What fun! I buy a liquidation of many thousands of parts and get and education in trademark law for a small extra fee. When buying the remains of the entity formerly known as Smittybilt, how was I to know all the fun adventures that would happen?

Now we are required to put the following at the bottom of each page on our retail site, LiquidParts.net

The subject discontinued products do not carry a factory warranty. Replacement parts for the discontinued products are not available and all technical questions must be directed to Liquid Parts at 1-800-785-8077. Smittybilt is a registered trademark of Smittybilt Automotive Products, LLC. Liquid Parts is a liquidator of inventory and is not affiliated or associated in any manner with Smittybilt Automotive Products, LLC.

So just in case there was any confusion - Smittybilt is a registered trademark of Smittybilt Automotive Products.

My friend Dave and I have purchased a huge amount of Smittybilt tube steps for trucks, as well as grille guards, nerf bars, tail light guards, bumpers and more. All the Smittybilt stuff that a person could ever want. Go to Smittybilt.net to see it all. There are around 11,000 peices of inventory that are marked down 50-80% off from the retail price that the steps were formerly sold for.

There is a picture of all the stuff in the “about us” page - for reference, the white poles in the picture are 50 feet apart.

The Detroit News is reporting that Ford will cut 30,000 jobs and shut down 10 factories. This is a huge move, since Ford has roughly 90,000 employees in North America.

The plan will be officially released January 23, and until then the board of directors is not saying much - except that it is a “way forward plan”. Whatever that means.

See also Ford Job Cuts and GM Bailout

As previously noted Ford has been talking about job cuts. Now there is more news, that a rumored 7500 workers in 5 plants will be facing a bleak 2006.

The company is likely to shut assembly plants in St Louis, Atlanta and St Paul, Minnesota, as well as an engine-parts plant in Windsor, Ontario, and a truck-assembly plant in Cuautitlan, Mexico, the newspaper said.(WSJ)

So this means that there is some bitter sweet irony for the American workers who lost their jobs to Mexico, watching the Mexican workers lose their jobs to Chinese suppliers. Where are you now, UAW? The real problem in all of this is not the appetite for new vehicles - that has not slowed down. The issue is the continous erosion of market share that GM and Ford have suffered because they continue to make cars that are less desirable than that of their competition.

It is really that simple. A little history of the Ford Motor Company will tell you that Henry Ford got it really right once, and had a 66% market share of the WORLD automotive market at one point. He sold what the people wanted, and it was notably different from the industry norms of the time.

But what will happen in the near term? Bailout? While some will view this as a dirty word, remember that Chrysler was able to repay their bailout loans 7 years early. Maybe the bailout can be directed to the design department, or engineering. Just keep it away from the marketing guys and their rebates programs.

Now Bill Ford is telling us that he is going to cut workers from his plants, copying GM’s strategy. He also called for the government to help with health care costs. Does this mean we are acutally headed for a single payer health care system? So that big US companies can compete globally? That would be nice - and it would save my company several thousand dollars per month. Just make sure the new taxes to pay for it are paid out of the oil companies excess profits.

He also asked for more tax credit incentives to encourage new car purchasers to choose a hybrid. Ford failed to explain how this would help his company, since Ford Motor’s most popular vehicles are full sized trucks and SUVs and they don’t offer a hybrid version of those. How long until George “Bail Out” Bush writes some checks to the auto industry?

The intial high volume production hybrid cars were the Honda Insight and the Toyota Prius. Now there are many choices, including SUVs, pickup trucks and even sports cars are on the horizon. This article talks about the concerns that some environmental groups have about the current trend to boost performance with the electric motor, instead of focusing on the fuel economy.

About 10 years ago, Chrysler had a show car/prototype of an Intrepid full size sedan that was powered by a diesel-electric hybrid. This car has never seen the light of day because of American attitudes towards diesel cars. There has not been an effort to make a full-size diesel hybrid pickup truck eitherr, even though trucks account for more than half of all new vehicle sales. It is hard to think that we are saving the world with 50,000 Priuses, when there are almost 10,000 trucks sold each and every day. The technology exists, it has been used in locomotives for decades - but I guess we will have to wait.

The Washington Post says that bio-diesel is on the rise - and it is only 105 years after it started. Most people don’t realize that the engine displayed by Rudolph Diesel at the 1900 world’s fair was run on peanut oil. Widespread acceptance and availability of bio-diesel would be a nice way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and to stop paying farmers not to farm.

An increase in the number of diesel cars would be nice for the U.S. too - in Europe 40% of cars sold are diesel, whereas here in North American that number is probably less than 1%. I have owned a Mercedes Benz in the past that was diesel powered and loved the 500 mile range between refills.

GM cuts 30,000 jobs and still can’t figure out what the problem is. Wagoner should be put out to pasture, along with all the other heroes that got GM into this mess. The simple problem that GM has is that its cars and trucks don’t sell well enough. Why? They are boring, and there is a perception of poor quality relative to Toyota and Honda.

Why not make more exciting cars? Steve Jobs said in a recent magazine interview words to the effect that committees don’t make good designers, and yet everything from GM looks committee driven. There are exceptions - the new Corvette looks good, but that car has always been developed somewhat on its own. The big money is in the trucks, and these are lacking. I have a Toyota Tundra and my brother has a Chevrolet Avalanche - and I wouldn’t trade him for $5000! I have driven his truck numerous times, and I just can’t stand the goofy interior layout and overabundance of useless ‘features’ . The Tundra is an exellent example of elegant simplicity in comparison, with useful features instead of electronic gingerbread.

Not that this matters for 30,000 families. Merry Christmas from Rick Wagoner.

In his article on MSN/Newsweek, Allan Sloan argues that there is a three way game of chicken, between GM, Delphi and the United Auto Workers Union. As near as I can tell, it is GM that is screwed - with the taxpayers right behind them. Delphi is in bankruptcy and demanding wage cuts of 60% - something that no one would put up with, union or not. So a strike seems inevitable, followed by a crippling of GM production, followed by a bailout by Mr. Tax-Cut-and-Spend Bush.

Whatever happens, it is going to be ugly.