I’m in the Goodwood Festival of Speed media center, which is full of people with cool jackets from various European races or F1 teams. I’ve just scarfed a “real British bacon” sandwich, and I’m inclined to take a nap, so it’s a great relief that Stellantis and the Italian government are yet again giving me life courtesy of their neverending stupid beef. I call it a stupid beef because the details are just a constant source of personal delight, even though the stakes are billions of dollars and hundreds or thousands of jobs.
Slowly sips some black British tea…
There was an election here in the United Kingdom and a new government has been swept into power. The same has happened in France, where a coalition of moderates and liberals fended off a late charge from the Far Right. What will happen in the United States this fall? It’s a lot like Shitbox Showdown, where you’ve got two choices and there’s a lot of debate over which one will fail you first. The UAW backed President Biden early and is now, reportedly, waffling.
Contemplates eating another bacon roll…
General Motors is going to probably demolish most of the famous Renn Center HQ in Detroit, which is a key part of Detroit’s skyline. If this is like most GM projects, they’ll realize in about 10 years how far ahead of the curve the Renn Cenn was and will start a 20-year project to rebuild it.
Is it too early for a pint?
And, finally, did Facebook kill the car forum?
Le Notti Di Stellantia
I love Italian cinema. Fellini, Rossellini, de Sica, Benini, Antonioni, et cetera. I love how even the darker neo-realist films contain those little grace notes of absurdity that mimic the strangeness of life. Is there anything more absurd than the near-constant bickering over random things between Stellantis and Italy? The arguments over tiny-ass flags? Absolutely not.
All of Europe’s political structure is built on insecurity. The world is changing yet again and, after a brief period of light resurgence (mostly in Germany), threats are everywhere. It is this insecurity that has helped bring forward more populist governments, like Italy’s new Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Brothers of Italy Party.
Italy has long had a large industrial automotive base in the form of Fiat, which in the 1970s employed roughly thirteen trillion Italians. The company had a brief resurgence itself under the impatient but steady leadership of Sergio Marchionne, and Fiat even acquired Chrysler in what amounts to a fire sale. Given that more of the power in the relationship was in Italy, this seemed fine with the Italian government.
The creation of Stellantis, which combined Fiat Chrysler and the remnants of Peugeot-Citroen with some other bits, hasn’t been seen in Rome as such a good deal for Italy. Now Fiat is a partially American company based in Hoofdorp in The Netherlands and, even worse, is now partially owned by the French government.
Stellantis has, under Carlos Tavares, taken an approach to various governments that involves asking for massive handouts/subsidies and threatening to move jobs to other places if they don’t fork’em over. For some reason, this hasn’t endeared Tavares to the new Italian government, which is, again, populist. The lifeblood of populism is constantly getting mad about things, and Tavares seems to get off on picking fights so, yeah, here we are.
What do I mean by “here”? The Italian government is considering using a new law to strip away the Autobianchi and Innocenti brands from Stellantis. This is from Italian news site Il Sole 24 Ore’s (which means The Sun) article that translates directly to “Cars, China Wants Historic Brands Innocenti and Autobianchi.” Reuters breaks it down for us:
Il Sole said the government’s appropriation would be made possible under a law passed in December and a draft implementing decree, under examination by the Court of Auditors, concerning brands that have been unused for at least five years.
Once under government control, they could be given to “companies, including foreign ones, that intend to invest in Italy or move to Italy manufacturing activities located abroad,” the law says
Wow. The Italian government is out here Bobby Clarke-ing Stellantis. Brilliant. I love it.
Autobianchi is the famous Italian brand known for making their own versions of Fiats while Innocenti is known for doing the same thing with Minis. Neither brand has existed as an active carmaker for a while, but that doesn’t mean Fiat doesn’t want to keep them. Certainly, Fiat isn’t likely to be keen on having to compete with a Geely-owned car that’s called Innocenti, is built in Italy, and costs like half of what a Fiat 500 costs.
Is this going to happen? Probably not. While the PM is a populist, the other big source of power is the Elkann family which, you know, owns a big chunk of Stellantis. This feels like it’s just more carping from the Italian government which, if past is prologue, will induce Tavares to do or say something mean in response. I can’t wait.
UAW Reportedly Worried About President Biden
As a person who studied government and worked in politics, I think it’s fair to say that President Biden has been the most successful first termer since Bill Clinton. You may not like his policies or agree with them, but as a longtime senator, it would be hard to argue that he hasn’t gotten a lot of signature legislation through an extremely divided U.S. Congress.
Inflation is down, crime is down, and employment is relatively high. All of this would be a recipe for breezing into a second term if there wasn’t a concern that President Biden is a little old. Maybe a lot old. This was all on display during the first televised debate between former President Trump and President Biden. The current President seemed a little low energy and lost, though coherent on policy points, whereas the former one sounded like he just did a bump of coke after watching 900 hours of Alex Jones. Great choices, all.
This has freaked out some people in the Democratic Party establishment, as they believe that the ascendance of Trump would result in something akin to the end of Ghostbusters before they destroy the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. It’s been suggested that, hey, maybe there’s enough time to put in VP Kamala Harris, Governor Gretchen Whitmer, uh… Montpelier, Vermont City Councilperson Sal Alfano. Anyone.
One of the early endorsers of President Biden’s campaign is UAW President Shawn Fain and, according to this Reuters report, he’s got some cold feet:
Fain called together top officials at the nearly 400,000-member union to discuss concerns and what the union’s options are, according to the sources, who asked not to be identified. The union is considering its next steps, the sources said.
[…]
On Wednesday, Biden met with the executive council of the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of U.S. trade unions, to shore up support among labor unions. Fain attended that meeting.
Recent polling has shown that the debate hasn’t changed the current polling much, so who knows, but clearly the UAW is talking about it.
GM To Kill Most Of The Renaissance Center?
Earlier this year GM announced it was making a deal with Detroit mogul Dan Gilbert to build a new office complex for the automaker. This led to the inevitable question: What happens to the current one, Detroit’s iconic Ren Center?
According to this Detroit Free Press story, it sounds like all that Class A office space might just get torn down:
High-level discussions involving General Motors, Dan Gilbert’s real estate company Bedrock, at least two architectural firms and construction companies on what to do with the Renaissance Center have led key decision-makers to increasingly consider at least partial demolition of the structure that has dominated Detroit’s skyline for half a century.
The discussions are preliminary, with studies underway on the best future use for the riverfront property after GM moves to Gilbert’s new Hudson’s Detroit building in the city’s core downtown. But according to several people familiar with the matter, early thinking leans toward tearing down most of the seven towers and leaving one or two standing to preserve part of the skyline. The tower or towers left standing of Detroit’s most recognizable building complex would then be renovated for new uses beyond the offices and shops it offers now, two of the people told the Detroit Free Press.
Even though the Ren Center has historically been an MC Escher-like maze of conference rooms where execs tortured their underlings, it would be weird to not have it there anymore.
Did Facebook Kill The Car Forum?
I might get most of my car news from Discord these days, but I still look to car forums for a deep history of how to fix my car. The days of arguing with friends, idiots, and idiot friends on VW Vortex or NASIOC or even Fchat is kinda of a thing of the past. Did Facebook kill the car forum?
That’s the contention of our buddy Sajeev Mehta over at Hagerty:
As the social media giant’s user base kept growing, it inevitably sucked in more traditional forum users and gobbled up their free time in the process. While I avoided directly interacting in the Facebook groups that gutted forums like Lincolnsonline.com so thoroughly, I’d join and occasionally lurk to see what people were talking about.
What I witnessed there was beyond tragic: a new generation of Lincoln enthusiasts were pulling these cars out of fields, inheriting them from relatives, and buying them on the open market only to ask the same questions “we” on the forums answered over 20 years ago. All the information was already in the forums, fact-checked by trusted members who knew their stuff (a concept that’s proven more challenging to execute in Groups), and easily searchable.
I’m not going to say the Internet used to be better, but…
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I was at a party last night and I thought someone said that Jamiroquai was DJing. It was not Jamiroquai, but here’s “Cosmic Girl” because it could have been him. He’s probably here.
The Big Question
Did FB kill the forum? What platform do you use now to talk about cars?
OldWillysForum.com for the win.
RIP Mergio Sarchionne.
I still frequent car forums, but a lot of the life went away. The bmw 3-series ones are still ok, but the ads have gotten insufferable.
It seems the larger the global audience, the better the forum has done. My 2 favorite whitewater forums both died, but my salvage lithium battery/solar forums are going strong.
I once owned a 1970 Innocenti Mini Cooper; it was arguably a better put-together Mini, all 998cc of it!
Forums are still a better place to get things answered. The FB groups I’ve seen are crap.
Was that John Lovitz in the driver’s seat of the Autobianchi? Video killed the radio star, GM killed the Renn Center and Facebook killed…….well you know. I get auto stuff either through Autopian or the EV charge station at Wally World!
I never spent much time on car forums outside of VW Vortex, but I used to spend a lot of time on drum forums when I was younger. One in particular, Drumsmith, used to be huge with tons of daily activity. Made a lot of real and virtual friends there. Social media took over to the extent that it doesn’t even exist any longer, although the friendships have mostly remained.
Recently, I went back to Vortex for the first time in over a decade to look through the Mk II classifieds since I was thinking about buying another. Nothing.
I still prefer using a forum and still frequent DFO DrumForum. It is just easier to reference past info and the people seem less fired up than on Facebook. I’ve seen too many people get way too angry on facebook groups over basic questions
.
Regarding the UAW, I always have found it ironic that die hard Republican voters always claim how Trump and the GOP are very much for the workers. Yet those same politicians despise unions with every bone in their body…
I think it is because Republican hierarchy is good at propaganda. How many people actually investigate what they read or are told? Lots of people believe that Trump’s 2020 victory was stolen from him, though it’s real easy to do some research and disprove that. From authentic Republican sites. It is just too easy for most to “trust” what they are told. (“Trump would never lie to me”)
Yea that makes sense. Also mystifying to me is how people get so emotionally attached… To a politician of all things…
And not just Republicans, though I will say the Trump diehards are extra passionate. Again I guess it goes back to propaganda, brainwashing, and manipulation by creating culture wars.
Ugh, sigh… It’s important to understand someone else’s reasons for believing something, even if you think they’re insane; especially if they’re a fellow citizen in a democratic nation. People shouting ‘You’re just brainwashed!’ at each-other rather than sitting down and trying to find common ground and facts isn’t an accident, destroying that common ground and trust is a deliberate tactic, part of the whole ‘flood the zone with shit’ strategy. It hurts to see it working.
Okay, back on track:
What I’ve gotten from people who are anti-union is this:
1) Unions are corrupt.
[Beyond the UAW, which ones? I never get anything more than ‘all of them’.]
2) Unions may have been useful, but have outlived their usefulness, and aren’t needed any more.
[Then what mechanism exists to protect workers’ rights? I’ve never gotten an answer to that beyond ‘laws’. If I ask then ‘who lobbies then for workers?’, I get ‘lobbyists and special interests are bad’]
3) Unions cost more in dues than they help the worker.
[Do you have a source? No, it’s always a friend who worked for a company that they heard…].
History: read up on William Randolph Hearst and his yellow journalism on the Spainish in Cuba. Whipped up public opinion to help start Spainish American War. It’s all been done before. “History repeats itself ” (or: “Hey it worked back them, let’s try it again!”)
I contend that the Autopian killed the car forum! As I now frequent here more than the Chevy Bolt forums, though that’s probably because I’m interested in cool car news than reading another “How dark a tint do you use?” thread and contemplating yet again replying that the AC is much more efficient than the heater so better to have a black EV with no tint than a white one with tint(that I have, cause I’m an idiot).