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Want a tax break? Buy a new hybrid, right? Wrong. A Senate amendment added to the House stimulus package offers tax breaks on purchase of practically any new vehicle under $50,000. If it passes. More »
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The Financiapocalypse continues. We just received a copy of an e-mail that went out at GMAC, the lending arm jointly owned by GM and Cerberus, from Barbara Stokel, GMAC's EVP of North American Operations. Here's the most salient detail: you'll now need a minimum 700 credit bureau score to get a car loan at dealer invoice or below from GMAC. The full e-mail is below the jump to explain that news as well as the news they'll be restricting approval of contract terms beyond 60 months unless a buyer qualifies for GM-supported 72-month incentives. So what does this means to you? Well, unless you've got above average credit, it's going to become much more difficult to buy a new car. Frankly, that's probably a good thing for consumers. It's probably a bad thing for GM sales numbers. More »
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Today, in a move that sounds an awful lot like a plot line from a Steinbeck novel of the 30's set in dust-bowl Americana, FoMoCo's asking JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs to help the automaker finance $18 billion in secured (meaning backed by tangible assets like equipment, buildings, nameplates, water coolers, etc). Except, in this Steinbeck novel, instead of the Joad family, Johnny's telling the story of Pa Mulally and Momma Ford asking the bank for a loan. The bank tells them they'll have to sign over the farm, the barn and all of FoMoCo's domestic assets — plus Volvo and Ford Credit just to be safe. That's right, the Ford family will be putting up all of that for a measly $8 billion in a secured credit line to replace an existing unsecured $6.3 billion loan plus a new $7 billion secured term loan and some stock-insured loans amounting to around $3 billion. I guess that beats running out of cash and having to declare bankruptcy. Hopefully for the boys and girls in Dearborn, this won't end like the final scene in that Steinbeck novel — you know, a scene of Bill Ford breast-feeding a starving Alan Mulally, with FoMoCo CFO Don LeClair crying in the corner. – Ray Wert More »
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