KEY POINTS:
A little bird told this column in October that the planned launch in New Zealand and Australia of the Cadillac CTS sedan wouldn't go ahead. We sent an email to GM Holden's public relations people in Melbourne, asking for comment. They passed it on to Caddy's PR division, who said our informant was away with the fairies. We persisted. So did Caddy, replying that the launch was down for February in Tasmania and that the New Zealand Herald's invitation would soon be in the mail. The invitation duly arrived, a week or so before Christmas. Okay, we reasoned, Caddy must indeed be going ahead. Our informant, however, continued to say it wouldn't happen. Last week, GM Holden axed the Downunder Caddy project. Told you so, said our informant. Now we're waiting to hear what GM Holden is going to do with 80-odd right-hand-drive Caddy sedans parked in its backyard across the ditch. Each one has been built to meet Australian Design Rules, which means that in a perfect world they can't be sold in any other right-hand-drive market outside of Australia and New Zealand.
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Bridgestone won't say, but the word from the ad world is that the tyre firm has a couple of swanky corporate tickets to the Melbourne Grand Prix up for grabs. Buy Bridgestone tyres from Firestone shops in Auckland over the next couple of weeks and you go into a draw to win tickets for two to next month's GP. The deal includes flights, accommodation and champagne seats near the pits, apparently.
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Henry Ford's great great granddaughter Elena Ford will tomorrow become the chief of a new global marketing division to unify Ford sales. Ford, 42, has been a senior executive with Ford's credit division. She will report to Jim Farley, the global vice-president of marketing and communications. The new office, says Farley, "is the next step in our One Ford vision to integrate Ford's worldwide operations and leverage our scale and expertise".
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First Honda killed the replacement NSX sports car, now its S2000 roadster is getting the chop. The Japanese carmaker has confirmed that it will stop making the two-seater in June, after a decade of production. It says it would cost too much to make future generations meet environmental regulations in the United States, Europe and Japan. The S2000 was conceived to mark Honda's 50th anniversary. The model has sold more than 110,000 units worldwide since its debut in 1999. Honda axed the next-generation NSX last month, saying it would focus on developing more practical vehicles.
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Honda and Suzuki were the only Japanese carmakers to boost sales in Japan last year. Overall, domestic sales fell 4.8 per cent from 2007. Light-vehicle sales fell to 4,920,212 last year, dragged down by a 13.8 per cent tumble in the October-December quarter. Excluding the popular minicar segment - vehicles with 660cc engines - sales fell to their lowest level since 1974. Honda's sales inched ahead by 0.4 per cent to 624,547 vehicles. Suzuki sales advanced a meagre 0.1 per cent to 669,938. Toyota's light-vehicle sales fell 4.8 per cent to 2,152,410 units.
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Heard at the launch of the Audi Q5 on Wednesday: A man and tall brown bear wearing a hat go into a bar. Man: I'll have a pint of beer, and the bear'll have a large Matabooboo. Barman: What's a Matabooboo? Bear: Nuttin', Yogi.
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More wacky accident reports from the US insurance industry: (1) I was backing my car out of the driveway in the usual manner, when it was struck by the other car in the same place it had been struck several times before. (2) I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law and headed over the embankment. (3) I pulled in to the side of the road because there was smoke coming from under the bonnet. I realised there was a fire in the engine, so I took my dog and smothered it with a blanket.
alastair.sloane@nzherald.co.nz
