UNCOMFORTABLY NUMB.

Editor's Note: This week, Peter highlights a litany of issues plaguing the industry right now, with particular emphasis on the ongoing missteps at Ford. In On The Table, Alfa Romeo debuted its modern take on the 33 Stradale last week in California. And we preview the all-new 2026 Jeep® Cherokee, which features the first Jeep brand hybrid system. Our AE Song of the Week is "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd. In Fumes, we bring you Part VII of "The Glory Days," Peter's riveting account of his brother Tony's meteoric racing career and the inside story of the famed Owens/Corning Corvette Racing Team. And in The Line, we have INDYCAR results from Milwaukee, MotoGP results from Hungary, and IMSA GT results from Virginia. Onward! -WG

By Peter M DeLorenzo

 

Detroit. Drip, drip, drip. The news from the auto industry right now is dribbling out in a mind-numbing cadence. Tariffs, jarring price hikes, upside-down consumer loans, meaningful EV progress running against the backdrop of an administration that doesn’t give a shit, Ford, “America’s Recall Car Company,” stumbles on, while its CEO bathes in the glory of his own remarkably tone-deaf thought balloons.

 

Let’s face it, folks, the state of the industry right now is a giant bowl of Not Good.

 

Audi of America, for instance, put out a press release touting the fact that its “Signature Care” scheduled maintenance will now be included on all of its 2026 models. What Audi didn’t say is that its prices are going up anywhere from $800 to $4700 (so far), depending on the model. Yes, the tariffs will hit the German manufacturers – and their customers – hard, but it’s a particularly bitter pill for Audi, which has suffered six consecutive quarters of downward sales.

 

Meanwhile, those brutal long-term loans that pretty much guarantee that buyers will be “upside down” before halfway through their terms continue. The consumer reaction is made up of equal parts of: 1. People who just don’t care that they’ll never pay off their loans, “so what difference does it make?” Or 2. People who know what they’re getting into and close their eyes, grit their teeth and sign the papers anyway. And 3. The people who have no idea what they’re getting themselves into and will find out soon enough how bad it’s going to be.

 

Asking for manufacturers or the dealers to refrain, of course, is simply not going to happen. Their collective attitude is driven by the notion that, “we’re helping people afford a new vehicle!” so it’s a perfectly acceptable way of doing business, like they’re performing a service for the public good, which is simply laughable. The ugly reality is that this is Hose-O-Rama of consumers on a grand scale.

 

We’re about to enter into a phase where tariffs are going to hit everything we touch. It’s not just car companies and suppliers passing on the costs; it’s going to become a grim fact of life as our daily lives are adversely affected. As “they” say, elections have consequences, and the American consumer is about to find that out the hard way.

 

And as you read about the accelerating advances in battery and charging technology that seem to be coming out of China on a weekly basis, we’re faced with the reality that the U.S. auto industry has no hopes of catching up with what’s happening over in that country. But to their credit, our domestic-based auto companies are not giving up, and are instead plowing ahead with developing more and better EVs of their own. And I applaud them for that.

 

Will it matter? With the current administration hell-bent on taking this country back to the 50s, with environmental destruction as part and parcel of the cost of doing business, while stifling EV development once and for all, I am, needless to say, not optimistic. As I’ve said repeatedly on this website, EVs will be and should be part of a variety of propulsion systems powering our nation’s fleet (along with hybrids, of course). Our domestic automakers are right to push on at this point, because to do otherwise would amount to a form of corporate suicide.

 

And what are we to make of what’s going on in Dearborn at this juncture? As far as Ford is concerned, it has become “America’s Recall Car Company” and there doesn’t seem to be a damn thing anyone down there can do about it. You’d like to believe, at least, that Ford is managing a two-step forward, three-back cadence with its battle against its relentless onslaught of recalls, but the fact of the matter is that there are no steps forward on the horizon, just a constant stream of “we’re gonna get a handle on it” platitudes.

 

This doesn’t seem to bother Ford’s current CEO, Jim “I’m a genius, just ask me” Farley in the least. Hard off his annual victory lap at the Monterey Historics, where he reveled in the glow of his glad-handing and back-slapping "bro" swells and sycophants who think he’s “one of them” but who really isn’t, Farley has come up with another distraction from his company’s dismal recall record under his tenure.

 

What’s his distraction ploy this time? Farley is looking at developing an off-road racing supercar in the vein of the $325,000 Mustang GTD which, by the way, is so massive and remarkably ungainly with its exaggerated bodywork that it looks like an aircraft carrier with wings. (It has great appeal to Mustang – and Farley – fanboys, but as more than a few pundits have commented, at the end of the day, it’s still a $325,000 Mustang.)

 

Farley has dreams of a high-performance off-road machine that could compete in the famed Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia. While on an episode of Bloomberg’s Hot Pursuits podcast in August, he had this to say: “No one’s ever built a supercar for gravel, high-speed sand, dirt,” Farley said (he’s forgetting Porsche, apparently). “I’m thinking really deeply about it and usually that turns into something.”

 

There’s auto CEO hubris and then there’s vintage Farley hubris. “I’m thinking really deeply about it and usually that turns into something.” As he basks in the glow of his own brilliance, Ford Engineering has to stop, drop everything and start marching to the dulcet tones of Farley’s thought balloons.

 

I’m sure a 1000HP off-road beast would be a fun exercise for Ford’s True Believers, although from what I’m hearing from inside Ford, more than a few of those people are sick and tired of marching to Farley’s drumbeats.

 

While Ford is saddled with the title of “America’s Recall Car Company” Farley has seized upon the idea of building a machine that will do absolutely nothing to assuage the company’s dismal image. Instead, he is willing to commit time, talent, energy and engineering resources to something that will only perpetuate the idea of “Farley’s Folly,” which now happens to be a recurring theme over in Dearborn.

 

What’s happening in the auto industry right now is making me uncomfortably numb. But what’s happening in Dearborn right now is just comfortably dumb.

 

And that’s the High-Octane Truth for this week.

Editor's Note: You can access previous issues of AE by clicking on "Next 1 Entries" below. - WG