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?
1st Gear: Ford Sucks, GM Is Better
A study of the boardrooms of Michigan's biggest public companies shows of the 850 board seats, only 98 are held by women and just 12 of those by women of color (full report here via this Freep article.
While the automotive industry, on the whole, is amongst the best in finding women board members and executives, it's still below the industry average. The Inforum study didn't' look at Chrysler, so we've got GM and Ford to compare.
GM has four women directors out of its 14-member board, 25% of GM corporate officers are women, and one of them is amongst the top five compensated (I assume that means Mary Barra). That's a big turnaround from GM of the past and conforms with my experience.
How about Ford? Not so much. Out of 19 executives officers, there's one female, none are amongst the highest paid, and of 15 directors only two are women. This also conforms with my experience.
Since we're pointing out the faults in others, let's look inward. I was at a breakfast with Mark Reuss on Friday. None of the journalists there were female and, of the publications mentioned, I couldn't think of a female in a senior role.
Since Micki Maynard went on to work on her own projects, we haven't had a female in a senior role at Jalopnik either, though of the eight frequent contributors, we do have one female.
2nd Gear: The 30th Anniversary of the DeLorean Is Approaching
This article in the OC Register will be familiar to any DeLorean fans and regular Jalopnik readers. Also, last time I checked the HQ of DMC is still in Humble but now I need to go back and check.
Anyways, the company continues to do well, which is awesome, and apparently the 30th anniversary is coming up in 2015.
Get ready for lots of stories about the DeLorean in about 16 months. This is a fair warning.
3rd Gear: Porsche To Field Two Cars In 2014 TUDOR United Sportscar Championship
If you hadn't heard, TUDOR will sponsor the ALMS/Grand-Am unified USCC championship, which kicks off in January at Daytona. With the full schedule announced we're starting to hear the teams that will participate.
Early in the game is the factory-backed Porsche North America, which will use the Porsche 911 RSR (like the ones pictured).
They'll compete in a GT class for a full season and, we hope, sport an awesome new livery.
4th Gear: Ford Will Stop Paying Dealers To Teach Customers To SYNC
As we've reported, people hate MyFordTouch so much they decided to sue Ford. This is a crazy reversal from the early applause Ford SYNC received.
Part of dealing with SYNC/MyFord Touch was to pay dealers $50 per vehicle with SYNC and $75 for MyFord Touch, a subsidy that Automotive News reports is going away.
Some dealers, rightly, think it's too early given that people are still complaining about it.
5th Gear: Ron Bloom Returns To Detroit
Here's a weird story on an interesting guy via Bloomberg.
Ron Bloom, former deputy to President Obama's Car Czar (and then Car Czar) is back in Detroit simultaneously helping retired city workers in the bankruptcy and helping Fiat's Sergio Marchionne get concessions from the UAW healthcare trust that Fiat needs to give a little so it can buy the rest of Chrysler.
Seemingly, these jobs are at cross-purposes, although they're not directly related. Yet, people in the article think he's the right person to balance both the realities of where the company/Detroit is and the needs of workers.
“If he’s being paid by Sergio, he’s going to try to defend his interests but I suspect he will do it in a way that recognizes the need for the other side and in a way that is candid and both sides can count on,” Shaiken said. “Those are valuable assets in any negotiation.”
Reverse: This Is How It All Started
On September 23, 1933, a party of American geologists lands at the Persian Gulf port of Jubail in Saudi Arabia and begins its journey into the desert. That July, with the discovery of a massive oil field at Ghawar, Saudi King Abdel Aziz had granted the Standard Oil Company of California a concession to "explore and search for and drill and extract and manufacture and transport" petroleum and "kindred bituminous matter" in the country's vast Eastern Province; in turn, Standard Oil immediately dispatched the team of scientists to locate the most profitable spot for the company to begin its drilling.
[HISTORY]
Neutral: How Long Before We Have A Female Car CEO? GM is maybe next, but I don't see much at Ford or Chrysler to convince me otherwise, especially with Fiat ownership. Maybe one of Ze Germans?
Photo Credit: Getty Images