Auto News 5

The 2015, or 2014.5 depending on who you ask, Ford Mustang will go on sale next April, on the car's 50th anniversary.

The Volkswagen Group has been included in the new "Global Compact 100" stock index, an index produced by the UN.

Aston Martin will end production of its Cygnet minicar following poor sales of the Toyota iQ-based model.

Opel will launch a SUV-styled version of its Adam minicar, a person familiar with the project told Automotive News Europe.

Twenty months ago, Alicia Boler-Davis was an assembly plant manager at General Motors. Today, the 44-year-old is one of the company's top 20 executives, reporting straight to CEO Dan Akerson.

Aston Martin says it is dropping the Cygnet minicar, which is based on the Toyota iQ, after the model fell well short of expected sales.

Twenty months ago, Alicia Boler-Davis was an assembly plant manager at General Motors. Today, the 44-year-old is one of the company's top 20 executives, reporting straight to CEO Dan Akerson.

Hertz Global Holdings has too many vehicles and will gradually reduce its fleet over the next six months.

In 2007, the auto industry's last good year before the recession, General Motors outsold Ford Motor Co. in the United States by more than 105,000 units a month on average. In the past 12 months, the gap has narrowed to fewer than 25,000.

Sales of five of the six players in this arena -- the Infiniti FX/QX70, Acura ZDX, Toyota Venza, Honda Crosstour, BMW X6 and BMW 5-series GT -- plummeted in September.

This summer, Fiat dealers finally got a second nameplate, the 500L, to sell. Despite high hopes, the new car has failed to boost the brand's U.S. sales.

DETROIT -- The redesigned 2014 Cadillac CTS sedan began arriving in showrooms last week with a relatively strong residual value, which should help General Motors offer a competitive lease to offset a big price hike.

Park Place Lexus Plano went on a hiring spree this year, creating and filling 100 positions.

Subaru, in the wake of accolades for its EyeSight safety technology package, will debut a new generation of the pre-crash safety system next year with significantly upgraded functions.

In the little corner of the car business where skilled machinists repair broken dies through the wee hours of the night and perfect the tools that will turn out smooth body panels, an alarm bell is ringing.

Ford and Renault are launching upscale badges in Europe to reverse losses and boost profitability #8211; but the strategy is not without potential risks.

Supercar maker Koenigsegg will launch a new halo car in prototype form by the end of this year. Bloomberg Businessweek reports that it will be called One:1, referring to its incredible power-to-weight ratio: 1,400 hp in a 1,400 kg package!

Computer simulations indicate that the One:1 will hit 449 km/h, and will be the fastest car from 0-200 km/h, 0-300 km/h, and 0-400 km/h. It will also come to a full stop from 300 km/h in just 6.66 seconds.

Koenigsegg One:1

Koenigsegg didn't reveal the price, but expect a number that's “substantially higher” than the $1.4-million cost of the Agera S. Each of the six units planned for production has already found a buyer.

Sources : Autoweek, Businessweek

Here is the video of Sebastien Loeb's crash during the last day of the Rallye de France-Alsace, for his last WRC appearance.

Nine time rally world champion was holding the third position overall, only 2,5 seconds behind Jari-Matti Latvala's Volkswagen who was leading after Saturday's stages. On the first kilometers of the very first stage on Sunday, Loeb and codriver Daniel Elena went off aboard their Citroën DS3, which ended up on the roof. No one was injured in the accident.

Sebastien Ogier (Volkswagen) won the rally after he secured the world championship title after the Power Stage helded on Thursday.

The Blue Oval's first moving assembly line opened exactly 100 years ago, on October 7th, 1913, at the Highland Park assembly plant in Michigan. Henry Ford apparently got the idea from a previous tour of meatworks in Chicago and Cincinnati.

While rudimentary, this assembly line revolutionized automobile production, allowing the company to build a single unit in just six hours instead of twelve. Further upgrades in the ensuing months resulted in the Ford Model T being completed in a mere 93 minutes.

With the use of a winch, cars were pulled along the assembly line and thus came to the workers instead of the other way around. Ford not only increased its production capacity from 100 to 1,000 units a day, but also reduced the cost of a Model T from $850 to $260.

Source : liberation.fr

Photo: Wikipedia

From GMM

Romain Grosjean will almost certainly keep his place at Lotus beyond this season.

The Frenchman, however, had to be reminded to show his always-present smile on the podium in Korea, after a team orders dispute with his bosses.

Grosjean, who has struggled at times in the last two seasons, had outclassed his highly-rated teammate Kimi Raikkonen in Korea, and was set to finish second behind Sebastian Vettel.

But he made a mistake at the safety car restart, handing second place to the Ferrari-bound Finn.

Team boss Eric Boullier revealed Grosjean "begged for some team orders" to be handed the place back, but was not given the answer he was hoping for.

However, although it was Raikkonen who ultimately delivered the higher finishing place, Boullier told France's RMC: "I want to especially acknowledge Romain, who did an outstanding weekend."

Eric Boullier and Romain Grosjean, happy after the Korean Grand Prix. (Photo: WRi2)

Despite Sunday's events, he insisted Raikkonen is not receiving preferential treatment, even though the Finn is mathematically still in the hunt for the drivers' title.

"There is no number 1 and number 2," Boullier said. "Romain is free to race."

Told that Grosjean appears to have calmed down in recent months and is on a run of good form, Boullier agreed: "He is very serene.

"It has been six races in a row now that he is on the same level as his teammate, so he really is there," said the Frenchman, who also doubles as Grosjean's manager.

Asked if Grosjean still needs to prove himself in order to secure his seat for 2014, Boullier answered: "Obviously, if he continues like this, there is nothing (for him to prove). I think he will have even more than next year (in F1)."