2011 Ford Fusion Sports Addition Speedometer on 2040-parts.com

News watch August 2011: today's auto industry news

Come to CAR Magazine's news aggregator as we round up the daily stories in the auto industry. Top tip: news summaries are added from the top hour-by-hour Wednesday 31 August 2011• The two millionth Mini today rolled off the production line at Plant Oxford. British prime minister David Cameron drove the landmark car off the line (Mini)• Volkswagen says it will sell more than 2 million cars in China this year.

Land Rover Defender to be built in Sri Lanka

The Land Rover Defender is to be built outside the UK in a new plant in Sri Lanka to produce Defenders for the region. Land Rover are assisting and training staff at a new assembly plant in Hambantota, Sri Lanka, run by Sathosa Motors PLC in a 50-50 deal with Land Rover distributors SML Frontier Automotive, with $1 million being invested to get the project up and running this year. It seems clear from the level of investment that this is simply an assembly operation using CKD kits from the UK for the Defender, but Sri Lank’s Daily News is reporting that there are plans to invest $500 million in the project.

Toyota FT-86 concept car: first official photos (2009): first official pictures

By Tim Pollard First Official Pictures 07 October 2009 13:31 Toyota will show off the new FT-86 'Toyobaru' – its new joint project with Subaru to build an affordable, rear-wheel drive sports coupé. The FT-86 will form the centrespiece of the 2009 Tokyo motor show later this month.Although dubbed a concept car, CAR understands the new Toyota FT-86 is in fact a near-production ready model that will launch Toyota back into the sports coupé market to battle the VW Scirocco and Honda CRZ. It's pretty compact at just 4160mm long and 1760mm wide, making it smaller than a TT or Scirocco.