It’s a new tradition at the storied Mini brand: Each car show gets its own dedicated Mini. Swatch tried it with the Swatch car, but could not pull it off.  Now, BMW’s Mini is doing it with great success: At the inside, the same movement. At the outside, ever changing designs. Collect all colors!. Of course, Mini won’t break tradition at the Detroit Auto Show, and it will bring you: The John Cooper Works Paceman.
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Infiniti’s often discussed future premium compact model will be built at Nissan’s UK plant in Sunderland, Nissan says. It was previously announced that the new Infiniti will “share a platform developed with Mercedes. (Read More…)

It has been repeatedly suggested that GM should use its ample profits to buy back the shares held by the U.S. government (don’t forget the Canadians.). Finally, GM listens to reasons. Or, possibly, strong suggestions from Washington. GM will purchase 200 million shares of GM common stock held by the U.S. Department of the Treasury for $5.5 billion, or $27.50 per share, the company said in a statement  The share buyback is part of the Treasury’s plan, also announced today, to fully exit its entire holdings of GM stock within 12 to 15 months, subject to market conditions. (Read More…)

Wendelin Wiedeking, former Porsche CEO turned pizza baker, will have to defend himself in criminal court. Along with his former CFO Holger Härter, Wiedeking has been indicted in Stuttgart.  This follows a three year probe by the public prosecutor in Stuttgart which had been looking into market manipulation and illegal disclosure of insider information.  Only the market manipulation charge survived. (Read More…)

If you are an automaker, and you know that something can blow up and poison your customers, then you are in deep trouble if you put that stuff in your cars. In Germany, you are in in deep Scheiss if you don’t. Daimler may have to pay high fines if it continues using an old refrigerant in 2013, instead of the new HFO-1234yf, of which Daimler says it can fry and kill you. If Daimler continues to resist, it may lose the European type certification for the A and B Class. Which could kill the company. (Read More…)

It did not take a high degree of intellect when we recommended last week to wait for a better deal if you are in the market for a Chevy or GMC pick-up.  GM threw its vaunted  fiscal discipline in the wind and is piling cash on the hood  of trucks that are piling up on dealer lots. (Read More…)

Toyota has agreed to make a payment of $17.35 million to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This is “to settle claims related to the timeliness of its June 2012 recall to address the potential for accelerator pedal entrapment caused by unsecured or incompatible driver’s side floor mat in the 2010 Lexus RX 350 and RX 450h, without admitting to any violation of its obligations under the U.S. Safety Act.,” as a Toyota statement says.  (Read More…)

Supposedly, one of the reasons for keeping Manchester United after  GM’s chief marketing honcho Joel Ewanick was fired for downright unethical shenanigans was that Man U is extremely popular in the Asian growth markets. Whereas they have a hard time even pronouncing “Ewanick.” So far, so good.  However, the secret of a successful marketing program lies in its flawless execution. (Read More…)

For long, Detroit automakers explained their miserable sales numbers in Japan with somersaulting logic: “Our sales numbers are so miserable in Japan, because the Japanese market is closed to imports. Proof: Our miserable sales numbers.”

German carmakers in the meantime, notably Volkswagen, do not complain at all. They control 80 percent of Japan’s growing import market. Volkswagen’s small Up! turned into an especially hot seller, and Volkswagen’s executives in Japan emphatically deny that the market is closed.

Now, the Detroit Three are back in Japan with a revolutionary strategy: (Read More…)

Porsche salesfolk in Germany may have to go to school again. On the curriculum: Manners. Getting up while greeting a customer may not be a bad idea. Porsche sales in Germany grew 17 percent from January through October. In November, sales were up only 0.1 percent compared to the prior month. Immediately, alarm bells rang at Porsches new owner Volkswagen, says Der Spiegel. (Read More…)

Opel will remain a money draining leak in the mother ship for the foreseeable future. This is one conclusion after reading an interview given by Opel’s interim CEO Thomas Sedran to Germany’s Wirtschaftswoche. Another conclusion would be that Opel needs a chief.

Sedran is “sure that we will be profitable by mid-decade,” but this is an easy claim for any Opel CEO. Even non-interim chiefs of Opel have a very short shelf life. The plans revealed by the former management consultant (Roland Berger, Alix Partners) don’t sound like Opel will be profitable in this century. (Read More…)

Last week, when talking about Volkswagen’s future $10,00o low-cost car, we said that “is rumored to work on something that costs about half.” Guess it is no longer a rumor.  Reuters writes that Gerard Detourbet , the man behind Renault’s Logan program, is in Chennai, India, to work on a real budget car, costing about half of Volkswagen’s targeted price. India is the battlefield for low-cost cars. And that’s not because of Tata’s Nano. (Read More…)

LFA Chief Engineer Haruhiko Tanahashi says good-bye

As intimated last week, Toyota’s production of its LFA supercar is coming to an end. On Friday, LFA #500 left the assembly line at the secretive LFA Works in Toyota’s Motomachi plant. After a week of testing, the car will be delivered to its undisclosed owner. (Read More…)

Articles about right-to-work spawn a lively discussion at TTAC, sometimes with more than 200  comments, interspersed by appeals for selective self censorship. The topic won’t go away. Neither at TTAC, nor in the nation. “Laws that weaken the power of organized labor could spread to more U.S. states in 2013 after supporters of the measures scored a major victory over unions in Michigan this week, and earlier in the year in Indiana,” says a report by Reuters. (Read More…)

While GM is pushing its “evolutionary” styled  new pickups with tried and true marketing, touting brawn and toughness, Ford will go with a less macho approach. It will push fuel economy for its next-generation F-150 pickups. For that, marketing has to be preceded by engineering. Ford will make its trucks shed between 700  and 750 pounds of weight for a 15 to 20 percent better fuel economy, says a report by Reuters. (Read More…)