Carnival of Cars #1

(For the first try, these are just the car blog posts that I liked. In the future, maybe people could suggest which posts they thought where their best. Time permitting, I will try to do this again every week or two, unless someone else would like to volunteer to host it.)

Welcome InstaPundit readers! Thanks Glenn!

So, without further delay, step right up ladies and gentlemen, to the Carnival of Cars. And don't mind the carnies, they are tattooed but tame.

• AutoBlog reports that some roll-out plans for the new Ford 3.5L V6 "Duratec 35" have been leaked. Apparently, in 2007 the Fusion/Milan/Zephyr get it, and in 2008 the 500/Montego/Freestyle.
• AutoMuse muses on the dangers of "clipping" t ype collision repairs, where whole sections of a vehicles unibody are cut off, and new sections are welded on in their place. As AutoMuse points out, this repair may look right, but it may not be safe.
• AutoProphet spots a mysterious Mustang prototype, which looks like the next Mach 1. Unfortunately, no camera.
• BigFordFan ponders whether the automakers get their moneys worth out of Nascar. Apparently an iconoclast, BFF declares that Nascar isn't worth sponsoring, and that carmakers should focus on the autosports that run actual production or near-production vehicles.
• Carpundit continues his crusade for seat belts on school buses, blogging about a severe school bus crash in Missouri.
• Bob at Cars! Cars! Cars! predicts GM and Ford will have to merge to survive, in his predicted list of the top 7 carmakers 10 years from now.
• Dublin Saab delivers a brutal debunking to 40mpg.org over their middle-east oil consumption calculator. Apparently, the calculator doesn't take into account the fact that not all our oil is imported from the middle east. Dublin also discusses the non-intuitive economic results if oil prices drop. Reduced consumption, so the high volume producers (Saudi Arabia, etc.) will be in a better position to survive than the smaller producers. Effect: more middle-east oil consumption, relative to other sources.
• The scrappy Bob Lutz of Fastlane, in a daring move, gives away GM's secret plans for fixing its problems: build better cars, and sell more of them.
• Gary Wirtzenburg spars with Robert Farago on The Truth About Cars over GM's chances. Farago is in death-watch mode, while Wirtzenburg tells him he needs a fact checker. Ouch.
• Grant's Autorants scolds scrappy Bob Lutz for blunt public comments which may sound foolish: that well-off people who buy SUVs don't care if gas is expensive.
• Dave at Just Auto delivers a rumor that Ford is talking to Nissan in Europe about some kind of joint venture.
• NextGenAuto blogs about the media's too quick assumption that because Toyota apparently offered to sell GM hybrid technology, and because GM's management was going to meet with Toyota management, that they were in fact going to discuss the deal. Which was not the case.
• The Angry Engineer (aren't we all?) points out how the credit downgrades of GM and Ford is snowballing, doing damage to the ability of suppliers to borrow against accounts receivable from the OEMs.
• Peter at The Auto Extremist lists his ten hottest automotive stories for 2005: the future of GM; the implosion of Detroit; the dark side of Toyota; Chrysler's shallow success; Hyundai's ascent; Hybrid over-hype; Honda's lagging; Nissan's momentum; BMW's missteps; VW's woes.
• Joe Sherlock needs to add bookmarks to his posts so I can link to them. On May 10th, Joe posts about the Detroit Free Press columnist who decides to buy a Honda Accord, and gets inundated with hate mail from irate readers. Joe bought an Avalon, so we should all be sending him hate mail as well.