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Before Cash for Clunkers kicked in, there was plenty of prophetic moaning about how it sounded good but wasn’t really going to be that great for the economy. Now that it’s officially over and has yielded 700,000 sales, the grousing has begun about how it didn’t actually save the economy but instead redistributed wealth and burdened stupid consumers with onerous debt.

Here’s Zac Bissonnette at Daily Finance:

Volvo, the famous Swedish carmaker with a reputation for boxy designs, capacious wagons, and unimpeachable safety, has been part of Ford's (F) Premium Automotive Group since the late 1990s. As with General Motors (MTLQQ) and Saab (bankrupt, and also for sale), Ford’s goal was to bring unique aspects of the Volvo brand into its international corporate family. And as with GM, it didn’t really work.

Is this for real or some kind of put-on? Not really sure, but the BBC is reporting that Bob Dylan—yes, Bob Dylan—is “talking” with some car companies about becoming their GPS satellite-navigation voice. Which would be … um, have to say kind of distracting. (Be sure to listen to the recording to judge for yourself if he’s goofin’ around.)

Last year, by outmaneuvering a bunch of hedge funds, Porsche scorched short-sellers and, as has been widely reported, briefly made Volkswagen, whose shares were at stake, the most valuable company in the world. At the time, little old Porsche was engineering a takeover of huge VW, and CEO Wendelin Wiedeking looked like a genius. But the deal fell apart earlier this year, and now VW will be taking over Porsche, sometime in 2011.

Frequent readers of Shifting Gears know that my current favorite car is the Pontiac G8, particularly the V8-engined GT and GXP trim levels. Sadly, General Motors (MTLQQ) is getting rid of the Pontiac brand, which means that the powerful, performance-oriented, rear-wheel-drive, BMW-killing G8s will be returning to their original homeland, Australia, where they exist as Holdens in GM's Aussie division.

This week’s New Yorker features, under the “Letter from California” rubric, a moderately well-informed yet snarky and borderline mean-spirited story on electric carmaker Tesla Motors and its CEO, Elon Musk.

Well, yeah. Although this is just in from Edmunds.com, a consumer site that also does plenty of auto-industry analysis. CEO Jeremy Anwyl is doing the talking:

“Now that there is plenty of money in the program and the most eager shoppers have already participated, the sense of urgency is gone, and the pace of intent decline is accelerating. ... Inventories are getting lean and prices are climbing, giving consumers reasons to sit back."

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been, shall we say, exposed to Ford’s (F) full-on post-Detroit Meltdown message. Actually, it was Ford’s pre-DM message, but it now somehow seems more incisive, given the bankruptcies of both General Motors (MTLQQ) and Chrysler. Confidence is running high at the Blue Oval. Everyone has accepted the vision. The Alan Mulally vision.

Volkswagen, which has engineered a dramatic reverse takeover of Porsche, released full details of how the merger will shake out. It’s complex—Porsche is selling various pieces of itself, and VW is moving money around. You can read all about it here. But the important thing is that, with the Porsche takeover thwarted, VW is now free to publicize its ambition to become the world’s largest carmaker. How big?

This report on Fiat’s plans to build a new sedan for the U.S. market at a Chrysler plant caught my eye a while back. Fiat is, of course, now running Chrysler, and what the Italian carmaker is trying to figure out is how to get a luxury sedan into North America, a market it left decades ago. Alfa Romeo is Fiat’s potential competitor for BMW and Audi customers, and the gist of the analysis from Bloomberg is that a weak dollar makes it impossible for Fiat to import an existing Alfa sedan to the U.S.

I’m spending a week in Boulder, Colo., with friends and family. Boulder is one of those towns that transportation and mobility pundits often point to as an example of all that can be right with the way we move ourselves around. The population is outdoorsy, favoring walking, running, and of course biking over driving. But what I’ve often found in bike-mad cities, especially in the West, is that where there are bikes, there are usually ... trucks. Pickup trucks and SUVs.