Rumors are a great thing. They spark up excitement but add a touch of darkness determined to remind you that it just may not be true. But if the rumor grows legs and many start walking up to you reporting the same details, mmmm, maybe that rumor is really a hard-to-keep secret. Bogdan Nedelcou, Motorola’s Chief of Car Products, may have let a secret slip last week in France when he told what might be the biggest rumor for the iPod since last year’s color screen saturated the Web.

In the Babelfish translated story, he says that Motorola is working on devices that will connect your phone to speakers in the car. What that’s about, I’m not sure, since this technology already lives and breathes in many BMWs, Mercedes, and other high-end vehicles. Further, there is a good selection of after-market offerings to aid you in the same quest. But what he let slip was what was really interesting:

Indeed, it is a scoop : APPLE intends to launch an iPod Bluetooth, according to Bogdan Nedelcou, chief of product car at Motorola! [Full Translated Text / Original Text]

Remember, I’ve been saying for quite some time now that Apple would have a Bluetooth iPod. Between its job ad for such an engineer last spring and other indicators coming out of Cupertino, it has been obvious to me that Apple would be releasing one, eventually.

Now the real question is not if the BT iPod will be made, but when will it be released. I suspect it won’t be until Macworld Boston at the earliest. Maybe not even until the end of the year. I think with all the other rumors of a color mini with more disk space, the iPod Bluetooth would get overshadowed by it. While Bluetooth is an exciting and powerful technology, it’s still more of a geek thing than a mass consumer thing. Most people in the States still don’t know what Bluetooth is.

I figure Apple will sport the new unit by this year and most likely with the new Toshiba 80GB drive in it. Of course it’ll have the color screen and thus make it the top of the line iPod. Might have to call it the iPod platinum since the price will probably give iMacs competition for a dollar amount. But if I can listen to my music on my Bluetooth headset and then drop it into my car and do the same on my stereo free of connections to it, ya, I’ll pay top dollar for it. I’m sure I won’t be the only one, either.