Saturn is Dead — Only Real Surprise was Penske Tried at All

Penske Automotive called off discussions to buy Saturn from GM Wednesday because it could not find a new supplier. The move has effectively killed the Saturn brand dead.

Here’s the pertinent sentence in Penske’s statement announcing its decision to nix the deal: “Penske Automotive Group negotiated the terms and conditions of an agreement with another manufacturer; however, that agreement was rejected by that manufacturer’s board of directors.”

Which manufacturer was it? Most news accounts had Penske buying GM-Saturn replacements from Renault, which would have sourced the cars through its South Korean affiliate, Samsung. Another possibility was a Chinese automaker, rumored to be either SAIC, Chery or FAW.

I still believe Penske’s deal would have instead involved Renault’s alliance partner, Nissan, which has too much excess capacity here. Roger Penske was said to prefer his Saturns be built in North America.

GM had previously indicated that it would have supplied the current Saturn Aura, Vue and Outlook to Penske Automotive for another two to three years. But Penske has apparently run out of time to find its post-GM supplier.

So what does this mean for GM and for Penske?

GM says any proceeds from the sale of its Saturn division would not have seriously affected its bottom line. CEO Fritz Henderson’s plan to take GM stock public next year and to start paying back U.S. government loans will not be affected.

With the Penske deal off, GM’s dealer wind-down agreements stand. About 350 Saturn dealers will close by the end of 2010. There will be no 2011 Auras, Vues or Outlooks.

For Penske Automotive, it means its namesake, Roger Penske, will not become an automaker. Even if Penske had continued to run Saturn by sourcing cars and trucks from other automakers, he would have eventually needed some number of designers, engineers and marketing people to distinguish the Penske Saturns from his supplier’s cars, whether Nissans or Samsungs.

This isn’t the time to get into the auto business, even if you’re as smart and disciplined a businessman as Penske. For the next decade at least, Saturn would have been a modern-day American Motors or Studebaker, if that. It’s almost impossible to think of the man whose team has won more Indianapolis 500 than anybody, who has saved Detroit Diesel and Hertz truck leasing and who brought Daimler’s smart cars to U.S. as someone who would accept hand-me-down car designs.

Even the smart car deal, which doesn’t look like a great success right now, will probably benefit Penske in the future in his dealings with Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz. He is already among the most prominent Mercedes dealership owners worldwide.

The Penske-Saturn deal nearly fell apart back in August. Post-GM sourcing always has been the biggest hurdle. It’s not surprising that this deal fell through. The only surprise in this story was when GM and Penske signed the Memorandum of Understanding in the first place.

2009 Nissan 370Z Touring, an AutoWeek Drivers Log:

SENIOR EDITOR FOR NEWS BOB GRITZINGER: This is not my cup of 370Z. I know that Nissan–any car company for that matter–has to put an automatic transmission into its cars to garner sales in the increasingly manual-trans-unable populace.

Can You Drive and Make a Phone Call at the Same Time?

A ragged W220 Mercedes-Benz S-Class pushed — yes, pushed — an equally ragged E38 BMW 7 Series along the right lane of the Lodge Freeway. I was on my way from Ford’s Dearborn headquarters back to Motor Trend’s Detroit Bureau. As I approached, the worn luxo pair was quickly gaining on a clapped out Ford Taurus moving along in the middle lane some 25 mph below the posted limit.

It would have been all too easy for any distracted driver to ram into the back of the pusher Mercedes or the languid Taurus. How do you define distracted driving?

Ford Motor Company had just held a briefing on that subject for journalists, two days before Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s two-day summit on distracted driving in Washington, D.C. You will read and hear a lot about it this week.

We all know it’s unsafe to text while driving, or tap phone numbers into your Blackberry or surf the web on your iPhone while driving. What about hands-free systems?

Myriad studies say hands-free phone devices are basically no safer for drivers than the kind where you need to look down and type in an 11-digit number. Ford’s in-house expert on the matter, Louis Tijerina, says those studies are incomplete.

“Driver distraction is a concern, but a smaller part of highway safety problem than believed,” he says.

He points to Virginia Tech’s 100-Car Study. The school’s Transportation Institute installed cameras in cars to observe 109 “primary drivers” and 132 “occasional drivers.” This reduces “obtrusive” data — put a scientist in the back seat to watch a driver make a call at 70 mph, and that driver will act differently than if he/she is in the car alone.

In 42,300 hours of driving 2 million miles, Virginia Tech observed 82 crashes, 761 “near-misses” and 8,295 “critical” incidents. It found, Tijerina says, that distractions like texting and phone calling caused incidents, or worse. “Almost 80 percent of all crashes and 65 percent of all near crashes involved the driver looking away from the forward roadway.”

In other words, you’re safe if you look at the road and check your mirrors while you converse over a Bluetooth-like device hooked to the audio speakers.

Ford has a big interest in making sure you can continue to use hands-free “infotainment” devices in your car or truck. Sync, its Microsoft voice-activated system, lets you use your Blackberry or iPod hands-free in everything from a Focus to an F-350.

General Motors’ OnStar and any other Ford competitor which offers Bluetooth systems could be affected by any legislation — local, state or federal — that goes beyond prohibiting texting or dialing phone numbers. Ford notes Sync can improve vehicle safety, because now, like GM’s OnStar, it automatically calls emergency services if your vehicle is involved an accident.

Tijerina says Ford supports Senator Chuck Schumer’s (D-New York) bill that would outlaw texting while driving. Like the 55 mph speed limit in the ’70s, the bill would withhold federal highway funds from states that don’t comply.

The National Safety Council wants legislation to go much further. It wants to outlaw drivers from making mobile phone calls of any kind — even by drivers using hands-free devices. The NSC, a non-profit uber-safety consumer organization, points to more than 50 scientific reviews in the past two years that say driver distractions, including hands-free phone calls, cause auto accidents. It’s the message, not the medium.

The NSC doesn’t buy the 100 Car Study’s findings. It’s flawed because the study doesn’t distinguish between cell phone conversations and conversations with the drivers’ passengers, says a spokesman for the organization. The mobile phone call “uses a different part of the brain” than in-car conversations, he says, which cause a “mental block,” obscuring traffic conditions in the driver’s mind.

“Our concern is that it wasn’t peer reviewed,” he says. “Their researchers have refused to discuss further the study.”

The NSC hopes to get some answers when Thomas A. Dingus, director of Virginia Tech’s Transportation Institute, appears at the distracted driver summit this week. I hope he comes well prepared.

Where do I stand on this issue?

This is classic Auto Industry vs. Safety Group. Ford, GM and other automakers want to prove the usefulness and desirability of Bluetooth connectivity and options like Sync and OnStar. The NSC wants to see highway accidents and deaths continue to decrease at any cost, including personal freedom. The ostensible goal is to make cars and trucks get safer at a rate that’s faster than the rate in which drivers get lazier and dumber.

Based on my observations while driving and riding (bicycle as well as car/truck), mobile phones have taken over the road. We don’t make phone calls while driving any more. We drive while making phone calls.

I’m not convinced hands-free devices are mitigating this sea change in the way we drive. I am willing to listen, to be swayed. Tell me your experiences on the road. Tell me what you think.

Singapore Slinging: A Race Weekend to Remember

As the F1 circus jets off for its next round at Suzuka in Japan, Singapore is returning to normal today after its second taste of big time international motorsports competition. It’s been an extraordinary weekend under the lights, and by all accounts, this postage-stamp sized country pulled off its second F1 showcase with the class and style.

The 2009 Formula One SingTel Singapore Grand Prix, which I had the privilege of watching from a perch atop the fantastic Fullerton Hotel, had its moments. McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton secured the pole during qualifying and charged out to the lead when the green lights flashed. Hamilton, who earlier this weekend had called the street circuit “dangerous,” didn’t seem to have any trouble navigating the 3.15-mile Marina Bay street circuit’s bumps and tight confines.

It almost became a two car race as Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel, who vowed to attack during the weekend, did just that, getting as close as a half second behind Hamilton at one point. But Vettel attacked too hard in the pits and incurred a drive through penalty for speeding in pit lane, essentially handing the victory to Hamilton and damaging his title hopes in the process. Second place was a surprise as Toyota’s Timo Glock made it to the podium, with Fernando Alonso and the embattled Renault team scoring third.

Meanwhile F1 championship leader Jenson Button made the best of a bad weekend after qualifying outside of the Top 10, finishing in fifth, while fellow Brawn GP teammate and fellow title contender Rubens Barrichello fared little better after being forced to change a gearbox and crashing during qualifying. He ended up right behind Button in sixth.

Off the track, there was plenty of action as well, as the city came alive during its so-called GP Season. There were multiple concerts featuring the likes of Beyonce, ZZ Top and the Black Eyed Peas, who reportedly represented well, and the Backstreet Boys, who aren’t boys anymore and looked it. And of course, there were several high dollar events catering to the upper crust party set. The only bummer is that average Singaporeans don’t have much access to the race, but the government, who contributed roughly $90 million of the reported $150 million necessary to hold the event, is working to make the weekend more accessible to them.

The influx of American acts underscored Singapore’s determination spread the word about what its country has to offer as a destination for U.S. tourists. And indeed Singapore has a lot to offer both F1 fans and casual tourists alike from America and the world over. During my stay here, I’ve had the opportunity to sample Singapore and take a glimpse into its future, and I came away extremely impressed.

An incredibly diverse mix of influences has shaped Singapore’s history, and the Singaporean people are an intriguing melting pot of European, Indonesian, Chinese, Malaysian, Indian and other cultures. I had the opportunity to sample Singapore’s diverse cuisine, look over some of the massive resort projects underway, walk around its ethnic neighborhoods, and wander through a few of its shopping districts. Everyone I encountered was genuinely friendly and accommodating.

I’d like to thank the folks at the Fullerton Hotel, especially Carolyn, Christine, Annie and CEO Lewis Sailer for being so generous with their time and allowing us the opportunity to view the race from such an amazing location above the Turn 13 hairpin. The Fullerton, which was once the city-state’s post office, has become a signature hotel along Marina Bay, and it’s an impressive mix of old and new styles. If you’re planning a trip to Singapore and have some dollars to spend, it’s highly recommended. I’d also like to thank Winnie, our Singapore Tourism Board guide, who showed us around her country, our extremely patient driver, Ravi, and the Quincy Hotel, where I stayed. It’s been an amazing week, and I hope to return again sometime.

Some other things I learned and observed about Singapore during my stay here:

• To have a car in Singapore, you have to have purchase a Certificate of Entitlement, which can run into the thousands of Singapore dollars. It’s a way for the government to limit the cars crowding the city’s streets.
• Cars cannot be more than 10 years old.
• Sir Stamford Raffles (pictured) is considered the founder of modern Singapore, in 1819.
• I saw at least four Nissan GT-Rs, more than I’ve seen in months in L.A. Also lots of Ferraris, Lambos and Porsches.
• Abject poverty appears to be almost non-existent. That’s not to say all Singaporeans are well off, but for a big cosmopolitan city, signs of decay are amazingly low.
• Peranakans are an interesting cultural stew of Chinese, Malay and other influences, and their cuisine is absolutely awesome.
• Peanut butter and Kaya sandwiches are tasty.
• Fish Head Curry (pictured) is not nearly as bad as it looks at first.
• It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.
• Lindsay Lohan likes F1, and doesn’t drive anymore.
• At the super duper swanky new Capella resort, guests can spend as much as fifty thousand Singapore dollars a month for a guest house. If I ever win the lottery, it’s on the list.
• Singapore Slings are tasty drinks.

  -Lewis Hamilton photo by Daimler

Singapore Slinging: Under the Lights at the 2009 Singapore GP

You can feel it in the air — air that’s so humid, it’s almost as though you’re breathing in mist. The cafes and kiosks that crowd the city’s riverfront promenades are buzzing with activity. It’s almost time for Night Race Deux, aka the 2009 Formula One SingTel Singapore Grand Prix, and I’m here as a guest of the Singapore Tourism Board. It’s a once-in-lifetime opportunity to bask in the glow of a cosmopolitan city teeming with excitement as it once again hosts the only night race on the F1 circuit.

For those unfamiliar with Singapore, it’s the smallest nation in Asia — you can literally drive from end-to-end in about 45 minutes and top to bottom in about an hour more — located at the tip of the Malaysian peninsula (find Australia, then look up and to the left), a proud city-state that was once one of the most important commercial and military centers of the British Empire. British influence is everywhere here, and English is the official language, although far from the only one spoken. Walk around for a while, and you’ll see an incredibly diverse mix of cultures and several districts with distinct cultural flavors. And no, you won’t see gum sold, but yes, you can chew it — as long as you dispose of it properly.

Singapore has made its name over the past several decades as one of the world’s major commercial and financial centers, with dozens of skyscrapers dominating its impressive skyline. But it’s recently busting out of that shell, and the Singapore GP is one of many events and projects designed to dramatically raise its profile on the international stage as a tourism destination especially. Two massive projects, the Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa, are underway and should be completed by 2010. The Sands is an astounding resort which is angling for worldwide convention business, and with an amazing promenade set to be perched atop its three towers, it will serve as a signature property in the downtown area. The Sentosa project has a major Universal Studios component and theme park attractions.

If there’s one thing F1 Supremo Bernie Ecclestone can smell from thousands of miles away, its cash, and millions of Singapore dollars have been poured into developing arguably the most impressive event on the F1 calendar. The race is a major point of pride for the Singaporians I’ve encountered, and they should be proud from what I’ve seen so far. The week long series of events is highlighted by exhibitions such as the wild, F1-inspired artwork of Indonesian artist Pintor Sirait.

Sirat’s creations, crafted from stainless steel, are in part his artistic response to the explosive growth of the sport in Asia. He then branded the cars, helmets and smaller models with various slogans in an effort to highlight cultural tensions and human values. While I get the deeper artistic meaning, they’re simply cool as hell. The crushed one you see here, which was inspired by Lewis Hamilton’s crash and recovery at the 2007 German GP, was smashed with a seven-ton crane.

Pintor’s exhibit is one of many F1-themed attractions dotting Singapore’s main Orchard Road, swanky shopping centers and impressive waterfront areas — most prominently Marina Bay, where the cars are screaming by all weekend on the Marina Bay Circuit.

While the sideline events are a nice diversion, the main focus is on the race, with Crashgate — the scandal that has rocked F1 — dominating the headlines. At last year’s inaugural Singapore event, Renault top dog Flavio Briatore reportedly ordered driver Nelson Piquet Jr. to deliberately crash in a twisted effort to help teammate Fernando Alonso win (which he did). The charismatic Italian Briatore has been indefinitely banned from the sport, and Pat Symonds, Renault’s former executive director of engineering, banned for five years. This week, Alonso broke his silence, saying “my win is still a win,” and while the Renault team as a whole has escaped major penalties, its future in the sport is unclear now that its main sponsor, ING, has pulled its sponsorship of the team. And in an amazingly ironic twist, Renault’s fill-in driver crashed yesterday in roughly the same spot as Piquet did.

Practice got underway yesterday, and we had unprecedented access to the action from the helipad of the Swissotel the Stamford, some 73 floors above the circuit. No real surprises on the time sheets thus far, with Brawn GP’s Rubens Barrichello topping the first session and Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel the second.

Tonight we’ll be checking out qualifying as well as the weekend’s signature entertainment event of the week — F1 Rocks — that last night featured the bearded wonders that are ZZ Top. Tonight Beyonce and the Black Eyed Peas will rock the stage. And of course, we’ll be watching the race live on Sunday. I’ll check back in with another blog or two along the way, and you can also follow my adventures on Twitter. Oh, and Lindsay Lohan is here. No, really, she is. She’s supposed to be introducing the acts and interacting with the drivers. Yep, F1 these days is about way more than the cars screaming around in the artificial light — for Singapore and the rest of the world, it’s also about the excitement off the track. And finding that perfect Singapore Sling cocktail…

Below are some facts about what it takes to light up the Singapore GP, from the 2008 race:

• 108,000 meters worth of power cables were used
• 3,180,000 watts are required to light the circuit
• The 2,000-watt halide lamps give off 3,000 lux, which is the average level required to light the circuit, meaning the track is almost four times brighter than a typical sports stadium
• The 1,500 lighting projectors that line the circuit are powered by 12 twin power generators

  

  

True to the Brand? Proliferating Chryslers and Competing with Cadillac

DETROIT - Chrysler brand chief Peter Fong told Automotive News at the Frankfurt show that the division would offer a much wider array of products, while it moves upmarket, “a notch above Lincoln, a notch above Cadillac.”

Huh?

Other pundits already have questioned Fong’s apparently contradictory plans for Chrysler, the division. “We’re going to have to offer a broad array of products across every one of the segments,” he further told AN. With models like the Crossfire and Aspen discontinued, Chrysler has but four nameplates for 2010, the PT Cruiser, Sebring (five, if you count the Sebring convertible separately), Town & Country and 300. (Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep promise to make their product plans public in November.)

Lincoln has five models, including the Town Car and Cadillac has five — six if you count the Escalade pickup separately (yes, they still build that).

Fong’s two statements aren’t contradictory, if Chrysler proliferates into all the right size segments. Chrysler Group’s new parent, Fiat, can’t do this off its current crop of Alfa Romeo platforms, though. Alfas would make a better basis for the Chrysler of yore; a semi-premium brand that competed directly with Buick. GM’s middle brand is trying to get back there with models like the ‘10 LaCrosse and the Enclave, and in fact, Chrysler has a head start with its 300.

What Chrysler did wrong with the 300 was equip it much like the Dodge Magnum and Charger. In the first half year of 300 and Magnum sales in 2005, the average Dodge version actually sold for a higher price than the average Chrysler version. That’s going to be a tough image to reverse.

Fong’s/Fiat’s strategy raises several problems. First, even Cadillac has struggled to move back upmarket. How will Chrysler pull it off?  Cadillac’s rear-drive combined STS/DTS replacement has been shelved in favor of the front-drive based XTS, and the brand’s Western European assault against Mercedes-Benz and BMW is also on hold. To be “a notch above Cadillac” at least half the Chrysler lineup should be RWD.

Competing with Lincoln is more plausible, if only because Ford has switched all its cars except the lame-duck Town Car to front-drive-based platforms. Lincoln has been repositioned to between Buick and Cadillac and Ford has made minimal the differences between cars like the Ford Taurus and Lincoln MKS, and the Ford Fusion and Lincoln MKZ.

Second, before the bankruptcy and before Fiat’s takeover, Chrysler Group was moving in the right direction. Jim Press, who has left the Auburn Hills headquarters, knew the automaker would not be one of the major players in the U.S. market any time soon. GM, Toyota and Ford Motor each will struggle to maintain 16- to 18-percent market share here. Chrysler was below 10 percent market share before it let its inventory dwindle, prior to the Cash for Clunkers program.

Press understood that Chrysler had become a niche automaker by popular demand and knew that is its long-term future. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Honda is a niche brand here, compared with GM, Toyota and Ford. For now, Hyundai and Kia are niche brands, although probably not forever. For those two to keep gaining market share someone will have to lose share, and my money’s on companies like Chrysler, no matter how well they cover the segments.

To compete with Buick, let alone Lincoln or Cadillac, Chrysler should concentrate on refreshing and updating its rear-drive 300 (it’s coming next year) while loading it up with enough standard equipment to price it against the Hyundai Genesis sedan. There is room for a modern “New Yorker” or perhaps even an “Imperial,” though not one like the hideous concept from a couple of years ago. That’s one, and only one model competitive with the Cadillac CTS, or at least, the Lincoln MKS.

Chrysler could replace the Sebring with an Alfa 159-based midsize car, or better, something like the 200C concept on a shortened 300 RWD platform. There’s more margin in the 159’s “Premium” platform, though, which Fiat and GM jointly developed earlier this decade. (GM never used it.)

Chrysler division probably will need a crossover to compete with, in Fong’s mind, the Lincoln MKT or Cadillac SRX, but in my mind, more like the Buick Enclave. The new unibody platform underpinning the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee and the upcoming Dodge Durango is obvious. Having all three crossovers in tripled Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge dealerships will be like having to sell Chevy Traverses along with GMC Acadias and Buick Enclaves at Buick-GMC dealerships.

It will get crowded in there, unless this strategy manages to increase Chrysler’s market share by, oh, 8 points or so.

A spokesman suggested that a number of small Fiat platforms could underpin Chrysler brand models. This is where the plan really falls apart.

Cadillac will have a RWD car in the c-segment, smaller than the Chrysler Sebring. Chrysler’s competitor would be on a Fiat front-drive platform, one probably shared with the Dodge Caliber replacement (yes, they still build that). Maybe, if the Chrysler compact’s components and suspension are more sophisticated than the Dodge compact’s, it could compete with Buick’s upcoming Opel Astra-based sedan.

Could the Chrysler brand go even smaller? The business is filled with automakers trying to figure out how to replicate the Mini Cooper formula, and sell a $25,000+ hatchback in America. Fiat is the only BMW competitor that has replicated the formula.

In fact, if not for the 500, Fiat would not be considered a successful turnaround. Chief Sergio Marchionne wouldn’t be hailed as a genius and he wouldn’t have had the clout to take over Chrysler. The Fiat 500 succeeds because it’s something an uber-Cadillac Chrysler division will never be: true to the brand.

Racing On The Cheap(ish)

Long time USAC car owner Pat Patrick may have said it best: “I know there’s money in racing.  I put it there…”  That notion makes me appreciate grassroots racing opportunities all the more.  I’ve been thinking of blogging about ways to race on the (semi-)cheap and then Speed Sport Life went and did all the work (bless ‘em for that).  So here it is, as forwarded to me by NASA Spec Miata Media’s Rob Krider:

Calling all car nuts,

Instead of driving the couch in Gran Turismo, have you ever wondered what it would be like to participate in an actual sanctioned motorsports event?  The guys at Speed Sport Life have been entering every type of amateur motorsport they can find (from a weekend autocross, to destruction derby to the 24 Hours of Lemons, and have detailed what it really takes to participate in (and win) each race.

Every other week the boys go out and get involved in some sort of automotive shenanigans, photograph, write, and use a set of gauges on a dashboard to compare costs, time invested, adrenaline level, danger factor and car wear.  The stories are filled with humor, great tips and useful links.

Kill some time at work (the links are safe) and window shop some of the recent “Racer Boy” articles listed below.  There is sure to be an event listed you have thought about entering.

The 24 Hours of LeMons:

http://www.speedsportlife.com/2009/09/17/racer-boy-24-hours-of-lemons-or-endurace-racing-for-the-financially-and-mentally-challenged/

E.T. Bracket Drag Racing:

http://www.speedsportlife.com/2009/08/31/racer-boy-e-t-bracket-drag-racing-or-how-to-actually-win-a-race-with-an-87-ford-taurus/

Slot Car Racing:

http://www.speedsportlife.com/2009/08/11/racer-boy-slot-car-racing-or-how-to-race-door-to-door-without-worrying-about-your-doors/

Destruction Derby:

http://www.speedsportlife.com/2009/07/24/racer-boy-destruction-derby-or-how-to-deposit-money-directly-into-your-chiropractor%e2%80%99s-wallet/

Time Attack:

http://www.speedsportlife.com/2009/07/09/racer-boy-time-attack-or-how-to-race-on-a-real-track-without-totaling-your-car/

Rallycross:

http://www.speedsportlife.com/2009/06/11/racer-boy-rallycrossing-%e2%80%9clet%e2%80%99s-get-dirty-baby%e2%80%9d/

Autocross/Solo:

http://www.speedsportlife.com/2009/05/26/racer-boy-autocrossing-101-or-how-to-kill-cones/

The Racer Boy overall column list on Speed Sport Life:

http://www.speedsportlife.com/category/dubspeed-driven-articles/racer-boy/

Enjoy the adventures and I’ll see you at the track!

http://www.speedsportlife.com/

Ron Dennis Channels Enzo Ferrari

As boss of one of the most successful Formula 1 teams of all time, McLaren’s Ron Dennis often seemed to tolerate the media as an irritating but necessary evil that existed purely to provide the publicity to generate the cash he needed to fund his all-consuming passion - racing. “We make history,” I recall him scolding a colleague who’d presumed to query the strategy behind some now-forgotten McLaren incident during a press conference at the Australian Grand Prix in the late 80s. “You just write about it.”

I thought about that line as I sat in a spotless conference room at the futuristic McLaren Technical Centre in Woking, England, last April and listened as Dennis calmly announced he was stepping down as team principal and CEO of McLaren Racing. Now this was history in the making. All around me hacks scribbled furiously in their notebooks and fumbled with their voice recorders: One of the most obsessively competitive individuals in a sport awash with obsessively competitive individuals, was quitting F1 to concentrate on building road going sports cars.

“I watched the Malaysian Grand Prix on television, and I couldn’t believe how easy it was,” Dennis told Fleet Street’s skeptical F1 reporters. “I expected to have some hang ups, some emotion, some withdrawal symptoms. I had nothing, and I realized at that point I wanted to change. No doubt Max and Bernie will not be displeased,” he said, in a sly reference to the rancorous row with F1’s powerbrokers that had simmered through 2008, “but no-one asked me to step down. It was completely my decision.”

Dennis will remain a shareholder of McLaren Group, owning 15 percent of the company. (Long-time partner Mansour Ojjeh holds 15 percent through his TAG Group Holdings operation, while Daimler owns 40 percent, and the Kingdom of Bahrain 30 percent.) But his new day job is executive chairman of McLaren Automotive, the division he co-founded in 1989 to build the 240mph, BMW-powered, Gordon Murray designed F1 and  since 1999 has been responsible for the design, engineering and assembly of the Mercedes-McLaren SLR.

Unlike the others in the room that day, I’d already been given an in-depth sneak-peek at P11, the mid-engine sports car Dennis was about to reveal. I’d already seen this was no hurriedly conceived mock-up, but a detailed and functioning prototype that was the product of two years’ work, and that boasted some truly impressive technology. So the real story wasn’t Ron Dennis quitting F1. The real story was Ron Dennis announcing he wanted to make McLaren a Ferrari rival off the race track.

Dennis concedes now is not the best time to be launching an expensive new supercar. But he points out the sales targets for the MP4-12C are modest — just 1000 units in the first full year, or about a three percent share of where the supercar market was in terms of sales back in 2003 — and that the car won’t be fully launched until 2011, by which time the global economy should have recovered somewhat. And although the Mercedes-McLaren SLR program has been fractious one at times - Gordon Murray and his engineers at McLaren repeatedly clashed with their counterparts in Stuttgart during the car’s development - Dennis says his company has learned a lot about manufacturing road cars from Mercedes.

As I toured through the gleaming white SLR assembly hall at the McLaren Technical Centre, not more than a few hundred feet from the immaculate workshops where the Silver Arrows grand prix racers of Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen are meticulously constructed, the handful of roadsters on the line were surrounded by the exactly same system and process paraphernalia you see at Bentley or Rolls-Royce. McLaren built just 100 of the stupendously fast, money-no-object McLaren F1s in five years; by the time the last of the 75 Stirling Moss editions rolls off the line this year, it will have built more than 2000 SLRs over the same period. “We know how to build cars now,” Dennis says.

Enzo Ferrari got into the road car business to help fund his race team. And how does Ron Dennis justify Mclaren’s move into the road car business? “I have consistently said that F1 teams inevitably come and go. We believe is the future of the Group. There may be an economic situation in the future where McLaren Automotive supports the Formula 1 team.”

I think Enzo would have approved.

Frankfurt ‘09: One Of The All-Time Greats?

Frankfurt’s IAA was the most exciting, compelling, intriguing and bewildering car show of 2009. It’s an easy pick after the depression of the Detroit show, the uncertainty at Geneva and before the scarcity of foreign manufacturers at Tokyo. But also the sheer spread of activity at Frankfurt, as well as the prominence given to far-future forms of automobilism, felt like history being written. Frankfurt ‘09 may prove to have been one of the most significant auto shows in history, right up there with the 1989 Tokyo Show.

Most manufacturers see a general, albeit gentle, firming of markets. At Geneva last March no car-industry sales executive could see the bottom of the cliff. Now they say they’ve landed and are contemplating the long climb back up, in all sectors. Which is just as well, for the launches of all the super-lux and exotic sports cars at Frankfurt would have looked like folly — notwithstanding that they were conceived two to four years ago, well before the unforeseen crash.

The roll-call of upscale new production cars unveiled at Frankfurt was unprecedented: Rolls-Royce Ghost, Bentley Mulsanne, Aston Martin Rapide, Ferrari 458 Italia, Mercedes-Benz SLS, and spider versions of the Lamborghini Reventon and Audi R8 V10. Any two of these would have made any auto show memorable.

That list is about equal to the list of signification mainstream production cars revealed at the show. Honda, Nissan and Mitsubishi all decided exhibiting wouldn’t be worth the cost and stayed home, contrasting with the ever-rising confidence of the Korean Hyundai-Kia combine, which debuted several fine compacts including the new Hyundai Tucson/iX35.

Frankfurt’s most important new car was the Opel Astra (basis for the coming Buick compact), a strong VW Golf competitor dynamically and visually. Jaguar’s XJ divided opinion on its exterior looks, whereas most people liked the new Saab 9-5.

Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn said 10 percent of his cars would be pure-EVs by 2010, and showed four concepts related to 2011 production models. Rivals disagree on timing and take-up: VW brand boss Ulrich Hackenberg, a respected engineer, unveiled the attractive and highly plausible e-Up! EV, but said the batteries wouldn’t be production-acceptable until 2013. He predicted an EV market share by 2020 of  “1.5 to 2 percent maximum.”

Some of the majors are following Tesla and making electric supercars to prove the technology. The Mercedes electric SLS and Audi e-tron are serious proposals for 2013. They won’t be cheap, and like the Tesla they’ll inevitably under-deliver on their stated range if you drive them as their performance invites, but they’ll be fun while they last, and might just deliver gas-heads to the EV cause.

Car of the show was BMW’s Vision EfficientDynamics hybrid, for its looks and its technological promise. A 1.6-liter three-cylinder diesel engine delivering the performance of an M3 sounds fine by us. BMW says its technologies are well into the testing phase, but not production-ready. Getting them to the showrooms will be a brutally expensive.

The technology race is heating up, and the price of entry is high. It’s still unclear how many of the world’s auto companies can pay to play.

2009 Mercedes-Benz C300: An AutoWeek Drivers Log:

INTERACTIVE EDITOR DALE JEWETT: We’ve sung praises for the Mercedes-Benz C-class before, and this example does nothing to change that tune.