This week, the Big Three auto makers will submit recovery plans to Congress that emphasize cost-cutting, downsizing and renewed emphasis on higher-mileage cars in a bid to win support for a federal bailout. That sounds all well and good, but not good enough in our minds...read more.

In addition, our blog pointed out:

“The car is being advertised as “original”. An original what…an original replica of a Mercedes? Also, the seller states in his description of the car, “This car can handle and stop on a dime due to the mark 9 chassis and over sized disc brakes jaguar uses. The car can go 0-60 in 6.8 sec, that’s flying for this car. The car is impeccable condition, it runs and sounds Good , but if you would like to put it on the street again, the brakes need to be bleed, and the gas tank will need to be drained, from sitting.” Could a proper test drive of the car been done for the seller to make such claims?

This car was sold to the present owner with 600 miles on the odometer and 2 inches of dust covering it from being stashed away for 27 years, but it’s being advertised as being in impeccable condition. “It’s still like the day it was built, this car can be serviced buy any jaguar mechanic. All the dents on the passenger side are still from were the truck hit the car in the movie.”

We are big fans of all the Indian Jones movies and hope that this car ends up in a museum for all to admire.”

For those of you interested in obtaining the Lost Ark auto, place your bid online at eBay Live Auctions on December 11, 2008, 11:00 PST. You might find the Profiles in History listing for this car more straight forward than the one in our prior report, and all the fluids in the car have been changed and the brakes have been bled. This fine piece of movie memorabilia from the Raiders of the Lost Ark is also being offered at a realistic price - the starting bid is $60,000.

Profiles in History will have about 500 very cool items in their Hollywood Memorabilia 33 auction, but we'll be keeping an eye on what Lot 366 sells for and maybe this time, the Indiana Jones Nazi Staff Car will find a permanent home in a museum or personal collection.

Photo courtesy of Profiles in History

We want to pardon a turkey too, and as your guides to classic cars, our direction could only be driven down one course – a classic car turkey.

The first problem was choosing which classic car turkey to pardon with so many produced over the years, the Ford Pinto, the AMC Pacer and the Yugo to name a few. But to make it onto our list to be pardoned, the candidate had to have some sort of redeeming qualities that would validate a reprieve. That made the pickings slim.

After much deliberation, the classic car turkey to receive a reprieve (drum roll please)… is the Edsel. Yes, the Edsel, a car synonymous with failure. But sometimes a monumental failure can be more instructive than success. Edsel was not only a big lesson to Ford, but to all car makers of that era as well as today. And that’s the reason why we, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, official pardon Edsel.

We’ve outlined some of many failures and lessoned learned in Edsel’s short production period in this week’s classic car history highlight, The Edsel – A Legacy of Failure.

Black Friday is the American discount shopping day that follows Thanksgiving, which is always on a Thursday. The word "black" in Black Friday refers to the term "in the black" meaning making a profit – although analyst predict that this year “black” may refer to “in a deep black hole” due to the lack of consumer spending.

While some people head out on Black Friday to just window shop, others insist they will not shop on Black Friday at all, citing overcrowded parking lots and wall-to-wall shoppers. For car enthusiasts, we have a few suggestions for those who want to avoid the crowds and get a great bargain.

We have been reporting through out the year that car auctioneers haven’t been affected by the global financial melt down as badly as new and used car dealers. In fact, they have seen top-of-the-line collector cars keep or increase their value, and mid-range drivers have had their 2005 over-inflated price corrected.

Now is a good time to buy a collector car! So forget those shopping malls after Thanksgiving and get out to a car auction near you. Here are three that we suggest:

The International Classic Auction is expecting over 90 cars at their 31st Annual Autorama Classic/Muscle Collector Car Auction Friday and Saturday, November 28 – 29 at the George R. Brown Center in Houston, Texas.

Kruse International will present the Daytona Beach Thanksgiving Classic Car Auction on Saturday November 29th at 10:00am at the Daytona Beach International Raceway. 250 street rods, muscle cars and cruising classics are expected to come up on the block.

Mecum High Performance Auctions will be at the Kemper Arena - American Royal Center, in Kansas City, Missouri, and they are expecting to have over 500 cars up for auction starting December 5th though the 7th.

Happy Shopping!