Maybe to show the cars would actually hold up to a trip that long with out breaking down?

While I have no doubt that this actually wastes more money than if they had just traveled by private jet, it was the right move and they should have done it the first time. Image does matter and when you are being filtered through a hostile media, controlling your image is very important. The fact that they didn’t anticipate the criticism only shows that these three are incompetent and should be replaced (though I can’t imagine that Ford will ever become functional regardless of who is CEO while the Ford family remains involved).

The smart thing to do would have been to fly commercial, even 1st class is only around $850.00, so time saved, money saved.

Possibly, though they would still waste a lot of time in the airport. But, as I said, it is about the image. Driving their own brand of cars is an image that is too good to pass up.

All of this is conjecture. Hopefully they did save money, but I doubt it. Do you believe for a moment that the CEOs themselves actually drove the cars? I don’t. Then you add the fact that Mr. Wagoner receives (until today) $2.2 M a year. If he is a hard working CEO who puts in 16 hour days and takes no vacation that is $2,644 an hour. That he would spend an extra 5 hours going to and, presumably, from DC (8, almost 9 hours driving versus what I assume is an 3, 4 hour flight including time in an airport). That equals $26,440. So yes, I doubt that his driving from Detroit to DC saves money and may even cost more than flying.

A Little Smoke and Mirrors Will Go A Long Way.

Perception is as much as important as the details in the proposals submitted to our law makers by the big three auto companies for the loans to keep them afloat.

The rank and file of the Joe Six Packs have a hard time to identify with the folks who drive the Cadillacs, Lincolns, and Imperials unless they are UAW members/workers who have been assembling these behemoths for years on the production line.

What GM, Chrysler, and Ford need is some grass roots support from the general public. This type of support would influence the members of the Senate Banking Committee when the members started getting correspondence from their constituents advocating the $34 billion bailout money.

If CEO’s of the big 3 US auto manufactures, Robert Nardelli of Chrysler, Rick Wagoner of GM, and Alan Mulally of Ford would climb down from their corporate ivory towers and start hanging out at street level with the “homies” that actually purchased the cars that were built in the years past, then you would have the public behind you in the salvation of the US auto industry.

Here are some examples: Nardelli of Chrysler would look real cool driving to the DC hearings in a 1958 Plymouth Fury like the one shown in the move “Christine”.

Wagoner driving a 1963 Impala Chevy low-rider doing some humping and jumping with
Black Magic Hydraulics in from the Senate Office Building should bring the press out.

Then Mulally, driving Ford Model T like out of Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang would be a big hit with the Senator’s kids and grand kids. How could grandpa deny a few measly billions to anybody who can make a fun machine like that.

[Side Note: Driving up in an Edsel for Mulally would be worse that landing at the DC executive airport in a new Leer jet with a bunch of wine, women and a marching band tumbling out of the airplane.]

The US auto giants have got to get the rank and file of the general public behind their request for a few bucks until the new “green” models hit the dealer’s showrooms.

The GM VOLT with an estimated window sticker price of about $40K will be stillborn before it hits the showrooms. This car would have to be subsidized by Uncle Sam for about $20K per unit to make it affordable for most folks even if it ran on “sunlight alone”.