NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING.

Editor's Note: This week, Peter continues with his bleak (and spot-on) assessment of the auto business, and the stark reality of these times is sobering indeed. In On The Table, we have a few comments about this year's Super Bowl ads. We also have auction results for the 1964 Ferrari 250 LM by Scaglietti, which was offered from the Collection of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum last weekend in Paris. And have a "Biggest Tool in the Shed" Alert in the form of the 2025 AMG SL 63 MANUFAKTUR Golden Coast from Mercedes-AMG. Next, we detail the rationale behind the new ad campaign for the Cadillac Escalade IQ BEV from Cadillac's agency 72andSunny. It truly is unbelievable (and not in a good way). Then, we have some dismal public attendance numbers for the 2025 Detroit Auto Show, which is now sadly nothing more than a regional retail show. And our AE Song of the Week is "Here I Go Again" by Whitesnake. In Fumes, we have the next installment of Peter's much-lauded new series, "The V8 Era," recalling how the emergence of V8 power transformed American sports car racing and propelled it into an entirely new dimension of popularity. And in The Line, we cover Aston Martin's new Valkyrie hypercar. Onward! -WG



By Peter M. DeLorenzo

 

Detroit. As the ice rolled over the Motor City last week, it had become apparent that any traditional “givens” about this business have been emphatically blown up by the active threats coming out of Washington. Now that our government is rooted in chaos, and a certain rogue billionaire has been given unprecedented power without ever having to corral a vote, how long before the auto industry lands in the crosshairs of the arbitrary and malignantly capricious Muskian “justice” troops?

 

Not long, I’m betting.

 

And reading between the lines of the latest earnings reports – I could hear the high-fiving in Dearborn from fifteen miles away, by the way – it’s clear that the fear and trepidation going on at all of the car companies is very real. That grinding you hear is the sound of the hedging going on internally, because none of these companies can count on anything – not the government, not the stability of the economy and especially not the viability of the Not-So-Grand Transition to EVs. In short, they’re all quaking in their boots. So, anything these car company operatives say to the Wall Street analysts to mollify any concerns should be taken with a three-ton block of salt, because this just in: Nobody knows anything.

 

This applies to all the “experts” who predicted that the Honda-Nissan marriage would not only go through, but that it could very well be a triumph. Wrong. There was no way in hell that it was going to happen, first of all, and any notion that Nissan wouldn’t be subservient in the linkup was pure folly. And the fact that it now isn’t happening should be a giant relief to Honda, because the further Honda operatives delved into the inner workings of Nissan, they were horrified, and the more they realized that the company was well and truly a flat-out, irretrievable mess.

 

The amazing thing – and I do loathe applying that overused word – is that there’s still evidence of a large measure of arrogance brewing within Nissan. Why this is happening is one of the mysteries of the modern industrialized world, because this company has been a rumbling-bumbling-stumbling disaster for going on two decades now. Nissan has nearly patented the two steps forward, three steps back dance of mediocrity, especially here in the U.S. market. But to hear the mumbling emanating from Nissan operatives last week, you’d think that they were being “disrespected” because people were damn-near laughing at the thought that the company had a leg to stand on in the proposed “merger.” I said it before and I’ll say it again, the best course of action for Nissan is that it be cut up, parted out and sold. This automotive entity deserves to be thrown on the scrap heap of automotive history, and the sooner the better for all concerned.

 

And something I said last week seemed to stir a level of outrage with our readers, and that was the fact that GM is still terminating people left and right, even via email in some cases.

 

The ugly reality is that all of the goodwill that Mary Barra has accrued over the years has gone out the window. It has been supplanted by her new persona as the “mistress” of cost cutting, and it threatens to forever stain her legacy as the first woman CEO of a major automobile company.

 

The latest evidence? Harlan Charles, Corvette product marketing manager for the past 37 years, was summarily dismissed last week. Arguably, no one has done more for the Corvette brand inside GM than Harlan Charles. His contributions to Corvette are almost immeasurable at this juncture, especially since he has been involved in every major Corvette product initiative during his tenure.

 

Charles wrote in a LinkedIn post last Sunday titled: "My Corvette dream is over — my bubble burst."

"I was informed my time is up and I will no longer be your Corvette Product Manager. I am now retired. I have had the greatest life I could have ever imagined because of Corvette," he continued. "We were able to prove that America can compete with the best in the world and win. I was able to work on four generations. No one can take away what I think is Corvette’s best era in history."

Yes, careers come to an end every day in this business, that is the hard reality. But lately, the ruthless cost cutting in this industry has become untenable. Veteran, experienced leaders are being let go for no rhyme or reason, and they’re being replaced with young, inexperienced people who haven’t had the benefit of a single moment of mentoring, or even worse, they’re not being replaced at all.

And at some point, the inevitable happens. The operatives who remain at the car companies look up and realize that crucial work is not getting done and worse, no one knows how to do it, because nobody knows anything.

It's getting harder and harder to be a True Believer in this business.

As the Wicked Witch of the West famously said, “Oh, what a world! What a world!”

And that’s the High-Octane Truth for this week.

Editor's Note: Click on "Next 1 Entries" at the bottom of this page to see previous issues. - WG