1938, 1939 Ford Pickup Hood Hinges on 2040-parts.com

Crunch watch Mar 09: the auto industry in crisis

By Ben Pulman and Tim Pollard Motor Industry 31 March 2009 13:48 Tuesday 31 March 2009• Porsche said that its earnings before tax rose to €7.3 billion in the six months to the end of January – including a €6.8bn windfall from its VW share options (Financial Times)• Fritz Henderson, GM's president and chief operating officer, will step up to replace Rick Wagoner, who was ousted on Sunday as CEO of General Motors (Financial Times)• President Obama is essentially CEO-in-chief of GM – despite not owning a single cent of stock, says Detroit News commentator (Detroit News)• German chancellor Angela Merkel gives assurances that any would-be investors in GM's European arm will be given state support. Opel is asking for €3.3 billion in aid – and up to 25,000 jobs in Germany depend on it, with up to 300,000 jobs across Europe including Saab and Vauxhall (BBC News)Monday 30 March 2009• General Motors' chief executive Rick Wagoner has been ordered to resign by US president Barack Obama with immediate effect. It's part of Obama's administration's critique of GM and Chrysler's turnaround plans – he's understood to be unhappy with the plans submitted (BBC News)• New GM non-executive chairman Kent Kresa has admitted that at the company's next general meeting it will have 'a majority of new directors' (General Motors)• Chrysler will receive US government aid for the next 30 days, but the Obama administration has said that if the company cannot secure a tie-up with the Fiat Group within that time period it will not receive any more money from the taxpayers and could go into liquidation.

Revolutionary seat design offers new possibilities

Lufthansa has introduced an innovative business class seat, the result of five years of development by design agency PearsonLloyd. PearsonLloyd has decided to move away from the conventional technique of placing seats in different directions to allow reclining and has opted to arrange the seats in a ‘V' formation. This does not mean there is any invasion of personal space – far from it, as when passengers lie down their seat's consoles hide their heads.

VW Up! to launch at Frankfurt 2011

The VW Up to Launch Frankfurt 2011 It seems like an awfully long time since Volkswagen announced to the world that it was going to make a small range of city cars to cope with modern eco-sensibilities and recession-motivated downsizing. In fact as long ago as April 2009 we reported that VW were to make the Up! in Bratislava with a range of super-eco three-pot engines.