1976 Plymouth Valiant / Duster / Fury / Volare / Owner's Manual / Original on 2040-parts.com

Porsche finally becomes a VW company

Volkswagen has announced it is to finalise its takeover of Porsche by buying the remaining 50.1 per cent of Porsche stock for €4.46 billion. The takeover of Porsche by VW has been a long and rocky road, but then family fallouts are always messy. It all started with Porsche attempting to consume VW, but some clever manoeuvring by Ferdinand Piech thwarted the efforts of his cousin, Wolfgang Porsche, to swallow up his business and the financial crisis saw Porsche rack up €10 billion in debt in the process.

Giles Taylor appointed Head of Exterior Design at Rolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce will be welcoming Giles taylor as its a new Head of Exterior Design in April this year. Taylor, who has spent the last 10 years in British automotive design roles and headed up the design team who created the XK and XJ model series under the direction of Ian Callum at Jaguar, will fill the vacant position in the Rolls-Royce design team. He will be based in West Sussex, UK, and report to Rolls‑Royce's Chief Designer, Ian Cameron.

Audi does Vegas

Rupert Stadler, chairman of Audi AG, became only the third car company executive to deliver a keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show, and he did it--as all the best Toastmasters do--by starting with a joke. “When I received the invitation to speak here this year, I thought: why don't I bring a nice example of an electronic device made by Audi,” said the chair. “Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Audi E-tron Spyder concept car.