Our heads are still reeling from one of the most tumultuous financial weeks on record, and the auto industry was far from immune. But despite our best efforts to drown our concerns in Racer5 IPA, the hits keep coming, and this time it's courtesy of the New York Times.

The Gray Lady is reporting that General Motors and Chrysler have been in talks about a possible merger for the past month, that "negotiations are not certain to produce a deal," "would most likely still take weeks to work out" and that two unnamed sources say that the chances of the merger going through are "50-50." Obfuscate much?

General Motors and Hollywood's little gold statue have been friends for 11 years, but with a reduction in its marketing and ad budget, the U.S. automaker has walked away from high profile events such as the Super Bowl, Emmys, and Oscars. Thankfully for ABC, the multimillion-dollar breach in the 2009 Oscars telecast created by GM's departure has been immediately filled by Hyundai.

General Motors has nixed an optional hot-spray windshield washer system called HotShot from all of its cars and trucks after an electrical short in the systems caused the recall of 944,000 vehicles. GM told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that a short on the circuit board of the fluid heater could overheat the control-circuit ground wire. The problem has resulted in 34 warranty claims so far and three reports of fires may have been caused by the system. To fix the problem, dealers will add a wiring harness with an inline fuse, and all GM retail outlets should have the required parts to fix the problem free of charge by November 1.

With GM facing well-publicized challenges -- along with just about everyone else who needs a little thing called money -- certain high-profile and expensive programs are crowding up on the back burner. Even America's sports car, the Corvette, is not exempt, with CAFE regulations clouding the view inside the 'Vette Nation's crystal ball.

Motor Trend, commenting on the C7 Corvette's delayed arrival, has said that the new coupe won't appear until the 2014 model year at the earliest. The mid-engined route has also been scrapped, since it would simply cost too much to re-engineer the entire car for the purpose of easier integration of fuel saving tech like cylinder deactivation.

One thing's for sure, General Motors is not very good at playing the real estate market. Last May the world's biggest automaker finally bought its world headquarters in downtown Detroit called the Renaissance Center for the sum of $626 million. It had initially bought into the complex of seven buildings back in 1996 for $75 million, but had continued leasing office space there until the purchase earlier this year. Here we are not five months later after the purchase and GM is reportedly considering selling the RenCen to raise $500 million fast.

I received an Indy 500 poster on my birthday in 1986 that featured a Yellow C4 Corvette pace car leading the pack. My dad hung the poster above my bed, and I can honestly say that I stared at it every night for years. The Corvette was my dream car for my entire childhood, but as an adult I turned my attention to European rides like the Porsche 911 and the Ferrari 360 Modena.

Leasing is down industry-wide by about 50% from 2007 levels, but General Motors' captive credit arm took an even bigger bite out of its vehicle leasing in September. GMAC leased only 2% of all GM products in September, and the decision to do so had everything to do with the recent events of the financial markets. While leasing was down GM-wide in September, GMAC and Chevrolet were hit the hardest. The General's two volume brands accrued only .6% and .7% of its sales through leasing, compared to 11.2% and 13.6% respectively last year. Leasing is virtually non-existent for vehicles with low residuals, and Cadillac, which typically leases over 40% of its vehicles, leased at an 8.4% clip last month.