Champ Car World Series filed for bankruptcy Wednesday after agreeing to an open-wheel unification plan with Indy Racing League ("IRL") worth $6 million. The assets of Championship Auto Racing Teams were purchased from Champ Car in 2004 after CART had filed bankruptcy. Champ Car will liquidate its assets and pay its debts of estimated $10 million after the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach on April 20. The meeting of creditors will be held the next day.

Champ Car's leaders decided "that it is no longer economically feasible to sustain an open-wheel series and that (Champ Car) did not have the funds to operate the series in 2008".

You can read the entire article at: http://www.thatsracin.com/other_series/story/11875.html

Chandra

Here is a link to an interesting article from the NY Times on the new $2,500 car to be offered for sale in India. It is small, light and likely would not pass Western emissions standards, much less crash standards. However, as one expert said, it is much safer on the road for the driver than a bike would be, so it is safer than the present mode of transportation for most of its intended buyers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/business/worldbusiness/08indiacar.html?em&ex=1199941200&en=02caff95bfce346b&ei=5087%0A

Note also that this is the company which is a likely buyer for Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford.

Michael

Alex Taylor, III a Fortune Senior Editor writes that the person now chosen to lead Chrysler after the buy out by Cerberus, Bob Nardelli, is precisely the wrong individual to run that company at this time. Mr. Nardelli comes from a stint at Home Depot and General Electric.

"Nardelli, on the other hand, arrives on the heels of an enormous fiasco at Home Depot, appears to have a very high psychic profile, and by all accounts has the tact of a Marine drill instructor. This is not precisely what Chrysler needs at this point in time."

Mr. Taylor makes several points to support his conclusions,

"One: Chrysler is a fragile place these days, having only recently recovered from the German invasion and then seen itself sold for essentially peanuts. But soothing bedside manner isn't exactly part of Nardelli's MO. Any remaining talented individuals who stuck around at Chrysler to see how things were going to turn out are now polishing their resumes and arranging severance payments before the boat starts to rock.

Two: Nardelli's appointment undercuts Chrysler's renegade culture. As the youngest, smallest and most fragile of Detroit's former Big Three, Chrysler has always prided itself on its outlaw spirit; it was willing to gamble on things other automakers weren't."

For the full story, click here:
http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/06/news/companies/chrysler_nardelli.fortune/index.htm

Mike

A Warhol "painting" which is actually photographs of a car crash painted green recently sold for 71 million. Now, the question is: what does this sale, of this subject, at this price mean? One answer is proposed in Socio Times, a Socionomic Commentary.
"This sale should turn out to be very relevant, one of the all-time great metaphors for what happens to art and other investment values when a downturn in the stock market coincides with the start of a full-fledged deflationary collapse. "
Here is a link to the full article:

http://www.sociotimes.com/archives/2007/07/warhol_peak_moo.aspx

Have a great weekend, Mike

Cereberus derives its name from Greek mythology. By definition Cereberus was the three-headed canine guardian of the gates of Hades. Perhaps this is a part of the inspiration of the company’s “sharp-toothed ways.” Cereberus recently announced that they would be adding Chrysler to their list of acquisitions. Cereberus has made acquisitions that include “long-haul trucker Fruehaf, Air Canada and lingerie maker Frederick’s of Hollywood. Many of those companies have experienced turnarounds under Cerberus’s slashing ways, but not without pain.

New York’s Cerberus bought more than 600 struggling Albertsons supermarkets last year and laid off nearly 1,000 workers within months. Last fall, the firm bought the on-the-brink Blue Bird school bus manufacturer; earlier this month, Cerberus closed its Canadian textile company out of bankruptcy in 2004 and closed two mills within the year. It bought the Alamo and National car rental chains out of bankruptcy in 2004 and moved them from high-rent South Florida to more-affordable Tulsa.

“The firm is run by financier Stephen Fienberg, who was a trader at Drexel Burnham Lambert in the 1980s, when the firm popularized the use of “junk bonds” for corporate takeovers. Former Treasury secretary John W. Snow was named chairman of Cereberus in October. Former vice president Dan Quayle is on the board.

Cereberus distinguishes itself from other private-equity firms by maintaining a staff of in-house operations executives. Meaning: When it takes over a company, it often doesn’t have to recruit a new chief executive; it puts one of its own in place”

The complete article can be found at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/14/AR2007051401492.html?nav=rss_email/components?nav=slate

Pam