I can't help but brag a little.

In two weeks, I will be up close and personal with:

Bentley Continental GT Speed
Dodge Challenger SRT8
Dodge Viper SRT10
Ford Mustang Bullitt
Lamborghini Gallardo
Lotus Exige
Maserati
Mercedes-Benz 2009 SL550
Roush Mustang

i can't promise I'll get to drive all of them, but still... how 'bout that.

Today's Chicago car tally, or, how I know summer's here:

One orange Lamborghini Murcielago, Roosevelt Avenue in Glen Ellyn.
One yellow Lamborghini, Ditka's in Oakbrook Terrace. (Who takes a Lambo to Mike Ditka's restaurant? Tool.)
Red Ferrari 430, Shell at Naperville and East Loop in Wheaton (as in, down the road from my apartment).

Et moi? I was just psyched that I pulled my GTI out of storage and took it for a spin.

In other news: I finally coughed up for my own IPASS toll transponder; this "venturing out on my own" thing could get interesting. I walked to Barnes & Noble to check out Claudine Ko's story in the current issue of "Bust"; while I was there, I caught up on my feature competition in "eurotuner" and "PVW." I'm highly entertained that "eurotuner" somehow weaseled a long-term 135 from BMW.

If my car is my castle, I live in a rabbit hutch.

Once again, Natalie Neff's being raked over the coals for her latest column on AutoWeek.com; the forum posters over there make The Car Lounge look tame by comparison. Her piece, a lighthearted bit advising her brother to evaluate prospective tenants by their cars, is being criticized for being irrelevant.

Point A: Perhaps, in the context of AutoWeek's usual content, this is true. That's why the story's on the web and not in the print issue.

Point B: The more pressing issue is that Neff's argument is entirely relevant. How often do we judge fellow motorists based on their vehicles, and how often are those assumptions correct? When my husband and I lived in Milwaukee, we spent a few hours at the laundromat every weekend, and passed the time by trying to match each laundromat patron with a car in the parking lot. Our track record was scarily accurate.

Bear with me, if you will, and check out the cars parked at the local Wal-Mart. Go inside, if you can stand it, and watch the customers. I will never be convinced that these cars, usually comprised of rusty Toyota minivans, early '90s Civics riding on cut springs and spinner hubcaps, and the famous periwinkle blue Plymouth Neon that shed paint in Frisbee-sized sheets, are not indicative of Wal-Mart consumers' average economic and physical health. Take a trip down the road to the closest Target, and bask in the brighter, cleaner, friendlier, and more pleasant atmosphere .

I know where I prefer to park my cars. How about you?

Such observations are, indeed, a part of automotive culture. The market research geniuses have known this for decades.

I had a rolling start, and then I stalled.

Thanks are due to my lovely Katherine; you've done quite the job keeping this alive while I've been stressed the hell out doing other things.

The uninformed often tell me they want my life. Today, several of my coworkers (all male) gathered in my cubicle to gawk at the glossy 8x10s shot by my husband during my first track excursion this weekend (for which yet another huge thanks goes out to Katherine). My friend Jkrew told me via AIM that he was jealous that I had another unique driving experience this weekend, a sunny afternoon with the Polo BlueMotion.

But therein lies the problem. Here I sit on the couch with 14-hour-old mascara flaking off my lashes as I struggle to recall the minutae of my weekend. Facts and figures swirl through my head; km/h and mph conversions are confusing the hell out of me. I have no idea how to make a story from these numbers, but rest assured, the Polo BlueMotion is a hell of a lil' car.

Now I know why Jkrew laughed at me, back when he was working on VW.com and I gushed constantly about my jealousy.

Do I buy a racing helmet, or do I buy an iPhone?

My, my, Jeff!

Jeff Sabatini is a very good and interesting auto writer, and I generally like his columns for the Wall Street Journal. They're frequently uplifting and a good reminder of why we drive.

So I was a little surprised when I read his review of the 2009 Toyota Corolla. Strike that. His rape of the 2009 Toyota Corolla.

Not that I would have written it differently, but in thought, I probably wouldn't have written it at all. It's the ugly, unvarnished truth about not just the car, but the Americans who buy it.

Jeff, I salute you for saying what most of us want to say every day: Americans don't know shit about cars.

Crouton!

The pundits over in The Car Lounge have taken Volkswagen's new minivan to task with a twenty-two page thread on the Dodge Caravan reskin. The thread is complete with endless bitching about Chrysler drivetrains, transmissions, and switchgear, full-on VW dashstroking, and a very detailed look at the comfort level provided by Stow'n'Go (or is that Verstau'n'Fahr?) seating versus the van's captain's chairs. VPB will refrain from commenting on just what exactly one should put in the storage bins on the floor.

The best poke of all, however, goes to chippervw, who dubbed the rolling loaf of bread the "Chroutan". A contraction of Chrysler and Routan, it's pronounced "crouton" and appears to be sticking. A girlfriend of mine suggested garlic air freshener to complete the image. To hell with L.L. Bean and Eddie Bauer, I want my Chroutan with the Alton Brown package!

How to reset your inventory in five easy steps

I don't know who Bob Nardelli is kidding. Chrylser's inventories are higher than any one thinks is appropriate. You can't idle a plant just because, so if you want to get those inventories sorted out, you have to come up with a good reason. If you're sitting up in Auburn Hills and you discover that one of your key components suppliers is about to file Chapter 11, your little brain cogs should start spinning in a hurry. Let's face it, why wait for a parts shortage when you can invent one in a few short hours and two inches of fax paper? Who cares about the rest of the industry when you can slash your way to health?

What happened in Bob's little head? Here's a snapshot:

1. Identify bankrupt supplier
2. Cancel contract with said supplier
3. .......
4. Announce (self-inflicted) parts shortage
5. Shut down over-producing plants
6. Inventory magically reduces!

Shiny red!

If the guys over at Allpar.com are not smoking crack, then it's too bad I'm not old, little or from Pasedena, because I want two in shiny red!

The lights are on at Warren

I was talking to some of my buddies over at Warren today, and was waxing poetic about the Chinese Riviera and SAAB 9-4x BioPower concepts. I couldn't help but gush over there - the Riviera is everything the Chrysler Imperial concept of 2006 was trying to be, and the 9-4x is so completely different than anything I've ever seen in an SUV that I can't help but swoon. Toss the CTS coupe on the stack and you've got some serious design firepower from the company that used to be known for hard plastics on the outside of Pontiac Azteks.

VPB hears (from the Theta program itself) that the T-E Caddy is confirmed with a CTS-styled interior. No comments have been made on the viability of the 9-4x interior, but we doubt it will make it to production as-is. We hope the honeycomb vents stay - I've been personally buttering up everyone I know on Theta about them. I fear the acrylic dash will be toast - too hard to keep scratch-free, and probably just too hard to make anyway. The ski rack thingy is a major plus, too. SAABs have generally had interesting load floor fittings, and this continues the trend.

Geely is HI FUN

Geely Motors returned to NAIAS as noted below, and with some interesting new technology. They have managed to get the TPMS system to talk to the ABS system and slow the car in the event of a tire failure. They call it the "blowout monitoring and braking system" or BMBS.

Now, we at VPB wonder if this has anything to do with cheap Chinese tyres, or if it's because Chinese Explorer knock-offs roll just as badly as American ones do when the tyres are not maintained, or if the roads over there are just so darn bad there is no reason to build a 50K mile treadwear tyre.

There's something going on that's more interesting to me. No one in the US has put much effort into a system like this so far, because blowouts are a relatively rare occurence over here. Tyres fail now and then, but they only rarely cause fatal accidents. The Explorer/Firestone issue was defined by improper inflation, not by a badly designed tyre. USDOT and NHTSA standards for tyre manufacture are extremely high and so long as tyres meet them and are used in a manner that the manufacturer considers safe, they hold up until punctured or they just wear out.

With that in mind, I can see the programming of this type of interlocked system being a few bits of code away from ripping off. Geely is making a big splash of it this year - will Ford, GM, and company be far behind with their own systems? How closely will they tread on Geely's "intellectual" property? I put intellectual in quotes because China has a poor track record for observing international patent rules. In other words, which will be the first of the automakers to "steal" Chinese technology, and what will be the result?

Straight from da hood...

..it's the Ford Funk Master Flex Flex Fuel Flex! Ok, I stole that from Queen Jean, but no kidding around, why bother with a FMF edition Expedition when the Flex is waiting there for masterful funkification?

And why, oh why, in this world of super-custom paint jobs and overnight ride pimping, does the FMF edition Expy have taped-on pinstripes? What are the people at Ford thinking? Two-tone is a factory process right now. I could see a single tone stripe rolled on, but this is a three-tone over a two tone paint. Why not run the black and red striping and lay on the yellow later? Why not paint the thing properly to begin with? The interior is already crazy painted. Do some justice to the outside, too, Ford.

Seriously, the inside is hysterical. It comes with four sets of headphones. Which is good, because I needed a rope to get out of it.

NAIAS 2008

I'm live at the NAIAS 2008 (courtesy of neuwerks media) and it's game time! Please check out the galleries at Neuwerks for our pictures, videos, and podcasts!

The Passat CC was the star at VW this year. A new, upmarket car with even more bells and whistles and the best seats VW has produced in 20 years. The bucketness of these seats is amazing. I can see the Alcantara versions being in high demand among the enthusiast crowd. I'm tempted to see if I can shoehorn them into my Passat. I have the Alcantara waiting for them....

I'd be remiss if I didn't comment right away on the Ford Verve - it's a pretty and small 3dr that was showed in a lovely magenta metallic. The interior was detailed.... OMG WTF am I talking about!?! The plate on it may as well have come out and said "Vagisil". I'm of course for cars marketed to women, but this is ridiculous. This is a great little coupe/hatch that's perfect for hopping around and going out on the town. What's with the over-the-top girlieness of the plate on it? If you want to make it girlie, paint it pink and put Barbie in it. There's only so much Disney princess I can take in a car. The princess factor should never be more significant than the car factor. Fact.

Now over to the ZR-1. I love it! It's old school sexy in a 2-seater with serious balls to match. My favorite part of the display was a full spaceframe with drivetrain that GM upended and labeled for the technically challenged among us. All of GM's iron was accessibly displayed and it grows easier on the eyes every year.

The Beat, Trax, and Groove concepts from Chevy show their intention in the kei-size micro car market. Each offers a stylish small package with a variety of options.

I took the Suzuki X-Head to task over on CarDomain, and with good humor. It's so outright silly that it could only come from a company that does most of its marketing to motocrossers.

The Nissan GT-R made an appearance yesterday and my God, is it huge. Keep in mind that I drive a station wagon, and not one of those wanna-be 5dr ones. I drive a huge, hulking station wagon. The GT-R seems as big as my wagon. At some point, performance suffers from size. Driving experience certainly does. It is beautiful, though. I rarely like Nissan's styling directions, but this time, they have pulled some elegant retro (rear end treatment) and sharp new school lines together to make a sharp automobile. I just don't really plan to drive it - too darn big.

I'll put some more buzz up tonight after I get through another day on the floor. My feet were killing me last night. No more 3" heels for me this week!

Ok, so it was FOUR-points...

Detroit Auto Scene released a pic of Ford's safety team demoing a four-point seat belt. Same electronic interlock problems as a five-point and no anti-submarine strap. I guess there are still enough people out there wearing skirts to eliminate that fifth point found on a proper harness from the consumer version.

I'm not sold on the "airbag-in-the-webbing" system, though. I have enough padding up top already. In fact, that padding is one of the reasons traditional four-points suck for girls. Modern five-points with their center buckle work a lot better if you have any mass on your chest, and regular old three-points have their virtues, too.

I'll be curious to see the safety testing - the area between consumer-friendly three-points plus airbag and full five/six-points with a HANS is plagued with problems. While a four-point does keep you in your seat, your head and neck take a beating. I know - my Schroth Ralley 4 just about kills me when I use it, but I sure do stay in my seat.

High Voltage

Sources inside General Motors tell VPB that the Chevrolet Volt on display at the NAIAS will have functional running gear. Reports on the driveability of the car note "golf-carting around". The actual nature of the running gear is not known to VPB, however we are pretty sure that Mr Lutz will motor the car around for us. Actually motor, that is, instead of engining around like the rest of us.

Multiple sources over on the east side report that the electrical side of the real Volt running gear has been residing inside of a Cobalt unitbody for at least a month and has some appreciable mileage on it. This bodes extremely well for the General's latest EV program and may be sufficient to put battery concerns to rest. We at VPB are not sure how many of these Volt/Cobalt mules are out there, but it is believed that they reside at both GM's Warren and TX facilities. Keep your eyes open and let us know if you see a suspicious Cobalt out there with Man plates. The lack of exhaust tips will probably be the giveaway.