Monday, February 14, 2011

Welcome to 60-0, our new end-of-day roundup post you can find every weekday at 5:00 PM. It'll lasso up all the fast-moving auto stories from around the Internets and drag 'em to a screeching halt right here in one easy-to-find post. Never mind those other car sites — we've got everything you need right here.

60 MPH: Remember the DeTomaso Pantera? Of course you do. The Mangusta? Sure you do. And maybe someday you'll remember a DeTomaso that hasn't been built yet. The company — or one with its name — is on the comeback trail, with a new Pininfarina-designed concept set to debut in Geneva. Fingers crossed for these guys.

50 MPH: Who's better than GM's hourly workers? Nobody (say it with a Bronx accent). GM says its hourly workers will share in the company's profits to the tune of $4,000 each on average. That's more than double the workers' previous top payout. But don't call it a bonus, like Ford's hourlys got. The sharing portion is in their union contracts, calculated from GM's US profits.

40 MPH: Good news, not so much for drivers as for those who are driven. Porsche is developing a long-wheelbase version of the Panamera, hoping to satisfy demand in China and North America for greater rear legroom. That'll bring the massive Porsche up five inches to 120 inches total, which would still leave it four inches less than the Mercedes S-Class. Of course, the Panamera is the best big sedan for those who drive themselves, so someone's getting screwed here and it's not the guy up front in the silly hat.

30 MPH: The Smartocalypse hit with a bang, not a whimper, with US sales of the Fortwo plummeting from meh to gah! But US distributor Penske is getting a bailout from Mercedes on those slow-moving Smarts. And what of the four-door model supposedly on the horizon? Canceled like a sub-prime mortgage check.

20 MPH: They say the rich are different from you and me. For one thing, they have to pay through the surgically-altered nose to get their Lamborghini Aventador exactly how they want it. That means $4,100 for pearl paint, $4,200 for heated seats, $7,550 for a transparent engine cover and a gargantuan $14,000 for matte finish. That's a mind-melting $45,800 on top of the base $323,160 for a completely spec'd up model. Sounds crazy until you lop a zero off of all that, and you've got a Lexus IS.

10 MPH: Audi may have tweaked its small-car platform to fit one of its Quattro clockworks, but that doesn't mean its Volkswagen platform mate will be shown the same respect. Apparently a hotter, AWD Polo R isn't in the stars, because it would likely cause some cannibalization in the upper Golf ranks. And you though this was the last time golf and cannibalism would cross up in the news.

0 MPH: And today we mourn the passage of Edgar Hetteen, godfather of snowmobiling, co-founder of Polaris and co-founder of Arctic Cat. If you've ever gone 80mph across a snow-covered meadow in a motorcycling position, or ever wanted to, you can thank Mr. Hetteen. He was 90.

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And thanks to Scarborough at Forzamotorsport.net for the VD image.