Nutson's Nuggets: Last Week's (January 23-29, 2012) In Case You Were Not Paying Attention

Auto Central Louisville KY January 29, 2012; Each week Larry Nutson, The Auto Channel's Chicago Bureau Chief, along with Steve Purdy and Thom Cannell from The Auto Channel Detroit Bureau give you the past week's automotive news highlights you may have missed. If you are a car nut like we all are here you can easily "catch up" on not only this past weeks automotive news but the past 16 years 901,102 automotive stories, articles, reviews, rants and raves by just searching for the subject you are interested in The Auto Channel's Automotive News Archive...Have fun see ya next week LN.

* GM is running full page newspaper ads in a reputation-rebuilding effort for the Chevy Volt. This followed in the wake of the Volt being cleared by the NHTSA in the recent battery fire investigation.

* Our friend and colleague, Bryan Laviolette posted a well-written and insightful commentary about the Volt battery fire issue. A good read for anyone interested in the subject. Take a look: HERE. GM's big boss, Dan Ackerson, faced Congress this week to defend the car and allay knee-jerk safety fears. He also firmly stated that the car was engineered with plenty of technology and safety but was "not engineered to be a political punching bag."

* Cars for the 2013 NASCAR Sprint Cup series will not be aerodynamic cookie-cutter versions of each other. It will be a return to the days when stock cars were recognizable as a Chevy, Dodge, Ford or Toyota. The Ford Fusion NASCAR Sprint Cup race car was unveiled at a news conference by Ford and Nascar at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The car will be campaigned in 2013, making its race debut at the Daytona 500. “We wanted Fusion to be the car that helped return ‘stock car’ to Nascar,” said Jamie Allison, the director of Ford Racing.

A sure sign of Spring! The 2012 GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series will kick off with the 50th Anniversary Rolex 24 at Daytona this weekend. * Good news for Saab lovers. The Saab museum was saved for a mere $4.14 million (28 million kroner), otherwise it would have been broken up. According to a story from Sveriges Radio AB, more than 500 bids were placed for the museum liquidation. Bidders in North America bid on single cars from the collection. Yet the top bid for the entire collection came from the City of Trollhättan, aerospace company Saab AB, and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. The immensely wealthy Wallenbergs have been involved with Saab for more than 40 years, and it appears Trollhättan Mayor Paul Akerlund was part of putting the deal together.

* Ford posted an operating profit of $8.8 billion this week, partly attributable to some accounting anomalies but certainly substantially attributable to a well-run company with some very good products. Ford's strength was apparent at the North American International Auto Show last week, reports of which you saw (and can continue to see) here at theautochannel.com.

* One of the Ford innovations that puts them in the lead among powertrains is the EcoBoost technology - engines with direct injection and turbo chargers. Ford announce this week that 11 more of their vehicles will get EcoBoost in 2012. The 2.0-liter EcoBoost four-cylinder engine, for example, makes 237 horsepower and gets 25% better fuel economy than the V6 it replaces.

* Further evidence that GM expects to make serious money on the sub-compact, Michigan-built Chevy Sonic emerged this week with an announcement that two 60-second Super Bowl ads will be dedicated to Sonic. Earlier evidence was the amount of space at GM's NAIAS stand was dedicated to the Chevy sub-brand. Conventional wisdom in the past was that US automakers couldn't make money manufacturing sub-compacts in the US.

* McKeel Hagerty, owner of one of the premier collector car insurance companies revealed this week his list of future collectible cars. You might want to pay attention so you can latch onto a car that will be worth big money in 20 or 30 years. The list includes: Buick Regal GS, Mustang Boss 302, Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8, Fiat 500 Abarth, VW Golf R, Porsche 911, Camaro ZL1, Nissan GTR Black Edition, Dodge Charger SRT8 and Audi TT RS. As you can see, most are high performance, specialty cars.

* BMW's new performance diesel mid-sized cars, M550d (5-Series), X5 M50d, and X6 M50d, feature triple turbos and gobs of torque, providing equal, if not better off-the-line grunt. We'll see more details - for example, if we'll get those in the US - at the Geneva Motor Show in March.

* RM Auctions were among six major classic and collector car auctions in the Phoenix-Scottsdale area in the last couple of weeks. Reports we've seen indicate that, like the rest of the car industry, collector cars are coming back as well. While this part of the market never sunk as low as the new car business, it too suffered. RM reports their top seller was a 1957 Ferrari 410 Superamerica Scaglietti Coupe at over $1.8 million. See their full results at: http://www.rmauctions.com/auctionresults.cfm?SaleCode=AZ12.

* Toyota, Ford and Honda continue to maintain the top three spots in a survey of consumer perceptions about automotive brands, but their lead over other brands is shrinking, Consumer Reports says. Only two points behind Honda this year was Chevrolet, followed by Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Volvo, Cadillac, Lexus and newcomer Tesla to round out the top ten.