This is The Morning Shift, our one-stop daily roundup of all the auto news that's actually important — all in one place at 9:00 AM. Or, you could spend all day waiting for other sites to parse it out to you one story at a time. Isn't your time more important?

With gas prices at $7,50 a gallon, it doesn't make too much sense to have an American car in Europe. I guess that's why Detroit tries to sneak into the old continent with Chryslers rebadged as Lancias these days.

You know Richard Morris. He is the Londoner who can make a Ferrari 430 look good.

The grass is always greener for car enthusiasts, and Americans always lust after the cars of Europe. We don't get a bunch of their excellent models, but we have a few things that Europeans can't get their hands on.

If you've ever traveled around Europe, then you're familiar with Ryanair. The Irish low cost airline has a fleet of 300 Boeing 737-800s, and gets thousands of people from European point A to European point B every day.

For various reasons, the automotive powers that be keep many of the world's best cars from the American car buying public. Even Detroit is stiffing us on some of these models, and they're supposed to be on our side!

The Ford Motor Company rumor mill has been churning. We had heard that in addition to the 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6, the Transit cargo van might be getting a diesel offering of some sort.

Everyone agrees that minivans are lame. Anything associated with suburban child rearing tends to get that stigma. But Ford's Euro spec Transit Custom and Tourneo Custom will look pretty awesome to someone who has to schlep around a lot of gear or people.

Europe's collaborative nEUROn drone may be late to the invisible death from above party, but it sure is compensating with some scary looks. Check out the Cylon mug on this puppy as it greets the world for the first time.

What sparks a European's love of American (and Australian) muscle cars? In this beautifully-shot profile, Ralf Becker, editor-in-chief of Hamburg-based car-porn purveyor Chromjuwelen.com, cites Hot Wheels cars, Mad Max and punk rock with inspiring his longtime devotion to "chrome jewels."