DETROIT - Even though you won't like them, General Motors' reasons for buying Chrysler from Cerberus are starting to make sense. Reports say the chances for such a deal remain 50-50, despite that GM hasn't re-studied the synergies between its lineup and Chrysler's, the way it did a couple of years ago when it looked into buying Detroit's Number 3 from Daimler.

Reports also say GM will do half of what we feared of Cerberus; strip it, but not flip it.

Buying Chrysler would 1.) give GM access to its reported $11 billion in cash, critical to limping GM along through calendar 2009 and toward its Chevy Cruze and Volt launches, and 2.) leave GM with Jeep, which it could then combine with the Hummer division. GM probably would toss Dodge and Chrysler, which have too much overlap with Chevy, Pontiac, Saturn and Buick.

Let's take number two, first. Thursday I wrote about how, and considered why, GM named Cadillac general manager Jim Taylor as Hummer's CEO. GM has been trying to sell Hummer since the summer, but the global financial and credit crisis appears to have scared off any potential buyers. When GM Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner announced plans to reconfigure Hummer, one option (in addition to the preferred option of selling it) was to re-imagine the division. Jeep would give Hummer smaller, more fuel-efficient models to round out the lineup (although it could easily loose the Compass) and fill those Quonset hut dealers. And if there's something real underneath the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited extended-range electric, all the better.

In fact, besides giving it access to the company's cash reserves, buying Chrysler presumably would allow GM access to a larger chunk of the federal government's $25 billion in industry loan guarantees for development of clean emissions technology.

Now to the first point. As Editor-In-Chief MacKenzie wrote in a recent post, Chapter 11 is not an option for GM. When GM public relations denies the company is considering bankruptcy, that department is not lying. It may have sipped the Kool-Aid -- it doesn't matter. GM must believe it, and GM PR must back up Wagoner, who has enjoyed the support of GM's board of directors, but not of many others outside the board. GM President Fritz Henderson is reportedly the exec behind the Chrysler purchase. If this doesn't work and GM is forced to file bankruptcy, you'll see, at best, a boardroom and executive office upheaval much like the Bob Stemple/Lloyd Reuss ouster in 1993.

Wagoner will do whatever it takes to prevent that. In February, we placed him first on our Power List of the industry's most influential people. We stand by that choice -- he ushered in a lot of good new product in the last couple of years, but hasn't been able to turn that into profit (an awful automobile market is equally responsible). Unless something unexpectedly good happens to GM between now and December 31, Wagoner won't be anywhere near the top 10 on our 2009 list. If GM files for bankruptcy, he's not likely to be on the list ever again.

So what will happen? Thanks to the realities of the global financial crisis and expectations that U.S. car sales will be even worse in 2009 than in '08, we'll probably have just two major U.S. automakers within a couple of years. Many of us didn't give all three much of a chance to survive even before credit dried up and the stock market crashed.

Nissan/Renault could still buy Chrysler, potentially saving the big, rear-drive cars, the trucks and the minivans. Nissan/Renault and GM could split Chrysler, but they'd fight over who gets Jeep. The Wall Street Journal says a GM-Chrysler deal could be done by the end of October. And so, like the original, the new Dodge Challenger looks like a one-generation wonder. **** the warranty and get your order in ASAP.