Does Belinda Curse Magna?

First it was revealed that Magna Corp was not the winning bidder in the Chrysler deal (contrary to many reports). The latest slight against the Stronachs (and that Russian billionaire who bought into the company) is the loss of the X3.

Specifically, Magna Steyr (who, you may remember, is building the KTM X-Bow) has lost the production contract for the BMW X3 SAV (which is Bayerische-speak for SUV).

Now here's my take on all this. Now that Magna has allll this extra production space (though, does anybody buy X3's? You see 5 X5's for every 1 X3 ... but I digress), and since KTM has given them the XBow contract, I predict increased XBow production!

I read somewhere that there was a limited number of XBows that could be assembled yearly, due to the production capabilities of Magna Steyr's Austrian facility. Now that we have more space, we can have more XBows! The only downer (for KTM fans, not for Magna) is that the BMW contract extends until 2010 ... so if my predictions prove correct (which they rarely do), you can buy an XBow instead of Olympic tickets ($60,000 = 1 men's hockey ticket).

General Motors shenanigans du jour

So I'm not sure if I ever actually wrote about it in this blog, but if you're aware of the Gwen Stefani song "The Sweet Escape" (and really, who isn't?!?), you may also be aware of the music video for said song. In the video, Gwen and Akon are rocking out a Chevrolet SUV (Tahoe I believe?) in the most blatant of ways. Honestly, the entire video appears to be nothing more than an extended Chev commercial (instead of playing a snippet of a song, they play the whole thing).

Well, GM has gone and done it again. Though the product placement is not as blatant in the 50 Cent video for "Amusement Park", it's far more improbable. Once upon a time, the only GM cars that rappers would roll in were '64 Impalas. Now we have Fiddy and friends posing with ... the Pontiac G6 GXP and to-be-released G8. Oh dear!

Though only enjoying 4 seconds of screen time (although I'm sure GM paid dearly for those 4 seconds), these cars have no business ... anywhere.

To be perfectly fair, I'm not a big fan of the Pontiac division of GM, so my opinions may be somewhat biased.

Olivier Jacques + Kawasaki = no France for you!

Well, the post title is kind of cryptic. But I'll break it down like this: Olivier Jacques (who was hired by Kawasaki to save their image in MotoGP) has crashed in a fire-y blaze (not really ... no flames involved), and won't be able to race at his "home" Grand Prix in France.

Jacques crashed during Free Practice prior to the Chinese GP, and has been having issues with the arm injury he sustained. An infection has led to a lack of mobility in his throttle arm, though he wasn't really fast anyways, so who needs a throttle? (just kidding)

While I'm not questioning the 33 year old's desire ... I just have to bring up the infamous ClusterFuck '06, in which a whole bunch of riders went down with various injuries. You may remember Rossi riding with a broken throttle hand and brake foot? Or Sete riding with ... whatever the hell was wrong with Sete? Regardless ... I'm pretty sure a broken hand is much worse than an infection that you JUST noticed. Suck it up Olivier!

Poor Belinda ...

Well, as you probably (maybe?) know, Chrysler has been sold. The disappointing part of that news is that Belinda will not be the new Queen of Chrysler. No, allegedly the reports that Magna Corp was the #1 prospect were mistaken (or false).

Instead, ze Germans have sold Chrysler to Cerberus. "Hmmm" you're thinking. "I've never heard of a Cerberus-made car. Perhaps they, like Magna, make parts?"

You're mistaken ... Cerberus makes neither cars NOR parts. They make money. Cerberus Capital Management is a New York-based private equity firm that likes to buy stuff (including National/Alamo car rentals, Blue Bird buses, 51% of GM's finance firm, Remington guns, etc).

Buzz Hargrove was all uppity, worrying that the sale would lead to job cutting, but Cerberus has signed a written agreement stating that no jobs would be lost. Impressive!

Honestly, Chrysler was on a downhill slope anyways. This can't really do anything bad to the company.

New Google Analytics Layout

... I'm not sure how I feel about it. It has a more "pretty" feel (graphically appealing, I suppose), but it seems slightly bigger and bulkier (and I don't mean that in a good way) than the old version.

Comments?