HOLDEN WILL BE bumping up V6 production at its Melbourne engine plant by a whopping 14,000 units over the next four years, largely thanks to a newly-brokered (and highly lucrative) supply contract between Holden and GM’s Chinese arm, Shanghai General Motors.

The deal will see output of the Holden-made high-feature V6 engines more than triple, and [...]

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FIAT HAS this week signed an agreement with Guangzhou Automobile Industry Group to have some of its vehicles and powertrains manufactured in China, a deal that will hopefully reduce production costs for the Italian conglomerate and boost Guangzhou’s status in the Asian automaking industry.

The joint venture between the twocompanies will see each contribute €400 million [...]

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BRITISH ENGINEERING FIRM Ricardo has announced that it will collaborate with Weifang Shengrui Power Machinery Technology on the development of an advanced eight-speed automatic gearbox.

The Ricardo-Shengrui deal will result in a gearbox that will have more ratios than any other Chinese-made transmission, but will also - its makers claim - rival some of the world’s [...]

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HUMMER’S SALE to Sichuan Tengzhong is mere months away from being finalised, however it appears there’s now one heck of a hurdle for the two companies to overcome.

A Chinese state-controlled news outlet, Shanghai Securities News, is reporting that the central government is likely to scuttle Tengzhong’s plans for the acquisition, fearing it goes against the [...]

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LITTLE-KNOWN Chinese industrial machinery company Sichuan Tengzhong has emerged as GM’s approved buyer for the Hummer brand. Although Hummer will be divorced from General Motors once the deal is finalised later this year, Tengzhong is adamant that much of Hummer’s current business structure will remain unchanged.

There will be no corporate reshuffle, nor will Hummer’s headquarters [...]

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General Motors is reportedly nutting out the details of how it will reorganise its operations to restore profitability, and one of the ideas that’s presently on the table is to increase the number of imports of Mexican and Asian-made GM products into the USA.

Such a move would, of course, result in massive plant closures and [...]

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While the rest of the world’s automotive markets continue to struggle under the oppressive weight of a global economy in tatters, China’s market has bucked the trend.

After experiencing a decline in sales in four of the last five months, China staged an impressive comeback through February and posted a 24.2 percent increase.

The China Association of [...]

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Numerically, right now, in which country were more new cars sold than any other? Until recently, the answer was a monty - the US - but not any more.

In what must be sending tingles of trepidation up the spines of our American cousins, and confirmation of a new world order on the horizon, there were [...]

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Chinese manufacturer BYD looks like it may have swept in to steal the limelight in the promised land of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. The F3DM sedan combines a 1.0 litre petrol engine and an electric motor with a battery pack that can be charged from a standard wall socket.

The combined output measures up to a [...]

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This Sunday just gone (UK time) saw the return of the one true Top Gear to British television sets, and to computer screens of net-savvy fans around the world this morning.  Let me tell you: they’ve still got it.

Clarkson pits the Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 against the Porsche 911 GT2 – describing the latter as “terrifying”.  [...]

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Ford has commenced production on the all-new 2009 Ford Fiesta at the Cologne assembly plant in Germany, with other Ford factories around the globe gearing up to produce the automaker’s latest small car offering.

Built off the same B-car platform that underpins the Mazda2, the seventh-generation Fiesta will spearhead Ford’s new One Ford business plan, which [...]

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"Coppa, Coppa, Coppaaaa" goes the favourite Aussie chant heard on late-night trains as boisterous footy fan are dragged from the station by the boys in blue.  We’ve all seen the baby blue Lamborghini some of the Italian cops roll around in, and no doubt you’re familiar with the Porsches the German [...]

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