Some time ago, Ford began collecting foreign luxury brands like they were Hummel figurines.  Aston Martin, Jaguar, Volvo, Land Rover, Ford owned them all.  The endgame was to beef up Ford’s numbers by making luxury vehicles a third of their total sales.  Needless to say, much like all of Detroit’s cunning plans as of late, this didn’t play out so well for them – Ford sold off Aston Martin last year, and Jaguar and Land Rover earlier in 2008.  Now they’re trying to sell Volvo.  But no one’s buying.

Even if Ford does manage to sell its Volvo unit, the company is almost guaranteed to lose money on the deal, because that is what Ford does best.  Current potential investors include the Swedish government and…the Swedish government, who is also reportedly looking into a deal to buy back Saab from GM.  For its part, Sweden says EU regulations prohibit it from owning either company, though a fierce sense of national pride among Swedes in being able to build a competent automobile has 70% of the fair-haired people of that nation favoring a temporary government takeover anyway.

If GM can convince the inhabitants of the moon Titan to buy back Saturn, they just might make it out of this in one piece.