Carrie gets a stylish no-prize for bringing us news of a new exhibition opening in Boston:

Ralph Lauren looks like he's at a fashion show, striding down the aisle in his wide-shouldered pinstripes, surrounded by beautiful creations under bright lights. But these models are cars, and the occasion is an exhibit at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts of classic automobiles from Lauren's personal collection.

Don't miss the slide show, especially #6!

The rest of the article does touch a bit on the straits car manufacturers find themselves in today, but slouches down the "American cars used to suck, and now that they don't they can't sell any" easy path.

An Economist article from June was much better. According to the article, the problem is it's very expensive to create modern cars, so expensive an automaker needs to bang out something like 200,000 of them in the first year just to break even. When you're dealing with numbers on that scale, it's extremely risky to go "out there" with avante-gaurde ideas. The cooler you try to make something, the greater the risk too few people will agree with you.

So what everyone is looking for is a way to make it cheaper to create and build cars. GM seems to be the furthest out there, with innovative "fluid form" technologies that actually mold metal without requiring the heat of casting or the expense of forging. By doing away with the expensive stamping machines and the tooling required to make them work, GM thinks it can make money on as few as 20,000 units per year. If they can, and with entries like the Solstice coming in for less than $25,000 US I think they will, we'll see an explosion of comparatively inexpensive, distinctive models, one for every niche you can imagine.

If not, well, it's not like there's anything wrong with a Camry. As long as, you know, you have an old Alfa Romeo in the garage.