This 1935 Auburn 851 Speedster will be offered at the inaugural Mecum Nashville auction. Get all the latest auto industry news in the Executive Briefing.
Today’s headlines:
+ Volkswagen reported $11.5 billion in one-off costs, deepening the crisis at the world’s second-largest automaker, which has already triggered a historic major restructuring. More at CTV News. a
+ The AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act, which requires automakers to include the AM band in car radios, passed the U.S. House of Representatives and next goes to the Senate. More at Car and Driver.
+ Stellantis faces a strike deadline as its contract with Unifor, the Canadian autoworkers union. expires with the two deadlocked over the future of the Brampton, Ontario plant. More at CBT News.
+ NASCAR Cup drivers Carson Hocevar and Ryan Blaney are facing potential fines and other penalties following an on-track incident and a post-race scuffle at Bristol. More at USA Today.
+ Fraudulent cars-for-sale ads using fake photos, fake voices, and fake sellers generated using artificial intelligence apps are finding victims on Facebook Marketplace. More at The Drive.
+ Toyota estimates it could cost $6.4 billion annually from 2028 to modernize its factories as the world’s biggest carmaker accelerates automation and robotics deployment. More at World Auto Forum.
+ Automotive analyst John Murphy is projecting that demand for gas-electric hybrids will surge over the next four years, eventually accounting for 34percent of the market by 2030. More at CNBC.
+ Lucid Motors is partnering with a European mobility company called Bolt to develop its own robotaxis, hoping to launch its autonomous ride-hailing services across Europe. More at Autoweek.
+ Mecum Auctions will host its inaugural Nashville auction this week at Nashville Superspeedway, with an estimated 1,750 collector vehicles crossing the auction block. More at Old Cars.
+ More dates on the 2027 IndyCar season calendar have been revealed, with Road America hosting an event on June 27 and Mid-Ohio the following weekend on July 4. More at Racer.
Photo courtesy of Mecum Auctions.
Review the previous MCG Executive Briefing from September 18 here.
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Online A.I. scams are everywhere indeed, but the empty seats at the Saturday night Bristol NASCAR “Aussie Supercar Cup” race were very real.
The AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act, eh? No more radio delete under penalty of law! The heavy AM radio buzzing from vintage Packard 440 solid core spark plug wires is the same electromagnetic interference (EMI) that your EV and AV leaks out w/50,000x more raw electrical power than Grandpa Thad’s unshielded ignition, so enjoy!
☆WARNING☆
YOU MUST MAINTAIN FULL-TIME ATTENTION ON OHIO ROADS AT ALL TIMES WHEN OPERATING A VEHICLE WITH ANY ADVANCED DRIVER ASSISTANCE SYSTEM (ADAS)!
FYI, there is very strong documented evidence of more than one Ohio Department Of Transportation (ODOT)/state contractor-involved Tesla ADAS “hacker/data tampering” crash in Ohio’s ODOT District 1 during 2025, the post-modern 21st Century hat trick companion to our world famous Ohio speed traps and notorious predatory highway “safety” infrastructur configs. The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) year-long five county 800+ TTC sign US Route 68 detour debacle of 2025 was obviously created by A.I., rubber stamped by ODOT District 1 then installed with zero competent oversite or QC, functioned exactly like a physical hack that entrapped both ADAS machine-vision systems and GPS app users for over 11 months. The drivers had no chance in the 2025 Ohio Tesla ADAS “hacking/data tampering” crashes IMHO. The root cause and failure mode appears almost elegant in utter simplicity, stupidity and “in your face” political selfishness, but identified in associated real time email chains, public records, public record requests involving ODOT, local media reports and a FOIA ignored by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the perfect paper trail of “prior knowledge”.
Ominously, ODOT in Ohio understands that ADAS safety critically relies on shape, color, and location filters that totally depend on a basic minimal MUTCD Section 2 and 6 compliance. There is zero debate about it. A vision hack IS a data hack/cyber attack! Published online official detour instructions with numerous typos and errors (GIGO) blinded user GPS apps and blocked/tampered with critical ADAS GPS safety data. Ohio’s “reverse lotto” traffic ticket system automatically defaulted all loopholapalooza legal liability allowed by Obama/Biden MOU legal loophole disclaimers and Ohio loophole law on the unlucky ADAS and GPS app users.
BE ADVISED Ohio loopholegineering, loophole cascades, loophole enforcement cascades, and loopholapaloozas operate with a safety factor of exactly zero. Since the mechanism of “Safety Factor Zero ADAS” (SF0A) failures on Ohio roads under ODOT NEPA MOU/Ohio law school alumni loopholapaloozas is absolute in its math, I would NEVER use any ADAS on any Ohio roads…