A few things you didn't know about Vice President Joe Biden and cars: His dad had GM and Chrysler dealerships (while he, as a U.S. citizen, owns parts of GM and Chrysler). He once borrowed a Chrysler 300D for his prom, and the Secret Service won't let him drive his 1967 Corvette.

He does not own a white Pontiac Trans Am, but we really do wish he did. He has, however, washed his 327 ci, 350-hp, Goodwood-green, '67 Sting Ray in his driveway. While wearing a bathing suit, and perhaps even shirtless. He also owned a Mercedes 190SL with 100,000 miles on the odo and "those Solex carburetors that never functioned."


Car and Driver's interview with the Veep reveals few real insights into the auto-industry bailout from an abnormally reticent Biden, but does pull a couple of speakable bits. GM, he says, is talking about "hiring back essentially the last of the laid-off workers by year's end." Also, that he stands by his contention that a collapse of GM and Chrysler would have taken out Ford as collateral damage via a catastrophic demand crisis among suppliers.

Also, he says that if he'd been elected president instead of G.H.W. Bush in 1988, the industry would have never been in trouble in the first place. Way to rip that shirt off, Mr. V.P.