I guess the problem is, that Makedefs defines:
	CXX             =       libtool gcc -pipe
Makedefs.in does say:
	CXX             =       @LIBTOOL@ @CXX@
But config.log has in the Output Variables section:
	CXX='gcc -pipe'
So I guess the problem stems from configure line 7841:
         CXX="$CC"

But I don't see any indication how configure.in could affect this odd  
explicit assignment. Which implies that the configure script has been  
generated with a broken (more than usual) autoconf?