Why is this man laughing? CEO Ed Whitacre could be ready to move on an IPO in a matter of weeks.

General Motors is expected to announce its eagerly-anticipated IPO in mid-August, industry sources are reporting, this morning.

The timing could permit the company to actually stage its return to Wall Street sometime before the hotly-contested November elections which, sources suggest, indicate GM’s growing confidence it will be able to pay back most, if not all of the $50 billion the U.S. Treasury invested as part of a 2009 bailout that climaxed with the automaker’s lightning-fast run through bankruptcy court.

GM Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre Jr. has made no secret of his desire to stage an Initial Public Offering as soon as possible.  For one thing, that would end the government’s oversight of the largest domestic automaker.  But it would also help overcome criticism by many potential buyers who are loathe to do business with a company surviving on the public dole.

Inside sources have noted that the White House wanted to take GM public again before the upcoming elections.  But, until recently, Whitacre had tried to limit expectations of when an IPO would be launched, warning that he would not move on the matter until he felt GM could maximize its share price.

There are signs that it may be a good time for GM to strike.  It reported solid earnings of its own for the first quarter and hinted that its second-quarter numbers will look good, as well.  Indeed, sources say the timing of the IPO announcement, likely to occur during the week of August 16, would come on the wake of a positive second-quarter announcement.

There’s a general sense of positive momentum for the U.S. auto industry as a whole.  Ford Motor Co. today reported a $2.6 billion profit for the second quarter, or 68 cents a share – well above the 41 cents projected by a consensus of industry analysts. (Click Here for that story.)

Detroit’s sales numbers are generally tracking in the right direction and a variety of new reports suggest the Big Three are building “mojo” much more quickly than expected.  Among the recent developments: The Big Three collectively reported fewer “problems” than their import rivals in the closely-watched J.D. Power and Associates Initial Quality Survey, while Detroit products outscored the imports in a number of new “Things-Gone-Right” studies, such as Power’s 2010 APEAL Study and AutoPacific, Inc.’s Ideal Vehicle Awards. ( Click here for Domestics Outperform Imports in Vehicle “APEAL”)

Meanwhile, the ongoing safety scandals swirling around Toyota have severely weakened GM’s arch-rival, the company that in 2008 displaced General Motors as the world’s largest automaker for the first time in three-quarters of a century.

That’s not to say it is all smooth sailing.  GM had to drop four of its eight North American brands when it emerged from Chapter 11, last July.  It is working hard to convince owners of Saab, Saturn, Pontiac and Hummer products to switch to GM’s surviving brands when they next trade in, and has so far been reasonably successful, though it admits it will lose some market share in the process.

GM has also struggled to reverse the questionable decision made, mid-decade, to sell off a controlling stake in its once-powerful GMAC captive finance subsidiary – now known as Ally.  While that sale actually helped offload some of GMAC’s huge losses from the home loan crisis, it also resulted in the severely limited availability of credit, at key moments in 2009, when partner Cerberus Capital Management reigned in lending.

In a move that suggests GM is looking for a wholly-owned alternative, the Detroit maker on Thursday acquired auto finance company AmeriCredit Corp. for $3.5 billion. (See Ken Zino’s excellent analysis, click here  for – GM Back in Auto Financing with AmeriCredit Buy)

The company that investors will soon be asked to consider is a very different one from the automaker that went bust in 2009, shortly after GM celebrated its 100^th anniversary.  Not only does it have fewer brands and significantly lower debt, but it is a fraction of the size of an automaker that, at its peak controlled more than half the U.S. automotive market.  GM spent years battling an ultimately unsuccessful effort by the U.S. Justice Dept. to break it into two companies.

The automaker now employs less than 100,000 people, barely a tenth of its peak.  It is hoping to stabilize market share in the U.S. at just under 20% — and says that would allow it to at least break even in a depressed American car market of 10.5 million vehicles.  But the maker is also shifting away from a traditional dependence on the North American market.  Significantly, GM clocked more sales in China during the first half of 2010 than in the U.S., and foreign demand now accounts for about two-thirds of its total unit volume.

Currently, the U.S. Treasury holds 61% of GM, and it is expected to sell off somewhere between 20% and 24%.  GM Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell told TheDetroitBureau.com, earlier this year, that trying to move all the government’s share at one time would likely result in a much lower price at an IPO.

During the likely November offering, GM’s other stakeholders are also expected to try selling off somewhere between a fifth and a quarter of their holdings.  The governments of Ontario and Canada, who also helped fund the GM bailout, currently own a collective 11.7% of GM.  And the United Auto Workers Union’s employee health care trust, or VEBA, holds 17.5%.

If the industry sources prove accurate, GM’s upcoming IPO would be one of the biggest ever and the largest to run through the stock market since Visa Inc. went public, raising $19.7 billion in the process, in March 2008.