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?
It's Jalopnik Film Festival day so I'm going to keep this brief.
1st Gear: The 2014 Corvette Stingray Is Shipping
We've told you all you need to know about the 2014 Corvette Stingray, especially if your one of the Corvette faithful who put down a deposit as soon as we posted our renders.
Alas, those who predicted doom and gloom when the design was first shown can probably eat a little crow. The first 1,000 new 'Vettes have been assembled at Bowling Green and are out for delivery.
Expect to see your first cars in driveways soon.
2nd Gear: The Rallycross Sonic Is Awesome
We somehow missed reporting this news, but Global Rallycross will see some challenges to Ford domination when Chevy rolls out its Sonic to compete at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
It's worth nothing that this is the only racing series, I think, where you can see factory-backed Dodges battle it out with Fords and Chevys.
3rd Gear: Honda Recalls Odyssey, Acura MDX For Airbag Defect
I was sort of hoping the first big recall for the Honda Odyssey would involve their vacuum cleaner, but alas, the company is recalling roughly 318,000 of the minivans and about 63,000 Acura MDX CUVs over an airbag defect.
Tokyo-based Honda said it received complaints recently that the airbag opened unnecessarily in the 2003 and 2004 model year Odyssey and the 2003 Acura MDX because the computer chip for airbag deployment was responding to electrical interference.
Worth noting I've had to take my 2000-era Honda in TWICE for airbag-related recalls in the last year.
4th Gear: Car Buyers Are Disloyal, Truck Buyers Love You For Life
It turns out that the J.D. Power Brand Survey shows car buyers don't care where they bought their last car anymore, they just want the best new car. The opposite of this is true for trucks.
On the truck side of the business, however, the situation is quite different. Full-size pickup buyers are extraordinary loyal and stick to their chosen brands. This helps explain why Ford, whose F-150 series is America’s best selling vehicle, had the overall industry’s highest loyalty rate of 61 percent in 2012.
5th Gear: Ford Investing $678 Million In Canada
While Ford has expanded in the United States, there's no replacement for displacement, if by displacement you mean "manufacturing capacity."
Ford, in a statement, said the investment would increase its annual spending on Canada-made auto parts by about C$200 million to nearly C$4 billion. The company said the investment would secure 2,800 jobs at the plant. Work on the project has already begun and will be done by the fall of 2014, Ford said.
Reverse: Death of country-rock pioneer leads inspires car crime
On September 19, 1973, 26-year-old musician Gram Parsons dies of "multiple drug use" (morphine and tequila) in a California motel room. His death inspired one of the more bizarre automobile-related crimes on record: Two of his friends stashed his body in a borrowed hearse and drove it into the middle of the Joshua Tree National Park, where they doused it with gasoline and set it on fire.
[HISTORY]
Neutral: Do You Watch Rallycross? Why? Why Not?
Photo Credit: Getty Images