Despite its pending sale to Chinese automaker Geely, Volvo is keeping its chin up. Want proof? Check out this promo video for the upcoming S60. Volvo has combined sleek lines and a 203-horsepower 2.0-liter turbo four to make one saucy Swedish sedan. I think it’s pretty lust-worthy, how about you?

As a bittersweet farewell to one of the most tumultuous years in automotive history, RideLust presents to you a re-cap of all the biggest industry events in 2009…and a few that slipped in under editorial bias.

Rick Wagoner, Bob Nardelli, and Alan Mulally spent weeks feigning humility and destitution in three piece Brooks Brothers suits in an attempt to wrangle a billion-dollar loan from an apparently benevolent Uncle Sam. Eventually, the government acquiesced and agreed to bail out both General Motors and Chrysler so as not to interrupt their steady production of poorly built, aesthetically unappealing vehicles.

Stunt double Ben Collins outed himself as Top Gear’s infamous masked driver, The Stig, potentially blowing the sweetest gig on planet Earth. Rather than kill him off, Top Gear attempted to counter the rumors by fingering (::snicker::) legendary racer Michael Schumacher as The Stig. Gearheads in America with an Internet connection that’s too slow to cope with downloading the weekly BBC broadcast still don’t give a rat’s ass.

There was some sort of F1 scandal involving Renault intentionally throwing the Singapore Gran Prix, but we were too immersed in our rally obsession to care. Just Google it or something.

As per their plan to cut costs and pretend to pay back taxpayers, GM made the logical decision to axe one of the only remaining brands that consumers still cared about, Pontiac. Shortly after the announcement, rumors began to circulate that the late John DeLorean’s company was interested in purchasing the rights to produce the Pontiac Solstice. The idea, much like the DMC-12, was short lived.

Drawing heavily from the blatantly phallic styling of the Ambiguously Gay Duo’s car, Porsche released it’s first 4-door sedan, the Panamera.

If you’re like most consumers in the market for a used car, your needs are probably best served by eBay, AutoTrader, or your local Craigslist. If you are like 99% of automotive enthusiasts, however, your pursuit for that perfect diamond in the rough exists in perpetuity. You can easily squander 5+ hours at work tirelessly refreshing your browser in the vain hope that the pristine Volvo 850R you’ve spent the better part of your adult life pursuing will magically appear for thousands less than its Blue Book value. If such is the case, then the chances are good that you’ve also experienced significant frustration at the hands of Craigslist’s rather limiting search parameters. Although you probably could if you neglected your job, family, and personal hygiene for days on end, it’s realistically impossible to search every Craigslist in every state in every city in the continental U.S. (though you’ve certainly tried). Fortunately, I’ve found a way: searchtempest.com. Not only will SearchTempest.com allow you to expand your search radius to include any location within your current zip code, it also throws in all the relevant eBay listings as a bonus.

Appropriately enough given the grim nature of Black Friday, I’m kicking today’s headlines off with a new, genuinely depressing development in the ongoing Ford/Volvo/Geely saga. Although I had hoped the next report would involve some type of surprise bidding upset by the obscure Crown consortium, the unfortunate reality is that Geely is still very much the preferred contender. Although concerns regarding the transference of intellectual property rights and threatened to stall the transaction indefinitely, it seems as though Ford and Geely have reached an acceptable compromise.

As per the report, should Geely purchase the ailing Swedish subsidiary they will retain the rights to all technology developed solely by Volvo which, thanks to the years of neglect suffered at the hands of Ford, will largely consist of City Stop and an awkward navigation system. Volvo itself will be granted continued access to any Ford technology vital to the brand’s future success (and I use that term loosely).

Technically, it’s Ford that’s being formally recognized for their outstanding achievements in the field of safety but it’s Volvo that should be directly credited for nearly every technological advancement Ford has made since 1999. Of course, even as Ford scrambles to ensure the intellectual property they jacked from Volvo doesn’t fall into the scheming hands of Geely, you’ll never catch them acknowledging as much. So, it is with near tella novella-like levels of drama that Ford accepted today Popular Science’s 2009 “Best of What’s New” award for their Active Park Assist feature.

As the name suggests, APA acts as a digital version of your husband standing on the curb and guiding you into parallel park, minus the argument that would inevitably ensue afterward over his inability to clearly articulate his thoughts. Working in conjunction with passive aids like audible and visual cues that alert the driver to the vehicle’s location and its proximity to other vehicles, curbs, small children, etc, the automated steering system works to independently park itself. The driver is still responsible for maintaining control over the transmission, gas pedal, etc, which would seem painfully obvious to most but was nonetheless reiterated twice in the official press release.

For people like myself whose most cutting-edge piece of in-car technology is a mint condition tapedeck, it’s difficult to pretend like you don’t regard someone who can’t parallel park their own car as being only slightly more cognitively aware than a horned toad. For the rest of you who feel otherwise and are likely drafting up your own scathing review of my intelligence as we speak – relax, take the caps lock off, and hit the jump to check out a soothing video of Active Park Assist in action.

Geely chairmn Li Shufu attends a business event in Shanghai October 30, 2009.

Despite the significant setbacks currently (fortunately) plaguing Geely’s bid to acquire Volvo, the optimistic Chinese automaker is continuing to roll out its proposed business plan for what it hopes will be its future subsidiary.

Apparently attempting to distract from its larger objective of raping Volvo of all relevant technology and eventually destroying it entirely, Geely announced today their intention to boost Volvo’s sales output to 1 million units a year. To achieve this lofty goal, Geely intends to draw heavily from the untapped Asian market and erect a factory in China purportedly capable of producing 300,000 Volvos. Of those 300,000 vehicles, Geely expects 200,000 to be sold exclusively in China, which would be a significant jump from the 12,600 sold last year. To further solidify Volvo’s market presence, Geely also has tentative plans to introduce 2-3 larger, more luxurious models to the line-up that, based on Geely’s demonstrated inability to create an original, quality product, one can safely assume will be a carbon copy of the Mercedes-Benz S class.

Admittedly, my esteemed colleagues over at Carchat beat me to the big reveal, but only because I was busy wrestling with Google Translate and an official press release written in Dutch.

So, according to the official presser – only 80% of which converted successfully, making for a very comical read – the 2011 Volvo S60 depicted above is the first of many brief appearances expected to be made in the months leading up to its inaugural debut at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show. Production will begin shortly thereafter in mid-2010 and will continue until roughly 2015 when Volvo will begin its slow descent into obscurity and extinction thanks to the questionable business practices of their future overlords at Geely. I will remember it fondly.

In a parallel universe, I waltz into an Audi dealership, plunk down a briefcase of probably ill-gotten gains, and waltz out with the keys to a new R8 V10. In reality, I need a new car and can reasonably afford to spend around $5k. With that kind of money I can either a.) put a down payment on something new and saddle myself with debt or b.) scour Craigslist for oldie but goodies. Since I’m cheap, I chose the latter – which brings me to the first installment of Reasonable RideLust. As all 4 of you regular readers may know, I’ve got a slightly obsessive affection for turbobricks and now that my current 850 is ready to be retired to the garage as a weekend project I’ve been looking for a replacement.

Posted for sale somewhere just north of the City of Pseudo-Brotherly Love, this 1993 Volvo 240 is an incredibly rare find given its impeccable condition and relatively low miles. Unfortunately it’s RWD (marking the first and last time “unfortunately” and “RWD” will be used in the same sentence), which means it would be poorly suited for the rigor of daily driving during winter in the Northeast but perfect as a weekend cruiser. The seller is asking $4,800, which is $2,675 more than the KBB value of the car even in excellent condition, but I’m confident my Jersey-bred powers of persuasion could facilitate a successful negotiation.

Geely’s very public pursuit of Volvo has managed to make headlines on a fairly regular monthly basis for the better part of the year, and just as we were beginning to fear the deal would be clinched, it seems negotiations have reached an impasse. According to sources close to the discussions, Geely’s interest in acquiring Volvo’s intellectual property rights as a part of the brand’s purchase have caused Ford to balk.

Ford, which is already battling the ramifications of internal corporate espionage in their China branch, is apparently reluctant to hand over Volvo’s schematics and, ipso facto, their competitive edge. Compounding Ford’s justifiably skittish response is Geely’s spectacular track record for questionable corporate ethics as well as their dazzling display of copyright infringement.

Maintaining a stiff upper lip, neither Ford nor Volvo volunteered to officially comment on the matter which, given the unerring accuracy of the Geely/Ford/Volvo grapevine, is rapidly becoming their unofficial method of confirmation.

Thanks to our dutiful following of VolvoXC60 on Twitter, we learned today that Rolling Strength’s revolutionary new crossover has made the list of finalists for Motor Trend’s 2010 SUV of the Year award. Of course to be fair, the XC60 was neither engineered or marketed as an SUV, but the majority of Motor Trend’s other finalists weren’t either. Given the current market and auto maker’s eagerness to distance themselves from the often negative stigma attached to SUVs, however, MT would be hard pressed to assemble a similarly lengthy list if limiting the criteria to only those vehicles explicitly billed as SUVs. Thus, the one aspect all the candidates have in common is ride height, multi-function capability, and an all wheel drive train.