Been down so long, it looks like up to me – Richard Farina

Notice anything in the chart below, covering the top-selling US-market vehicles of 2010? Excepting the Ford Fusion, all the cars are Japanese, most of them manufactured in the US. The usual suspects: Camry, Accord, Corolla, Civic and Altima, plus the Honda CR-V which after all these years remains an excellent design—there’s a CR-V EX-L in my family. Even with an abbreviated sales year, which drove down total sales of the Camry and Corolla, Toyota still had the best-selling car in America. There never was anything truly wrong with the Camry, or the Corolla. Thankfully, the kangaroo courts of Rep. Henry Waxman have been put to an end. If Waxman could be put in a rubber dinghy and towed out to sea, so much the better.

1. Ford F-Series                        528,349 (+27.7%)
2. Chevrolet Silverado             370,135 (+16.9 %
3. Toyota Camry                       327,804 (-8.1 %)
4. Honda Accord                      282,530 (-1.7 %)
5. Toyota Corolla                     266,082 (-10.4 %)
6. Honda Civic                         260,218 (+0.2 %)
7. Nissan Altima                      229,263 (+12.6 %)
8. Ford Fusion                         219,219 (+21.3 %)
9. Honda CR-V                        203,714 (+6.5 %)
10. Dodge Ram                          199,652 (+12.6 %)

Yet to listen to CNBC and an easily deceived press corps, you’d think Honda, Nissan and Toyota are all on the ropes, about to be flattened by the Detroit Renaissance. Hardly.

Detroit’s success for 2010? Trucks, as per usual. And notice how far down their volumes have dropped. Detroit truck volumes are down dramatically from the good old days when the F-series/Super Duty combined for sales well over 800,000. If the economy ever wakes up and folks need new work trucks, this will change, probably with a dramatic spike in truck sales, for Detroit, the Tundra and the Titan. For now, people are making their old trucks last.

And the Fusion? From Ford’s own press release: “This is the first time a Ford car has eclipsed 200,000 sales since 2004.” That’s good, and a new Focus might do OK. Fiesta is off to a slow start, but that might change.

And does Ford “F-Series” really deserve that top slot? Ford plays a game to claim it manufactures the “best-selling” vehicle in America, combining sales of F-series and Super Duty under the banner of “F-series,” even though they are in reality significantly different vehicles. Ford argues it has always been so, but just because it’s traditional doesn’t make it right. If GM combined sales on Silverado and Sierra (they’re pretty much the same truck sold through different dealer channels), plus the HD versions, I wonder how that total would look? What would be the sales figures if F-series and Super Duty were broken out? Still, selling a half-million of anything is a major accomplishment.

Where is the critical eye, particularly on channels like CNBC, which is supposedly a leader in business journalism? Instead, one hears an incessant drum beat about Detroit’s sales going up, up, up. Well, how could they not be?

• Starting in 2005, Ford bled billions, with massive losses every year, selling off European possessions and Mazda to cut losses and raise capital. They hawked the family silver for a massive loan from JP Morgan. They even sold Volvo to the Chinese, who couldn’t build a crash structure in the next ten years to save anyone’s life. Ford lost $12.7 billion in 2006. Yes, been down so long it looks like up to me.
• GM lost $4.2 billion in 2008, and in 2009 was put through an unprecedented and some might argue unconstitutional bankruptcy, and was cleared of its debts. First $19.4 billion in government loans, then bankruptcy, then another $30 billion to save the worst car company in the developed world. And I’m supposed to be impressed that GM sales are up? I’m supposed to get excited about the Chevy Sonic? Yes, been down so long it looks like up to me.
• Though there are more signs of hope here than most currently recognize—Chrysler is well-schooled in disaster as the company has been a rolling disaster since Jimmy Carter stuck Reagan with a bailout—Chrysler could have a starring role on AMC’s The Walking Dead.As someone who grew up with European sports cars, I am a bit dismayed to read that the next Lancia might be a Chrysler Sebring with a Lancia shield grille. OUCH.

So, from these dark depths, how can the Detroit Three NOT be making significant sales gains? But you never hear their current numbers placed “in context,” do you? No, you don’t. Glad to see Ford turning around, as I have many friends working at Ford as engineers and designers. And it’s a worthwhile enterprise. Detroit is no longer the “Arsenal of Democracy” as Detroit xenophobes contend—that role now belongs to our self-contained military-industrial complex—but the Detroit Three employ a lot of Midwesterners.

What set me off? Watching CNBC coverage of the Detroit auto show while having my morning cup of coffee. The CNBC reporter needed a lobster bib whenever he interviewed someone from the Detroit Three. Frankly, I felt a bit embarrassed for the guy. Have some self-respect, pal. And wipe your chin.

Next up, Jim Cramer, the overbearing market analyst of CNBC. He aired a show held in a Dearborn assembly plant. You just know Cramer willingly and happily left his cozy NYC studio to set up shop for a day in a dank assembly plant, surrounded by Ford people in Dockers and Rockports. Previous Cramer plugs for Ford involved Ford and Mulally coming to NYC. Cramer’s Dearborn show had the over-the-top sensibilities of a late-night paid program for belly-busting exercise equipment, or perhaps a high-speed blender designed to puree carrots into excellent baby food. Was he hawking Fords or the Bass-o-Matic? Cramer performed an “Aw, shucks” interview of Ford CEO Mulally. Cramer could have done with a lobster bib himself.

Advertorial is a lot like porn: you know it when you see it. Well, CNBC is pumping out a lot of advertorial for Ford Motor Company, including the one-hour Ford special. Combine that special with the perverse reporting from the Detroit auto show and the Cramer special in Dearborn and a pattern develops. This is being paid for on some level, directly or indirectly. The Ford pieces surely fit the skein of other CNBC advertorial on the porn industry, marijuana cultivation, and Green Power. Ford’s media site does not offer information on their ad spend, in particular their ad spend with the NBC channels. I’d love to know.

The portion of the Cramer advertorial that had me laughing out loud? Mulally touted the few thousand jobs Ford might actually add in the Upper Midwest over the next two to three years. That’s right, two to three years. I wonder how many they will create in China, manufacturing engines and the Focus in Chunking (ChongQing) in partnership with Changan and Mazda? Or in Rayong, Thailand? Or production of the Ford Figo in Chennai, India?

I think all such international ventures are wise, as Ford (and GM) must follow the Asian principle and build where they sell. In fact, this was the Ford principle under dear old Hank. During the Cramer lovefest, Mulally whipped out a board with a 1920s Ford magazine ad mounted on it, which spoke to Ford’s role in the world, putting mankind on wheels. But to deliver a rah-rah xenophobic line on CNBC is a bit much.

I looked up some figures on Ford’s media site. They are adding US jobs, in Louisville to build the next-gen Escape, and elsewhere. That’s good. But they are also meeting UAW agreements to increase Ford hourly employment by simply bringing supplier jobs in-house. Many of these North American jobs are not actually being “created,” they’re sleight of hand, robbing Peter to pay Paul. From Ford’s press site:

• “Ford is on pace to bring approximately 1,975 UAW jobs into its U.S. plants from 2008 to 2012, exceeding its commitment in the 2007 UAW-Ford Collective Bargaining Agreement by more than 25 percent
• Ford is able to bring jobs in house from suppliers inside and outside of the U.S. thanks to collaboration with the UAW to improve the competitiveness of Ford plants
• Approximately 1,340 jobs already have been brought into 24 Ford facilities in the U.S. since 2008
• Ford has committed to bring another 635 jobs into nine of its plants by 2012”

Due to my political and social views, I consider CNBC’s newscasters as latter-day graduates of the Josef Goebbels School of Journalism. CNBC’s reporter on the scene at the Detroit auto show deserves a Riefenstahl Award. CNBC’s reporting from the Detroit auto show was distorted at best, and deeply misleading. Same goes for the follow-along journalists, and the partisan “industry” reporters whose offices are located in Detroit. Perhaps the rest of us should keep any “Detroit Renaissance” in context. Despite increased profitability arising from bailouts, bankruptcies and in the case of Ford a lot of hard work and real engineering and design accomplishment, Detroit is still just barely relevant and there’s a long road ahead, no matter what stunts Henry Waxman pulled, no matter the “free” Obama money, no matter the incessant drum beat.