I smell like every last possible petroleum product that an engine could possibly contain, my jeans are never going to fully recover from this weekend’s work, and my back is currently flipping me off with both middle fingers while growling over having to wrestle an engine around on a failing engine stand. Building an engine in your own shop rocks! That’s not sarcasm, either…I’ve been enjoying the process. But that hasn’t left me with a lot of time for random bits and bites from the ticker-tape stream of news that flows over my desk. So, after cleaning up tons of junk mail and unearthing a cat from the pile, I made a quick glance for interesting clips and present them here for your partaking. Here is this week’s Scrapple…enjoy!
1. To Lincoln: DO IT.
There are two major rumors floating around Lincoln right now and they both involve the recently revived Continental sedan. One is that the company is about to deep-six the machine in favor of an SUV because they need the money and aren’t selling enough cars. The other is that Lincoln is doubling down on the Conti and is talking about putting suicide rear doors on the car a’la the 1960s dream machine. Can you guess which option we favor?
2. To Cadillac: Don’t change the look one bit. 
Two years ago Cadillac unveiled the Escala, a four-door flagship car that was, at the time, another teaser of beautiful shapes and proportions in a concept form that Cadillac themselves had absolutely no inclination to build. Well…that might not be the case much longer. More rumor mill noise says that Cadillac is going to pin the Escala above the CT6 sedan in the hierarchy, probably canning the cool name for something like CT8 or some other pointless alphanumeric name. While we’d love to tell Cadillac to not change a thing, it’s obvious that they don’t give a (censored) about what anyone in the outside world thinks. Otherwise they’d do a limited run of El Miraj coupes and stuff their new 550-horse, 627 ft/lb 4.2L twin-turbo V8 into the ATS for some serious fun time. Just my suggestions…
3. To Nissan, From Chevrolet: We’re done here.
The Chevrolet City Express, a knock-off Nissan NV200 and one of the most austere vehicles you can buy from GM, is dead. Nobody is weeping.
4. From BMW: No EV for you, peasants. (Not yet, anyways.)
BMW knows that electric vehicles are going to be a part of it’s future. Just look at the shift in vehicle purchases in places like Norway, for example, plus this wave of “EV Everything” that is deep in the culture right now. But BMW won’t do mass-produced EVs until at least 2020 because the cost of the vehicle then versus a vehicle now would amount to a “two-digit” percentage difference. Or, in other words, fourth-gen EV tech will be too costly and fifth-gen EV tech will be just right to fleece brand loyalists and badge snobs with.
5. From us to the driver: we want a picture of the citation.
J. Jesus Duran Sandoval, you’ve won this week’s High Score Speeding Ticket contest, hands down. Sandoval got tagged in Indiana for driving his Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat at over 160 miles an hour on the Indian Toll Road after he blasted by a State Trooper who was helping a motorist out on the side of the road. Had it not been for the ultimate interstate frustration, a semi passing another semi at glacial speed, Sandoval might have had a shot of leaving the Trooper in the dust…his Charger patrol car is limited to 150 MPH. The Toll Road is apparently LSR material for idiots…Sandoval’s incident is the second one in two weeks and the second Hellcat this year.
Dear Cadillac. 1. Build the Escala 2. Give it two powertrain options: An electric motor and batteries etc. that are bigger/faster than Tesla and a raging twin turbo v12. 3. Charge stupid money for it and wait for rich folks to line up wiping drool with their ascots.