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Fiat buys remaining stake in Chrysler (2014)

By Damion Smy Motor Industry 03 January 2014 13:30 Fiat has purchased the remaining stake in Chrysler to become the sole owner of the US car firm. In a deal worth £2.2billion, the Italian company bought the remaining 41.46% of Chrysler from the VEBA Trust (Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association) made up of current and former Chrysler employees. Fiat Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne says: ‘In the life of every major organisation and its people, there are defining moments that go down in the history books.

Ecurie Ecosse racing car collection sells for £8.8 million

Ecurie Ecosse is a name that will need no introduction to classic motorsport fans. Established in 1952 by Edinburgh racing driver and businessman David Murray and mechanic Wilkie Wilkinson, this racing team is famous for two things – its stunning Flag Blue Metallic paint scheme and winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans. In fact, Ecurie Ecosse won Le Mans twice – back-to-back in 1956 and 1957, securing two of the three victories there for Jaguar’s D-Type.

Video: Jaguar's Julian Thomson on the importance of design values

Jaguar's Head of Advanced Design, Julian Thomson, appeared at this month's PSFK Conference in London giving a talk on design values. Thomson's talk, ‘Concepting Dreams, Making Reality Happen', dealt with questions of creating a design story as well as how Jaguar uses the value of its heritage while keeping things original and new. Thomson – the man behind the 2010 C-X75 and the recently revealed F-Type – said, "You can't get a good design story if you don't look at your heritage, where you came from, where your values came from." He went on to discuss the ‘sad years of Jaguar', from around 1968 to 2004 where Jaguar was too timid to develop and "essentially made the same-looking car." He put this down to a reluctance on Jaguar's part to move too far away from its successful models and, quite interestingly, because "not only did we start doing market research, we started asking Americans what they wanted." Watch the full video on the left.