Few would believe this would actually happen after the billion dollar financial institution bailouts of recent history, but Congress gave it the Ok. GM, Ford and Chrysler are on their way to a government bailout in the amount of $25 Billion Dollars. That’s a lot of Jeep Liberty’s.

But the bailout is actually supposed to go to the ever increasing pension and health insurance coverage costs for automotive workers and retires. The package includes “$25 billion in loans for the beleaguered Detroit automakers and several of their suppliers.” Detroit doesn’t want it to be called a bailout, but what else can you name free money from the government estimating around $5 billion dollars for each of the three companies up front, in addition to smaller amounts for their suppliers.

This $25 billion looks to be only the beginning, as automotive giants plan on applying for more aide in the same or even greater amounts. Whatever the future holds, present day Detroit needs help, ASAP. General Motors post losses so negative that they fear brands like Chevrolet may not be in existence over the next 1 – 2 years.

If we follow the philosophy of “no press is bad press” (including the leak of an image of a company’s future product), and that the Internet has done for the media what the wheel did for transportation, can we assume that the apparent image of the 2010 Ford Mustang in a promotional video isn’t actually a slip?

It was noticed by the people behind MustangEvolution.com (their post here) , and they called it an “oops”. But why? With the images and video now making the social media rounds, Ford is getting all sorts of free publicity – it seems to me more like a great buzz-generator than a marketing mishap.

Welcome to the new marketing! We can see this in multiple industries, not just the automotive world like I believe we are seeing here. Notice how the film Cloverfield (to be released in January) was sprung upon us. Movie bloggers were not even aware that J.J. Abrams was producing a film, then a shaky film clip found its way to the web and the rumors began circulating.

Kudos to Ford for apparently starting the communication on the 2010 Mustang, intentional or not. Now let’s wait for a better quality image so the excitement can really start!