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Wow…that’s the only word that came out of my mouth when I saw a picture of the Vorsteiner tuned BMW 7 series. That is hugh for someone that has always had a love affair with Benzo’s from the days of the 560 SEC. As a kid I was crazy about Mercedes but over the years that affair has slowly waned. I have always loved Audi’s all the way back to the Audi 4000 and the death trap 5000.  However, BMW’s were always absent from my mental list but that has slowly started change with the BMW 6 series and the recently launched 7 series. Many of the styling cues of the current  7 series have come from Chris Bangle who was put in charge of BMW design and for many years was the most hated car designer.  Sad to say, I was pretty vocal of past BMW designs but the 7 series has made up for it. Chris Bangle left BMW last year and their sales are doing very well…some vindication for him.

The Vorsteiner tuned 7 series is just breathtaking…they have taken a beautiful piece of machinery and made it even it even better without ruining it as most tuners do. Take a look at the picture gallery and prepare to drool.

I’m absolutely lost with the recent turn of events at Porsche, Wendelin Wiedeking the CEO for the past 16 years just resigned. I know that happens all the time but just 6 months ago he was hailed as the “European Businessman of the Year” by Fortune Magazine. And if we go further back to October 2008, he was the guy that ran a hedge fund that just happened to make cars. In October, he was busy executing his plans to takeover VW and in the process body slammed some major hedge funds like Marshall Wace, SAC Capital and Och Ziff.

So what happened?  It appears his David and Goliath strategy to take over the massive VW group meant Porsche had to rack up some serious debt – USD 10 billion.  It all ended badly as now VW is going to takeover Porsche and hence the CEO was shown the door fired with a fat golden parachute.

The VW Group is not just VW but a host of name brands most people can recognize:

• Audi
• Bentley Motors
• Bugatti
• Lamborghini
• Porsche
• SEAT
• Scania
• Skoda
• VW

No matter what happens with the management team, the 911 is still an amazing car. The new Panamera will take some getting used to, it looks like a luge.

Sunday was the grand opening of the Jaguar and Land Rover flagship store in Bombay. If you remember, the Tata Group over paid for Jaguar and Land Rover back in early 2008 when the automotive world was not in complete meltdown mode.  Oooh, how things have changed.

Anyways, the Tata Group decided to launch their new babies by housing the new dealership in arguably the most expensive piece of commercial real estate in India – CeeJay House in Worli. The new combined showroom for Jaguar and Land Rover looks awesome, they have been preparing for the Sunday launch all weekend long.

It occurred to me with these two new name plates added to South Bombay, all of the dealers are actually on the same stretch of road albeit with names changes along the way  - Hughes Road, Pedder Road, Annie Besant Road, etc… I’ll start the tour from the southern most dealer and imagine you are driving north towards Worli.

1. Mercedes Benz Sanghi – The original Mercedes dealer in South Bombay. On the right side of the road.

2. Porsche Centre Mumbai – Opened Nov 20, 2007. I remember the date because the opening was on my birthday. On the right side of the road.

3. BMW Navnit – This is located on the backside of Copper Chimney. On the right side of the road.

4. Jaguar – CeeJay House. On the left side of the road.

5. Land Rover – CeeJay House. On the left side of the road.

6. Rolls Royce Navnit – Ground floor of Atria Mall. The mall is pathetic but seeing a Phantom in the window is breath taking. On the right side of the road.

7. Audi Mumbai – At the base of the Worli flyover on the left side of the road.

The biggest glaring omission is the lack of a Ferrari dealer.  Other name plates such as Aston Martin, Bentley, Lamborghini and Maserati have yet to setup shop, not sure if they will.

Hope you enjoyed the virtual car ride.

It’s a sad day for Detroit and America when the largest company in the world at one point is just hours away from a bankruptcy filing.  This didn’t happen overnight but instead took many decades to destroy the brand and go from 54% market share to 19%.  When you watch old TV show clips on car shows from the 1950′s you could tell that GM was the company to work for and their product was king.  Today, when you mention GM most people snicker and talk about how the guys at Renaissance Center gave away the business to Japan.

As far as GM India, all the local press keep on insisting nothing will change the Indian operations in.  Which to be honest is really sad, I think even GM India needs a shakeup and should focus on the low end car market. Bringing the Saturn brand to India and those “dent/ding free” body panels would work wonders in a city like Bombay. But, I’m sure the current concerns will be around the US operations where the bulk of the revenue comes from.

It’s been 4 years since my first post on GM, below are my previous posts on GM:

Feb 20, 2009 - http://celestri.org/2009/02/20/gms-5-year-plan/

Nov 18, 2008 - http://celestri.org/2008/11/18/gmgoodbye-motown/

June 9, 2005 - http://celestri.org/2005/06/09/whats-wrong-with-gm/

As part of getting federal money, GM released its 5 year restructuring plan this week (download PDF). I briefly scanned the 100+ page document and it touches on some key points but misses the biggest point – build cars that people want to buy. Below are my recommendations:

Only 3 divisions should be left – Chevrolet, Cadillac and GMC. Chevrolet should be focused on cars below USD 40,000.  Cadillac will focus on cars above USD 40,000.  GMC should be the truck/SUV division. Stop the overlap of designs and pricing between divisions which just confuses the shi@#$ out of consumers.  German cars are so damn easy – small, medium, large.  Small (A4, 3 series, C class), Medium (A6, 5 series, E class) Large (A8, 7 series, S class).

Buick/Pontiac – get rid of them. Once again, does anyone believe Tiger Wood’s drives a Buick? Pontiac had it’s glory days but it’s over (NY Times).

Saab/Hummer – Bye. Never could figure out who buys Saab, none of my friends. Hummer…really do we need this kind of fossil fuel consuming vehicle on the road?

Saturn – Should focus on India or China where cheap cars rule.  A Saturn car with ding/dent proof doors would do very well in Bombay traffic. But as far as a US entity selling cars…goodbye.

Of course, I have not addressed the two biggest issues ailing GM – unions and health care. That’s for another day.

GMAC, the automobile financing company spun off from General Motors, finally received USD 6 billion from the US Government via the TARP fund. GMAC was able to access the TARP fund by magically turning into a bank holding company (BHC). With this new cash infusion I’m sure the management of GMAC will do everything possible to spend it wisely and not have a repeat of the subprime lending practices in the housing market.

GMAC said in a statement that it would modify its credit criteria to include financing for customers with a credit score of 621 or above, a significant expansion of credit compared with the 700 minimum score put in place two months ago.

DOH…of course this is different from subprime lending! I wonder if people will really be taking out car loans if they know their job is in jeopardy or if the financial crisis gets worse. Since all US taxpayers are on the hook for the USD 6 billion, sucks to see the same thing happening over and over.

What a joke, spend USD 50 billion 25 billion (maybe USD 5 billion by next week) to bailout the automotive industry. And why? Because the automotive industry is essential to the American economy according to the CEO’s of the Big 3. To give them any money would be a waste, they have consistently shown they are clueless when it comes to cars.  GM is the biggest offender of building cars made just for fleet sales.  Avis I believe is the largest customer of GM cars, then Avis rents out that trash to unsuspecting tourists and business people.  Let’s be real, does ANYONE believe Tiger Woods’ drives a Buick?  Even the newly updated Pontiac G6, looks like garbage and that was just released today at the LA Autoshow.

If the automotive companies do get some type of government assistance, it all should go towards alternative fuel R&D. GM created the EV1 which was a great attempt at an electric car and then several years later they came by and crushed every single one of them which is just beyond words. The hubris that only Detroit can create an alternative fuel car was evident on 60 Minutes in early October when Bob Lutz of GM was talking about Tesla Motors.  Telsa Motors is based in Silicon Valley and Bob Lutz referred to Tesla as “being from Silicone Valley.”  Hugh difference between Silicon and Silicone. He went on to say that Detroit should be the guys making an electic car not some start-up in the valley.

Since the 1980′s the American car companies have completely fumbled when it comes to cars that American’s want. I get the sense they have lost their way and are confused between garage and garbage.  Instead of building cars to put inside a garage, they have been building garbage that sits outside.

The last two weeks have been mentally, physically and financially draining:
Mentally –  thinking of all the permutations and outcomes is tasking
Physically – checking the markets every 3-4 hours means I’ve gotten very little continuous sleep
Financially – watching your 401(k) go down the toilet is no fun 

Enough of all that non-sense, let’s talk about Ferrari’s…The highly anticipated Ferrari California had a sneak peak in Los Angeles and Maranello on September 22 (I believe Wall Street was melting down) and the car is really sweeeeeet looking. The official launch was yesterday at the Paris Auto Show.

A couple of my friends sent me some random pics of Ferrari’s (I request if you have any please forward them to me). The first 3 pics were taken at Tokyo’s Narita Airport – 430 Modena. The fourth picture is a swarm of Ferrari’s, my only question who invited the piker with the Porsche to the party?

(hat tip to Pankaj C. and P. Nath for the pics)

On this day 3 years back I moved to India for business and it’s been quite an adventure ever since. Working in India has a whole set of challenges that sometimes make you wonder WTF!!! There is yoga and exercise to manage the stress but what I usually do is fire up my iPod and listen to one of my favorite lines from Steve Job’s 2005 Stanford commencement speech:

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.

Spotting a Lamborghini LP640 in India is about as common as seeing Halley’s Comet. The LP640 is the big bull in the Lamborghini stable, in India the car goes for about Rs. 3 CR (about USD 750,000).  So imagine how I felt when I heard one of these beauties got into a major accident in Bombay sometime in May 2008.

The funny part is that NO ONE seems to know anything about it.  This is surprising in a country where the press likes to describe in excrutiating detail the movements of anybody with money. So I find it hard to believe that an LP640 gets demolished on a public road and everyone seems to be clueless on who owns the car or what really happened.

UPDATE: Aug 19, 2008 - The car was owned by Hitesh Bhagat, his grandfather Kalyanji brought matka gambling to Bombay in 1962 and was referred to as the “Matka King.” Matka is a form of gambling that he popularized. Hitesh’s father Suresh was killed last month in an apparent move to take over the family business, Hitesh is a suspect in the killing as is his mother…drama!