awesome right about now. Bad cars are only bad because they're boring, not because they fall apart when you shut the door. Good cars are actually great cars considering the safety regulations forced upon them and the weight consumers demand via features and options. So don't go a'judging the sales figures below by any standard other than personal money malaise.

The Good Car Guy has already updated you on Canada's Sales Stats from the month of May. For America's performance, it seemed like a wonderful idea to put the important figures in Graph form. What you see below are sales by nation of ownership for the month of May only. Volvo and Saab, do recall, are American-owned. Mini, for the sake of this graph, is German. You get the picture. True, Toyota, with the help of Lexus and Scion, looks like a possible victor over New GM in the yearly sales contest come December. Overall, U.S.-based auto manufacturers still dominate in the U.S.A.

Now take a look at luxury sales in America for the month of May. This pie chart excludes the low totals of Saab (783) and Porsche (1,979) but bears witness to the fact that American luxury is.... ahem... luxurious indeed; if luxury is rated by rarity.

WILL IT BE THE PENSKE SATURN AURA, PENSKE AURA, OR PERHAPS JUST THE SATURN AURA?

Laying in wait in the grasp of the future; many strange automotive events prepare. General Motors is rapidly becoming the New GM. (And how annoyingly.) Hummer might be Chinese. Then again, it might not. Will Porsche swallow Volkswagen, or will they just merge?

Could Europe's - perhaps the world's - preeminent small car manufacturers become one? Peugeot-Citroen, otherwise known as PSA, is open to talks with Fiat about joining forces. Already Land Rover and Jaguar are Indian-owned; what could happen with Ford-owned Volvo?

One thing is settled... at least for the moment, as all these things tend to be. Roger Penske's company, known to you all as, well... Penske, is ready to take Saturn into the second decade of this century. Penske does more than racing. He/it also owns a multitude of car dealerships, a massive truck fleet, and VM Motori S.p.A. Will the cars be badged like the Aura pictured here? Undoubtedly no. However, this man knows how to win races, lease trucks, sell cars, and apparently build Italian diesels. And he does so rather successfully. If anyone's to be entrusted with turning Saturn around, Roger Penske doth appear to be the man.

THE POWER OF CHEVROLET: MAY SALES STATS IN AMERICA SHOW CHEVY DOUBLING REST OF GM COMBINED

Unfortunately for General Motors last month, not only did Toyota topple Chevrolet for the U.S. sales crown; Ford did too. In fact, Ford Motor Company's Ford brand, which you may have heard of, sold more cars and trucks than any other automaker; Toyota included.

But I digress.

The power of the bow-tie badge is still scarcely believable. Add up May's sales of every other General Motors brand and Chevrolet nearly doubled that total. Hummer, Saturn, Saab, Buick, Pontiac, GMC, and Cadillac combined for about half as many sales last month in the USA as completed by Chevrolet. While the argument against killing Pontiac and the case against Buick or GMC has validity in some far-flung corner of some human brains, the greater un-asked question is this: Is New GM about four core brands or Chevrolet+3? Like a sports coupe that was never built to carry passengers in the rear seat but can technically do so, New GM looks heavy on the Chevy and weak on the other links.

Take a look at the pie chart above to see GM's current Chevrolet emphasis. Is GM's Chevy reliance such a bad thing? No, not really, I suppose. But if New GM is going to be anything but Chevrolet, Buick better start selling cars here as well as in China, Cadillac better do better than selling at half the rate of BMW; Lexus; and Mercedes, and GMC's got to take some of Chevy's truck burden.

AUTO MARKET SHARE IN CANADA FOR THE FIRST FIVE MONTHS OF 2009

To all the unbelievers who want certain automakers to go it alone, have a look at this graph to see how the loners are coping in the Canadian automotive marketplace. Apart from the sixth largest conglomerates, many of whom are working together on multiple projects, only 21.7% of the market share is taken up by companies like Mitsubishi and Mazda. General Motors, Ford, and Toyota combine to make up almost half of all car & truck sales in Canada. That's without including Subaru, something of a Toyota subsidiary.

You want to play with the big boys? Join'em. Toyota and Pontiac team up with the Matrix and Vibe. Take note of the mid-gate on the Honda Ridgeline and the V6 engines in older Saturn Vues. Transmission partnerships, engine collaboration, hybrid technology sharing..... the list goes on. That's part of what made these six so powerful.

CANADA AUTO SALES MAY 2009

Perhaps there's a reason for this that some Mercedes-Benz Canada official could point to, but smart fortwo sales tanked in May. This was with an instant$1,250 rebate (since upped to $2,000) slapped on the hood. Hyundai and Kia had wicked months, thanks in no small part to the wildly successful Soul and a gigantic bump in Elantra sales; up 75.9% compared with last May.

Check out all the totals for all automakers competing in Canada below; ranked in order of total units pushed. For American auto sales figures, check out Autoblog's table up in here. Oh, and take note: car sales were way down in Canada in May (-24%, in fact) but light truck sales were only slightly lower this May than last, down just 5.6%. "What high gas prices?", ask ye. Overall, Canada light vehicle sales were 16.9% lower than the same period last year.

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General Motors: -12.2% to 31,546

Ford: -7.2% to 21,873

Toyota: -26% to 19,729

Honda: -16.9% to 14,046

Chrysler: -50% to 13,593

Hyundai: +17.8% to 11,204

Mazda: -17.2% to 8,009

Nissan: -13.3% to 7,672

Kia: +25.5% to 5,032

Volkswagen: +7.4% to 4,209

BMW: -2.6% to 2,676

Mercedes-Benz: +6.9% to 2,344

Subaru: +0.5% to 1,940

Mitsubishi: +4.5% to 1,931

Lexus: -13% to 1,587

Acura: -20.9% to 1,578

Suzuki: -17.9% to 1,255

Audi: +29.3% to 1,081

Infiniti: -13.7% to 718

Volvo: -6.9% to 773

Mini: -4.3% to 552

smart: -59.5% to 178

Land Rover: -8.4% to 174

Porsche: -22.6% to 161

Jaguar: -17.9% to 92

Saab: -57.8% to 65

5 SIGNS GENERAL MOTORS IS THE "NEW GM"

24 hours ago, GoodCarBadCar.net went on high-alert after General Motors made clear that the company was entering Chapter 11 bankruptcy. One post later, and GCBC's activity skyrocketed. There are plenty of complainers (most of whom don't understand that these same billions of dollars would be directed towards unemployment insurance if the government didn't help) and thousands of ignorant souls who simply don't know better. But in the end, America cares about General Motors.

This has thrown GoodCarBadCar's shcedule for a bit of a loop. Rather than look at five more of the most Memorable Vehicular Debuts of The Good Car Guy's era, it seems an ideal time to attempt to discover how and why the "new" GM will be different. Oh yeah, "new" is an important word in GM's... er, new vernacular. In Fritz Henderson's open letter posted here, new is even capitalized. So, says Henderson, "the New GM is here to stay". Also, though the company is appreciative of the Obama administration's help and doesn't discount the sacrifice so many Americans and Canadians have made, Fritz believes "our product is our future". Which is interesting, given The Good Car Guy's #1 reason GM went bankrupt. Anyway, keep reading for the Five Signs General Motors Has Changed and see if you can manage not to make a joke to your friends about GM being on the Fritz. Ha.

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The #5 Sign That General Motors Is The New GM ........ : Hummer is now owned by the Chinese. Yes indeed; expect the sale to go through by the end of September of this year. We don't know if the mystery buyer is Chinese or not, but few nations have companies willing to spend $500,000,000 on a brand that is distinctly uncompetitive in its largest market.

The #4 Sign That General Motors Is The New GM ........ : Saturns live on as Magna-built Opels. The Aurora, Ontario-based parts maker paid $989,000,000 for Opel; tie-ups with Russia-based OAO GAZ notwithstanding. Magna wants Opel to return to profitability by 2011 with significant increases in market share. Rumour has it that included in Magna's plan is help for dying Saturn dealers who already share some product with Opel.

The #3 Sign That General Motors Is The New GM ........ : Pontiac signs come down. Over the last decade, dealerships that weren't selling multiple GM brands were urged to do so. Typically, that meant Pontiac was sold alongside Buick and GMC. Buick and GMC are surviving - Pontiac is dying. Pontiac/Buick/GMC dealers will become Buick/GMC dealers if they don't take on Chevrolet and Cadillac, too.

The #2 Sign That General Motors Is The New GM ........ : Your GM car is built abroad. Although the New GM wants to "more efficiently utilize U.S. capacity", the New GM doesn't joke around when it comes to increasing vehicle sales in the U.S. of cars built elsewhere. Think China, first and foremost. One doubts that the Bowling Green sticker on your Corvette will be Beijing or Guangzhou anytime soon. However, GM already builds products in the far east that we see as American-made cars here. Why not build them one place, do so for less, and then ship them here?

The #1 Sign That General Motors Is The New GM ........ : You or your friends lose your job(s). Sorry to be so harsh, but listen to New GM's plans: swing downward from 2008's 47 manufacturing plants to 34 by the end of 2010 and 33 by the end of 2012. Meanwhile, GM's salaried North American workforce shrinks from 35,100 to 27,200. Take a look at the table below (click to enlarge) for plant closure timelines.

KEN BLOCK GYMKHANA SUBARU WRX STI VIDEO

The world's next great movie franchise is.... not The Fast & The Furious, Batman, or Star Wars. It's Ken Block Gymkhana videos. Watch the clip below for the third GoodCarBadCar.net-posted Ken Block video. Feel free to fast forward to the 1:14 marker for the genuinely blistering automotive performance. Click here for more Ken Block driving footage. This guy makes the Subaru Impreza WRX STi very, very cool.