The Department of Transportation is temporarily suspending its cash for clunkers program from midnight Thursday because Obama administration officials believe the $1 billion allocated to the scheme has been exhausted after just one week, according to several congressional sources.
DOT officials were contacting lawmakers offices Thursday evening to inform them that the program would be at least temporarily halted, the sources said.
The plan went live on July 24, and it was anticipated it could take several months for the $1 billion designated by Congress for the program to be exhausted.
Instead, …

Italian auto designers have a daring sense of flair that is unmatched by their counterparts in other countries. Take, for example, two futuristic cars Concorso Italiano will feature at this year’s gathering of all things Italian: The BAT 11 by Bertone and Streamline X “Gilda” from Ghia.
Even their names sound like they’re doing a hundred miles an hour.

The BAT 11 is, as the name implies, reprises the Bertone aerodynamic concepts that Nuccio Bertone and Alfa Romeo built between 1953 and 1955. BAT is an acronym for Berlinetta Aerodinamica Tecnica …

China surpassed the United States as the world’s biggest auto market for the first half of 2009 after June sales soared 36.5 percent from a year earlier, according to data reported Thursday.
China’s vehicle sales in June rose to 1.14 million, the second-highest month to date after April’s 1.15 million units, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said. Passenger car sales hit a monthly record of 872,900 units.
Total sales for the first half of the year rose to 6.1 million, up 17.7 percent from a year earlier, the industry group …

These are the companies with the right mix of the right stuff — business acumen, a great plug-in product and a marketing plan. Don’t be surprised if at least one of these companies becomes as big as (or bigger than) General Motors. (Read more at: mnn / Mother Nature Network)
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{Photography by Ed Callow/TorqueSkeak}

A new study from Cars.com sheds light on the absurdity of thinking cars have a “nationality.”
When you consider that even a post-bailout GM will expand its use of foreign labor, it shouldn’t be that hard to understand how an “American” car isn’t really so, just because its maker was founded in Detroit.
And more generally, there seems to be little reason to think that American cars are really more American in any metrics that matter: Namely, labor and parts inputs. (Read more at: The Business Insider)
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{Photography by Crazy Tales}

Chrysler Group LLC, the U.S. automaker run by Fiat SpA, will sell four models of the Italian carmaker’s 500 subcompact in the U.S., Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne said.
Chrysler, which emerged from bankruptcy on June 10, will eventually sell a convertible, wagon and sporty version called the “Abarth” in addition to the four-seat subcompact in the U.S., Marchionne said in an interview on June 30. While the base 500 will go on sale next year, he didn’t say when the other models will be available.
“All of those cars will …

General Motors is using its huge pension fund in a way it never intended.

It had planned — and put money aside — for a steady march of retirees over time. But instead, tens of thousands of blue-collar workers, most in their 40s and 50s, are all becoming eligible for retirement benefits now, as the company rapidly downsizes.
And even as its pension fund faces this giant bulge in payouts, G.M. is not putting any new money in — the company is not required to make any contributions to the fund …

Vauban hopes to forge a model community without that great staple of modern life – the car. Now the sound of birdsong has replaced the roar of traffic and children can play in the street

The Germans may have given the world the Audi and the autobahn, but they have banished everything with four wheels and an engine from the streets of Vauban – a model brave new world of a community in the country’s south-west, next to the borders with Switzerland and France.
In Vauban, a suburb of the university …

Akio Toyoda, the new President of Toyota and grandson of company founder Kiichiro Toyoda, is predicting another two years of tough times for the auto industry. In order to stay afloat, the Japanese automaker, under the direction of Toyoda, will build more autonomous operations in North America and concentrate on a more region-specific lineup to help the company pull through the recession. (Read more at: autoblog)
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{Photography by Mike Babcock}

Ford and Volvo haven’t made any official announcements, but the Chinese media and Britain’s Autocar are reporting that automaker Geely has agreed to purchase Volvo Car Corporation.
The deal has been in the works for some time, as Ford auctions off its formerly vast empire. In the past two years, Ford has sold off Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover and a chunk of its stake in Mazda.
The report says Geely will invest about $10 billion in Volvo and will produce a new vehicle with a Volvo badge in China. (Read …

This time, there were no acrobats and fireworks. This time, no ice cream on the front lawn of Chrysler headquarters in Auburn Hills, Mich. No video featuring best wishes from celebrities. This time — Chrysler’s third takeover in 11 years — the mood was government green. There was no public display Wednesday to celebrate the birth of Chrysler Group, now run by Italy’s Fiat Group and not in bankruptcy court.
“It’s really not the time for celebration,” says Brad Coulter, a turnaround expert at O’Keefe & Associates. “If anything, it’s …

The US Supreme Court allowed the sale of Chrysler to Fiat to go ahead, rejecting an appeal by three Indiana pension funds that requested that the deal be put on hold.
The decision came after the US government and Fiat had issued stark warnings that Chrysler would go out of business by next week if the deal were delayed while the judges considered whether to hear the pension funds’ case.
The funds, which hold $42m of Chrysler’s $6.9bn in secured debt, argued that an offer to pay them 29 cents on …

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Signs emerged on Friday that Canada’s Magna could face challenges to its deal for GM’s European unit Opel as Fiat SpA said it was still interested and Germany invited rival bidders to improve their offers.
Fiat, the Italian automaker, lost out last week to the Canadian car parts maker Magna in bidding for General Motors Corp’s Germany-based Opel and British brand Vauxhall, but Fiat Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne said the deal was not yet sealed.
“The interest is still there, it doesn’t depend on us,” he told reporters on the margins …

Indiana pension fund’s objections are put aside by appeals court. Troubled automaker moves closer to deal with Italian company.

An appeals court Friday upheld Chrysler LLC’s plan to exit bankruptcy.
The new company will be owned jointly by the U.S. government, an autoworker’s union retiree fund and the Italian Automaker Fiat.
The deal will go through on Monday afternoon unless the Supreme Court intervenes, Chrysler attorney Corinne Ball told CNN.
Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock had appealed the ruling of a federal bankruptcy court on May 31 allowing Chrysler to sell its best-performing assets, …

Roger Penske, the racecar driver turned business tycoon, will buy the Saturn brand and dealer network from GM. The deal will save 350-plus dealerships and some 13,000 jobs if it goes through, the bankrupt parent company said in confirming the tentative agreement. The price is between $100 million and $200 million, a source told Bloomberg. (Read more at: newser)
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{Photography by ScrapNancy}

A growing team of Fiat SpA executives and engineers has been working at Chrysler’s Detroit-area headquarters this week, finalizing plans to cut costs and ready the Fiat 500 small car for the U.S. market, people with knowledge of the work said.
Fiat Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne, who is expected to take over operational control at Chrysler, has been leading the team from the Italian automaker, according to the sources who asked not to be named because a deal to merge the two companies under Marchionne has not been cleared by …

- No.10 – Resale
Driving by dealer lots lately would have you believe they’re having an early Halloween-themed sale. Turns out, the cobwebs on the big SUVs aren’t decorative. That wasn’t always the case: When SUVs were in demand, dealers got fat off all the desperate me-too buyers. Of course, the tables turned at trade-in time, when clean used models commanded top dollar and rolled away again just as quickly as the new ones.
(Read more at: AskMen.com)
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{Photography by Eric and Cindy}