Despite nearly a yearlong battle with its trials and tribulations, the auto industry still managed some wacky moments in 2005.

Consider:

• The prestigious J.D. Power and Associates Vehicle Dependability Study that measures satisfaction after three years of ownership ranks three GM vehicles tops in their class, the Chevrolet Prizm the top compact car, the Chevy S-10 the top compact truck and the Buick Century the top premium midsize sedan. Power neglected to mention that none of these vehicles is produced anymore.

• Bill Ford, chairman of Ford Motor Co., tries to enlist Carlos Ghosn, who rescued Nissan, and Dieter Zetsche, who saved Chrysler Group, to join Ford, which also is in need of some help. Both say no thanks.

• When asked to take on a part-time job, Bill Ford agrees to become a member of the board of eBay in his free time when not saving Ford Motor Co.

• Retired Chairman Lee Iacocca returns as a TV pitchman for Chrysler, teamed in one with an actress who plays his granddaughter and in another with rapper Snoop Dogg who plays … well Snoop Dogg.

• Toyota wins praise from environmentalists and consumers for offering the largest number of fuel-saving gas/electric vehicles. It then has to recall 75,000 hybrid Prius sedans because they may stall – and admits it may end up recalling more vehicles in 2005 than it sells.

• A West Virginia judge rules that the transmission in a couple’s Dodge was faulty and awards them $6,950 in damages. However, the judge awards their lawyers $143,000 in legal fees.

• A Texas jury finds Ford at fault in an accident that killed two teens and injured two others when all were ejected from an Explorer that ran off the road. Though the driver allegedly had been drinking and all the teens were unbelted, the jury orders Ford to pay $28 million. But Ford asks for a mistrial after learning that one of the jurors was the girlfriend of the plaintiffs’ lawyer who had represented her in two lawsuits and that she helped solicit two of the people suing Ford to employ her lawyer boyfriend. Oh, and she was the aunt, through marriage, of one of the teens killed. The judge refused to grant a mistrial.

• General Motors sues Malcolm Bricklin, charging that he plans to import cars from Chery Automobile Co., in China but that Chery is too similar to GM’s Chevy. When the laughter dies down, the judge rules in favor of GM.

• Bricklin, who brought the Yugo to the United States, said he’ll become the first person to import Chinese-made vehicles into the United States starting in January 2007 and sell them for less than $10,000. On further review, Bricklin decides to import $19,000 cars, saying there’s no profit at $10,000. And make that the summer of 2007.

• And on a sad note, John Z. DeLorean died. The former GM executive who authored “On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors,” a scathing look into the foolishness at GM, failed in an attempt to make a go of selling his namesake gull-wing sports car in the United States. The cars were built in Northern Ireland, where to avoid conflict among Catholic and Protestant workers, each entered the plant through separate doors – before working on the same line.