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Ferrari sales drop off a cliff

And there’s us thinking Ferrari was immune to the chaos that’s beset car makers all over the world. It’s been revealed that Ferrari’s sales in November dropped by a colossal 85% to just 92 cars, from a normal monthly production of around 600. How can this be?

Honda cutting production in Swindon again – 500 jobs at risk

Honda is cutting another 500 jobs in Swindon It’s only a year since Honda announced 800 job cuts at Swindon (which eventually was 550) and now they’re about to cut a further 500 as weak demand – particularly in Europe – sees the Swindon plant producing just half the cars it could. The plan is to cut shifts from 3 to 2 a day, which will result in the loss of 340 permanent jobs and 160 temporary ones, and production will be centred on just one production line to increase efficiency and flexibility. The Swindon Plant – which builds the Civic, Civic Tourer, CR-V and Jazz (and the Civic Type-R from next year) – has been hard hit by the slump in European sales in the last five years and, despite still strong UK sales, production levels of 120,000 cars a year – just half of the Swindon capacity – are not enough to sustain the current staffing levels.

Mercedes to build C-class in Alabama

Mercedes-Benz will add production of C-class sedans to its plant near Tuscaloosa, Ala., starting in 2014. Daimler AG Chairman Dieter Zetsche, who participated in the creation of the Alabama plant project as a fast-rising executive in 1993, said in a statement released Wednesday from Stuttgart that the U.S. operation will take over about one-fifth of the model’s global production.