Tough news coming?

I am up uncharacteristically early, taking some pics for this weekend's Wheels section.

I have CNN on, and it is reporting that Chrysler will file for bankruptcy in the United States by noon today.

This may be brinksmanship, trying to force some of the company's recalcitrant creditors to make a deal - some of them refused by last evening's deadline.

It may be that Fiat, seen by many as the White Knight in this scenario, would prefer to acquire Chrysler through the bankruptcy process, figuring it would get a better deal. Time - three hours - will tell.

One way or another, everyone involved is hoping that some sort of viable enterprise will emerge from this mess - bankruptcy does not always mean liquidation.

And owners of Chrysler products apparently will have their warranties guaranteed by various levels of government.

Stay tuned.

That nice lady in the dashboard

I drove the very impressive new Volvo XC60 crossover to Detroit and back this past Monday.

(Road test coming soon).

On the way back over the Blue Water Bridge at Sarnia, the nice SatNav lady in the dashboard said, "Welcome to Canada!"

Isn't that cool?

I don't recall her welcoming me to the United States earlier in the day. Wonder if there's anything to be made of that?

Oh, BTW - if you travel frequently out of Canada and don't have a NEXUS card, what are you waiting for?

At vehicle border crossings, you just hold up the card, a machine interprets it, and off you go. No line-ups, no passport, Bob's Your Uncle.

At airports, it's even cooler. A special camera takes a picture of your eyeballs, matches the irises against the data base in what is an incredible feat of computer processing - it takes about a second - spits out a card, and through customs you go.

It costs $50 (US or CDN; best exchange rate anywhere). Cheap as dirt, if you put any value on your own time at all.

Google "NEXUS CARD" to find all the details.

The beginning of the end or the end of the beginning?

I don't know how many shoes have yet to drop for General Motors.

But the changes announced yesterday - massive cuts in jobs, more plant closings, the elimination of dealerships and the dropping of the Pontiac brand - are all necessary if not sufficient responses to the New Reality.

As much as the domestic car makers complain that the main reason for their plight was
(and remains) short-sighted government policies which penalize older companies by saddling them with the legacy costs of pension and medical benefits - to which I largely subscribe - it's that old "up to your assets in alligators" thing.

Yes, your original objective was to drain the swamp.

But first, you gotta survive.

So now GM, Chrysler, and, to a lesser extent, Ford, have to do whatever they can to keep the alligators at bay.

Pontiac was doomed. From its heyday with the GTO in the 1960s, it really hasn't established much of a presence.

Other GM brands are also heading to dinosaur-land.

SAAB and Hummer are for sale, but nobody wants them.

GMC as a stand-alone truck brand never did make a lot of sense to me although their marketing people claim their sales are at least partially incremental over what they could do with Chevy badges on otherwise identical vehicles.

Buick would be a target too, except for a massive presence in China (the old emperors used to drive Buicks, and the cachet has survived six decades of Communist rule).

Saturn started off as a bold idea, but had morphed into a domestic name for GM's foreign cars. But Chevrolet can do and is doing the same thing- Malibu = Aura - so there seems little need for Saturn any more.

That leaves Chevrolet at the bottom, Buick in the middle, and Cadillac at the top, which is probably all GM really needs.

Toyota does just fine with three brands (Toyota, Lexus, Scion). BMW does just fine with two (BMW and Mini). Why does GM need seven or eight?

As for dealer networks, Canada has shown the way for decades, by combining (for example) Pontiac and Buick and, in the old days, Chevrolet and Oldsmobile.

The dealer network simply has to be consolidated further, and that will continue.

None of this is going to easy.

The US government could also do a lot more by setting an energy policy with closer-to-world fuel pricing so car makers could plan to build fuel-efficient cars in response to real demand, instead of being forced to build cars nobody wants - which, as long as gasoline is free, they don't.

I'm not holding my breath.

An interesting Formula One race?

Writers are (almost) never 'not writing'.

Sure, they might not always be 'typing', to use the distinction the comic strip
"Shoe" used to make.

But we're (almost) always thinking about how we're going to phrase this or that, when/if we finally get around to actually typing it.

Usually when the deadline is looming (or well past).

So there I was, watching this morning's Formula One race, mentally composing a "Congratulations!" post to Toyota, for their first-ever Grand Prix victory.

After years and billions of dollars worth of trying, their all-Toyota front row in Bahrain surely boded well.

The usual first-corner shambles saw pole-sitter Jarno Trulli nudged aside by his teammate, Timo Glock.

But the big move was Lewis Hamilton, starting fifth on the outside of the track in row three, and diving up the inside to claim third (and coincidentally making a prophet of Red Bull's Mark Webber who said he knew Hamilton would be third at that point).

Little did anyone, perhaps except Brawn GP's eponymous team owner-manager Ross, understand at the time the significance of his driver Jenson Button immediately passing Hamilton after this manoeuvre.

Because that proved to be the pivotal point in Button's subsequent victory, contradicting an old adage that you can lose a race on the first lap, but seldom win one.

Glock led until the first round of pit stops, when Ross Brawn's strategic magic once again took over.

It's sort of like David Copperfield - you know he's going to make something (in this case, the opposition) disappear. But as often as he's done it, you still can't figure out how.

He's been doing this - out-thinking opposition team managers - for fifteen years; you'd think someone would have cottoned on to the secret by now.

Nope.

So there was Button, his racing suit almost completely devoid of sponsor patches, celebrating his third victory in four starts - in Brawn GP's four starts as a team.

While Toyota is still looking for their first after 126 Grands Prix.

The brilliant young Sebastian Vettel in a suddenly-competitive Red Bull followed last week's wet win with an ultra-dry second place.

It's also stunning how fast and how completely the old order hath changed.

Ferrari, the Constructors' Championship winner in eight of the last ten years, narrowly avoided the worst start in their F1 history by gaining their first points of the season in the fourth race, with ex-champion Kimi Raikkonen taking a lonely sixth (Felipe Massa was fourteenth).

And McLaren, despite using the 'factory' version of the same Mercedes-Benz engine that powers Brawn, was only moderately competitive, with reigning champion Hamilton finishing fourth and Heikki Kovalainen well up the track.

That barren-of-badges suit of Button's?

Don't expect it to be that way for long.

The signs are there for all to see - "This Space for Rent".

Royalties - and the Lone Ranger

Fresh from suggesting that BMW owes The Guess Who royalties for the iDrive warning chime (it sounds JUST like the opening chord to "Laughing"), I hop into the new Volvo XC60 crossover.

Nice car, BTW.

It has a 'lane-departure' warning system. If cameras on either side of the car detect that it is crossing a lane demarcation line and the turn signal lever is not being operated, it sends out a warning chime too:

"DA da-da DA, DA da-da DA DA DA."

OK, it's hard to communicate what it sounds like in text.

But trust me - it sounds JUST like the opening notes of the William Tell Overture.

Or maybe the Lone Ranger theme...

Would a rose by any other name drive as fast?

Want your kid to become a race driver?

It may already be too late - if you didn’t name him Sebastian.

No fewer than three of the twenty drivers who participated in the Chinese Grand Prix last weekend were named Sebastian (or the equivalent French spelling 'Sebastien').

There's the rising German superstar and rainmaster Sebastian Vettel, who won last weekend (and you don't have to be Nostradamus to predict he'll be World Champion some day soon).

There's the Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais, a multi-time Indy Car champion who so far hasn't been able to replicate that success at the Grand Prix level.

The Swiss Sebastien Buemi is making a good impression in his first season.

And in many people's opinion (mine anyway) the best race driver in the world at the moment isn't even in Formula One - that would be rally and Le Mans star Sebastien Loeb, again from France.

As Jerry Seinfeld would say, "What's up with that?"

According to one baby name web site I checked, 'Sebastian' ranks eighty-eighth among most popular boys names.

Yet fifteen percent of the Grand Prix field has that name.

A crazy co-incidence?

I wonder…

We chose "Patrick" for our son's name, and I have to admit the farthest thing from my mind at the time was NOT that it was a nice international-sounding name that graced more than a few great racers - Depaillier, Tambay, Carpentier.

He grew up short and slim, the perfect race driver build.

He even has a modicum of athletic ability, although where that came from remains a mystery…

But his chosen sport is Ultimate Frisbee, fer cryin' out loud. At the very highest levels of that sport the athletes PAY to participate in championship tournaments.

So much for my plans for a financially-secure retirement.

I think they call this 'irony'.

So there I was, making a special trip to Starbucks to get my free cup of coffee this morning, to celebrate Earth Day.

In my SUV test-drive.

"At least," said the barista, "you didn't use the drive-thru...".

Double your pleasure, double your - um, fun?

Our very own newspaper reported that double-trailer transport trucks will be allowed on Ontario's 400-series highways starting this summer.

As if negotiating around 20-metre 35,000 kg trucks isn't tough enough - now we'll have to deal with 40-metre 70,000 kg rigs.

Keen.

Supporters of the proposal state, with some justification, that the scheme will reduce transportation costs, fuel usage and emissions.

The proposal also brings Ontario into line with western Provinces, Quebec, and as many as twenty US states.

Detractors, predictably, worry about safety.

As do I.

This article from the New York Times is quite old, but the conclusions probably still hold true.

(Wow - TWO Hot Links in a single post!)

Generally, truckers are among the best drivers on the road. Trucking associations can (and do) quote statistics chapter and verse to support that contention.

Truckers also point out that truck crashes are almost universally caused by car drivers (derisively referred to in the trucking world as 'four-wheelers'), which is also surely true.

The problem is - the consequence of a single mistake can be devastating. And the penalty for a small error shouldn't be death.

Memo to all 'four-wheelers' - when you encounter any transport truck, single- or double-trailer, remember the advice someone like your Granddad probably told you: don't poke at sun-bathing rattlesnakes; don't whack wasps' nests with sticks; or, as Jim Croce sang (you KNEW this was coming), don't tug on Superman's cape.

Just, um, steer clear.

Don't tailgate them.

Don't block them.

Don't brake-test them.

If they're going to have a crash, make sure they have it with somebody else.

Oh, and the 'pilot project' aspect of this proposal?

Reminds me of another 'temporary measure' our federal government introduced back in, oh, must have been 1917.

It is called Income Tax.

Please tell me this is not a late April Fool's joke

The headline reads "Province gives up on speeders, raises limit".

(HEY! Looks like I finally figured out how to make a Hot Link! Thanks, Andrew.)

The province is Prince Edward Island, and I salute them.

The article outlines how a particular community whose posted speed limit of 60 km/h is roundly ignored, has raised it to 80 km/h.

Democracy in action.

The Cassandras moan that drivers will simply drive even faster, apparently ignorant of the fact that most drivers pay little attention to all speed limit signs, and simply drive at a speed they feel comfortable with.

Which generally is the speed at which the road was designed to be driven.

Provincial officials state they believe the new limit is safe, although you can bet the first crash they have there - at no matter what speed - will set the hounds loose again.

Having trouble e-mailing me?

I know just enough about this computer/Internet stuff to be dangerous.

I mean, in a previous lifetime I actually WAS a computer geek, but those days are long past me now.

But I did figure out in the relatively early days of the Internet and e-mail that having an e-mail address that was tied to my ISP - e.g., aol in those bad old days, or sympatico now - meant that if I decided to change ISPs, I would have to tell the entire world that my e-mail address had changed.

So I got my own domain (jimkenzie.com, the best eight bucks I spend every year - thank you, GoDaady.com) and use jim@jimkenzie.com as my main e-mail address.

This effectively acts as an "alias" - I simply point it to my "real" email address. Then if I change ISPs or whatever, all I have to do is change the pointer, not the address.

Everyone keeps sending mail to jim@jimkenzie.com, I keep getting the messages.

Works a treat.

Except this past January, something went wrong with my domain registraiton, and jim@jimkenzie.com got temporarily suspended. I thought I had fixed it, but just this past week I discovered that it had gone south again.

The worst thing is, of course - I didn't know! You can't react to e-mails that you never receive.

I THINK it's fixed again, so if any of you have tried to contact me via that e-mail address in recent weeks, please try again.

I suspect any messages that were sent there during the time-out are lost in cyberspace for ever - my apologies...

Comments on this blog have been coming through OK though - keep 'em coming!