Auto News 5

Chrysler on Tuesday said US sales in June rose 20% year on year to 144,811 units, the group's best sales for that month since 2007.

Sergio Pininfarina, who ran the famous Italian automotive design company of the same name for 40 years, has died after a long illness. He was 85.

U.S. light-vehicle sales, paced by Toyota and Honda, rose 22 percent in June as U.S. consumers continued to shake off economic jitters and replace aging cars and light trucks.

First official pictures of the all-new Renault Clio have been revealed, ahead of its Paris Motor Show debut

Ford of Europe has named Gunnar Herrmann, the senior engineer who headed development of the redesigned Focus and C-Max, as vice president of quality.

Entry-level version of the Suzuki Alto has become the UK's cheapest new car, starting from just £5,995

Mazda is ramping up production of its CX-5 crossover SUV and doubling output of the SkyActive engines launched with it.

New range-topping version of the Kia Sportage gets more power and lots of kit

Open-top version of the McLaren MP4-12C supercar is set to take on the Ferrari 458 Spider, with a 0-62mph time of 3.1 seconds

Open-top version of the McLaren MP4-12C supercar is set to take on the Ferrari 458 Spider, with a 0-62mph time of 3.1 seconds

Kia Motors and its Chinese subsidiary, Dongfeng Yueda Kia, have broken ground for a third car assembly plant in the Yancheng Economic Development Zone in Jiangsu Province.

Luxury electric vehicle (EV) maker Fisker Automotive has appointed Jim Yost as chief financial officer.

Federal-Mogul is to purchase the Beru spark plug business from BorgWarner. The purchase, subject to regulatory requirements, includes factories at Chazelles sur Lyon, France, and Neuhaus, Germany, which will add about US$80m in annual sales and increase the supplier's yearly spark plug production capacity to over 350m a year.

Chrysler and new parent Fiat were the domestic and import honored marques of the 46th-annual Palo Alto (Calif.

Car design legend Sergio Pininfarina has died, aged 85

Sergio Pininfarina, who ran the famous Italian automotive design company of the same name for 40 years, has died after a long illness.

Two times world champion Sebastian Vettel remains surprised by the level of competitiveness this year.

The Red Bull driver was really impressive at Valencia before his retirement, due to an alternator failure. Fernando Alonso clinched the victory and took the benefit of Lewis Hamilton's retirement in the ultimate lap.

The Ferrari driver leads the standings but the world championship is wide open, with seven different winners in eight races.

Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull RB8. (Photo: WRi2)

Sebastian Vettel is aware of this competition and says to the BBC during an interview: "The ones that stand out are probably Fernando (Alonso), he's one of the most complete drivers. Lewis (Hamilton) is very, very quick. There are plenty of others. At the moment we have a lot of drivers performing at a similar level - it is very competitive. Michael (Schumacher) is still in the game. I don't think he has lost it."

"At the moment we have a lot of drivers performing at a similar level - it is very competitive," he added. "It is a long list at the moment. We have had a lot of different winners this season and all of those drivers are very competitive and very fast."

Asked if drivers should be judged only by the number of titles they won, Sebastian Vettel replied: "Yes and no. The success is a big part of it. If you look at great names from the past, drivers like Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Jackie Stewart... they all won a lot of titles. But there are other names that stay in your head and stay around because they had something extra. They were special. All F1 drivers are very quick, but those guys had something extra, something maybe the people loved, he was very entertaining, it was very special to watch him driving the car. There are plenty of other characters who maybe didn't win the title but are still people's heroes and rightly so."

Available this fall, the all-new 2013 Ford Fusion will come in four attractively priced trim levels.

Photo: Ford

Trim	Base MSRP	Features
S	$22,499	MyFord SYNC, 8 airbags, 16'' wheels, 2.5L i-VCT engine
SE	$24,499	MyFord with 4'' display, Sirius satellite radio, choice of engine: 2.5L i-VCT, 1.6L EcoBoost or 2.0L EcoBoost
Titanium	$33,999	SYNC and MyFord Touch with 4.2'' display, 2.0L EcoBoost engine, all-wheel drive, rearview camera, heated sport seats with 3-position memory
SE hybride	$29,999	2.0L gas-electric hybrid, CVT, exclusive 17'' wheels, Sirius satellite radio, exclusive EcoCloth seats

After Carroll Shelby on May 10th, the automotive world lost another legend in designer Sergio Pininfarina. The man responsible for many of Ferrari's most successful and iconic nameplates passed away early Tuesday morning at his home in Turin. He was 85.

Born on September 8th, 1926, Pininfarina took over his father's sports car design firm in 1961. He penned dozens of models for various automakers including Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Peugeot. However, his greatest and most significant work was for Ferrari, starting with the 1952 Ferrari 212 Inter Cabriolet.

Pininfarina went on to create the mythic Ferrari Testarossa, Daytona, 250 GT Coupé and others. Overall, his résumé includes no fewer than 1,000 car designs of which 250 became a reality. All of them combined for more than 30 million units sold worldwide.

Sergio Pininfarina, Luca di Montezemolo (Photo: Ferrari)