Arias Pistons 12.5:1 Compression 82mm Bore Honda B-series on 2040-parts.com

GM sells Suzuki shares to raise emergency funds

By Tim Pollard Motor Industry 17 November 2008 15:24 GM is flogging its entire stake in Suzuki to pump cash into its survival funds. The General owns a 3% holding in Suzuki Motor Corporation and will sell 16,413,000 shares on the open market tomorrow. Based on today’s values, GM will raise an estimated £154 million through the sale, although Suzuki will exercise an option to buy back an equivalent number of its own shares in treasury stock.

New Land Rover Freelander will actually be a Discovery

It seems – as we expected – that Land Rover are looking to make more sense of their range of off-roaders as new models are launched, and are going to concentrate on three core brands – Range Rover, Discovery and Defender – instead of the current mish-mash where many models really overlap with others (the top end Discoverys are really a cheaper Range Rover). So the next Freelander will become an entry-level Discovery with underpinnings borrowed from the Evoque (which is itself based on the current Freelander platform, a development of the Ford Galaxy’s platform), and arrive in both 5-seat and 7-seat guise, with the new Discovery ’5′ getting a platform based on the new Range Rover and perhaps spawning two models. The new Discovery range will be targeted as a ‘Lifestyle’ core range for Land Rover (much as the original Disco was) and the Range Rover range will be both sporty and luxurious, with a 7-seat Grand Evoque XL joining the current Evoque, Range Rover Sport and Range Rover.

Fiat Freemont revealed

The Fiat Freemont - Dodge Journey with a Fiat badge At the end of December we revealed that Fiat had decided they should take the Dodge Journey and turn it in to a Fiat. The Fiat Freemont – for that is what Fiat had decided to rename the Dodge Challenger for Europe –  would effectively be a replacement for the Fiat Ulysse MPV. It seems that Fiat has caught up with our story, so we now have official details on what the Freemont will offer.