Toyota says it is ready to beat the tar out of GM for world dominance, but the Detroit automakers looks like it is winning the hearts and minds of the Chinese.

General Motors said it has become the first overseas car maker to sell one million units on the Chinese mainland this year.

Cadillac SLS China

GM didn’t give specific sales figure for the whole year. Last year, it sold 876,747 units on the mainland, a jump of 32 percent from 2005 and outpaced the growth of the entire auto industry of 25 percent.
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Start licking your chops and get ready to come in for the kill if you have been in the market recently for a full size pick-up. It appears that the Chevy Silverado is the injured prey waiting to be consumed.

I don’t get it. If you are just a casual viewer of current events, you saw the imminent collapse of the housing industry in America starting to unfold months and months ago. This means bad news for trucks used to make the construction industry move. It appears the Armani clad economists working for GM somehow missed the story.
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With Hummer sales plunging into the abyss, showing a 22 percent decline this year, I guess GM figures that the only way to proceed is to downsize.
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We become slightly oblivious when car makers announce billion dollar losses. It seems almost the norm.

But GM’s announcement of a close to $39 billion loss sent shockwaves throughout the industry.
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General Motors might be entering the financial abyss after showing a 38+ billion dollar setback a few days ago, but that is not stopping the company from offering a new round of Canadian incentives.

General Motors of Canada earlier today announced that, building on strong October sales growth and its” hot new vehicle lineup”, (straight out of their press release. My opinion is a little more staid) the company is introducing a series of new price incentives to augment its already highly competitive lease and finance rates. Effective today, GM Canada will:

- Cover a 1% GST reduction for all of our cash and finance customers until the new GST rate takes effect on January 1, 2008. - Offer new cash incentives ranging from $1,500 up to $10,000 on select models, including the Cadillac Escalade, Chevy Corvette, GMC Yukon and all of our 2008 Saab models.
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Those wacky guys over at The Truth About Cars have been having some fun lately picking out the top ten worst cars sold in 2007. They put the word out to their readers who then began submitting the nastiest of rides. Once a great big list was compiled, they narrowed it down to 20 and then readers voted for the bottom top 10.

The Top Ten Worst Cars of 2007, as chosen by TTAC’s readers are:
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Way back in, oh, 1990 or so a customer came into the drive through at the Dodge dealership I worked at and began ranting uncontrollably. Once we got him settled down enough to string together a sentence we figured out the source of his ire. His Dodge Shadow did not have a unique key! It seems the gentleman had exited a shopping mall, hopped in his car and drove away only to discover that his ashtray was clean and his cigarettes were missing. He returned to the spot he had vacated, only to discover his own identical Shadow parked in the next aisle. Of course his next stop was the dealership where he demanded that all his locks be changed and he wanted a guarantee that his locks would be unique. This did not happen.
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Understandably, GM has called off the Ride & Drive event for the 2008 Chevy Malibu due to the recent fires in California. The event was to take place quite near one of the areas that was hardest hit, so it likely doesn’t make sense to hold this type of event. They have more important things to worry about at the moment, like getting people’s lives back on track.

I’m sure that other invitees are disappointed, as I am, but in the grand scheme of things this would seem a tad frivolous. Our thoughts are with all those who have been affected by the fires.

General Motors and Chrysler are done and Ford and the UAW are saying nice things about each other, but the question remains: will these deals ensure the survival of the Big Three?

Consensus is no.
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Welcome to the Canada Day edition of the Carnival of Wheels! It’s been a busy couple of weeks in The Garage. We are in the middle of three weeks of track action and we’ve picked up a new to us SUV, so our work here in The Garage has been pretty self centered. Don’t worry though, our selfish posting will continue, as there are still tons of photos yet to be edited from the VARAC festival and next weekend is a double header. First we’ll have 2 days in the pits at the Steelback Grand Prix for Champ Cars and then on Sunday, Miss Shelby has her first race of the season. Elsewhere online, autobloggers have been busy churning out all manner of hot content, so sit down, strap in and get ready for a smoking hot lap of the blogosphere while you watch the French Grand Prix.

First up we’ve got another visit from Hello Kitty Hell, with a truly frightening tuner mod. This poor guy’s wife has actually installed this happy feline exhaust tip on their car! Be afraid, be very, very afraid.
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