KEY POINTS:
Britain's Vauxhall Insignia (above) is the European Car of the Year for 2008, finishing ahead of 36 others. The four-door sedan beat the Ford Fiesta hatchback by one point - 20-19 - in the closest finish in decades. The Insignia is the first Vauxhall to scoop the award since the Carlton/Omega in 1987.
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Fancy yourself as a car designer? Log on to www.splitwheel.com and strut your stuff. British sports car company Caterham wants its next car to be penned by ... you. Design cues will be put to the vote at Caterham HQ and company chiefs promise those that are accepted will make it into the production model, expected to go on sale in 2011.
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In 1975, New York City was so strapped for cash it could barely pay its bills. Republican President Gerald Ford had warned Mayor Abraham Beame, a Democrat, not to come looking for a federal bailout. The rebuff prompted the NY Daily News headline: "Ford to City: drop dead." This week, Republican Senator Richard Shelby, an influential member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, said he would not support a bailout of Detroit carmakers Ford, General Motors and Chrysler. Back came the headline: "GOP to Detroit: drop dead." The Republican Party is known as the Grand Old Party. Oh, yeah, President Ford ended up floating New York City US$2.3 billion ($4.25 billion) in federal loans to help it avoid municipal bankruptcy.
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US analysts say Ford may be in a better position to weather the economic storm than GM and Chrysler. The company says it has the cash to survive 2009 and reach the hoped-for economic turnaround. Two years ago, then-new Ford president and CEO Alan Mulally lined up US$24 billion worth of financing, mortgaging the company's name to build a war chest bigger than anyone thought would be needed. "That move now looks prescient," says Tom Libby, of automotive research specialist J.D. Power and Associates. "In hindsight, that was a very smart move by Mulally."
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General Motors has sold its 3 per cent stake in Suzuki. The Japanese carmaker is buying back the shares for US$230 million. GM owned 20 per cent of Suzuki in 2006, but sold 17 per cent back to the company for $2 billion during a previous cash flow crisis. At that time, Suzuki CEO Osamu Suzuki said, "We've been under the support of GM for a long time and this time it's our turn to help GM." Wonder what he's saying now.
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The Porsche Design company doesn't do cars, although it is part of the family. Porsche Design does high-end consumer goods: wallets, watches, pens. It also does kitchens - and one of its examples is on show at the Poggenpohl centre on The Strand, Parnell.
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Overheard at the Top Gear Live launch party at Auckland's SkyCity: First person: "Doesn't seem to be a lot of motoring industry people here." Second person: "They're not making any money, that's why."
alastair.sloane@nzherald.co.nz
