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GM announces net 220 job increase as Trump visits Michigan

GM announced today that about 900 jobs would be added (or, importantly, retained) ahead of President Trump's arrival in Michigan, where he is expected to discuss his plan to roll back fuel economy standards. The timing of the announcement is almost certainly not coincidental, as appending it to a Trump visit gives it a higher profile and dovetails with the President's jobs agenda. It's less likely the decision itself was made for those reasons, but the free PR boost is a nice bonus. As for those 900 jobs themselves, they aren't all new jobs. The only net gain is approximately 220 jobs at the Romulus Powertrain Plant, which produces the 10-speed automatic transmission that's proliferating through the company's lineup. The 180 jobs at Flint Assembly and 500 jobs at Lansing Delta Township are retained jobs – that is to say, spots the company found for workers who would otherwise have been laid off. By the way, the Flint jobs will help with production of heavy-duty pickups, and the Lansing jobs are to produce the Chevrolet Traverse and Buick Enclave. Finding jobs for manufacturing workers in the auto sector, whether new or retained, is admirable. No matter how GM couches it, the company has created or retained a total of 7,000 jobs this year, and its total reinvestment in US production is around $1 billion. But these decisions are business ones, not political ones – timing the announcements to make them seem inspired by economic policy, or the political situation, is simply smart PR. Related Video: Image Credit: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images Celebrities Government/Legal Buick Cadillac Chevrolet GMC

News anchor swaps his Roadmaster for a custom Buick Enclave Woody

Dennis House, self-proclaimed car buff and Connecticut news anchor, thinks that with the impending launch of the Jeep Grand Wagoneer, woodies will make their grand return to the car scene in modern fashion. House wanted to get ahead of the potential trend and decided to create a one-of-one woody wrap for his Buick Enclave. On the rear quarter panel of the custom SUV, an aftermarket badge reads "Enclave Estate Wagon." It's a direct call back to one of the vehicles that has inspired House's love of wood-paneled family haulers, the Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon. House owns two Roadmasters, a black 1996 model and a 1995 woody. In making room for the Enclave, House has decided to sell the '96, which looks spotless and only has a bit more than 71,000 miles on the clock. According to GM Authority, who spotted House's Enclave, the look was achieved with a vinyl wrap. After exploring the idea of a first-gen Enclave woody or a Regal TourX woody, House decided the application worked best on a current Enclave. The mock-ups were done on the computer, and Scranton Cadillac Buick GMC completed the work. The wrap starts just beneath the headlights and wraps around the entire vehicle. Furthering the theme, House took a photo of the woody with a surfboard. For now, the woody look is not a factory option, but House hopes General Motors takes notice and considers offering the choice on future models. If not, just take your ride to Scranton Motors, and they could probably help you out.            View this post on Instagram                   What a cool new 2019 Buick Enclave for CT’s own Dennis House! We couldnÂ’t be happier to have you as a part of the Scranton Motors family!! #scranton_cadillacbuickgmc #scrantonmotors #dennishousetv #carbuyingshouldbeeasy #buick #buickenclave #2019buickenclave #woodpanelingforthewin A post shared by Scranton Cadillac/Buick/GMC (@scranton_cadillacbuickgmc) on Apr 19, 2019 at 10:18am PDT

Poor headlights cause 40 cars to miss IIHS Top Safety Pick rating

Over the past few months, we've noticed a number of cars and SUVs that have come incredibly close to earning one of the IIHS's highest accolades, the Top Safety Pick rating. They have great crash test scores and solid automatic emergency braking and forward collision warning systems. What trips them up is headlights. That got us wondering, how many vehicles are there that are coming up short because they don't have headlights that meet the organization's criteria for an "Acceptable" or "Good" rating. This is a revision made after 2017, a year in which headlights weren't factored in for this specific award. This is also why why some vehicles, such as the Ford F-150, might have had the award last year, but have lost it for this year. We reached out to someone at IIHS to find out. He responded with the following car models. Depending on how you count, a whopping 40 models crash well enough to receive the rating, but don't get it because their headlights are either "Poor" or "Marginal." We say depending on how you count because the IIHS actual counts truck body styles differently, and the Infiniti Q70 is a special case. Apparently the version of the Q70 that has good headlights doesn't have adequate forward collision prevention technology. And the one that has good forward collision tech doesn't have good enough headlights. We've provided the entire list of vehicles below in alphabetical order. Interestingly, it seems the Volkswagen Group is having the most difficulty providing good headlights with its otherwise safe cars. It had the most models on the list at 9 split between Audi and Volkswagen. GM is next in line with 7 models. It is worth noting again that though these vehicles have subpar headlights and don't quite earn Top Safety Pick awards, that doesn't mean they're unsafe. They all score well enough in crash testing and forward collision prevention that they would get the coveted award if the lights were better.