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

Crunch watch August 09: the auto industry

By Tim Pollard, Alex Michaelides, Ben Pulman and Freddie Fulton Motor Industry 31 August 2009 10:00 Welcome to CAR's news aggregator as we round up the seismic change in the auto industry. Top tip: news summaries are added from the top hour-by-hour  Monday 31 August 2009• Bank holiday today in UK; staff on a well earned break from Crunchwatch!Friday 28 August 2009• Toyota will stop producing vehicles at the New United Moor Manufacturing plant in California next March. Company officials and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the decision, which comes in the wake of factory partner GM’s announced that it would abandon the venture back in June (Detroit News)• Tengzhong may finalise its deal to buy Hummer from GM next week, well placed sources told AN (Automotive News, subscription required)• German economics minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg says it is 'hardly realistic' for GM to keep hold of its European outfit Opel and Vauxhall (Automotive News Europe, subscription required)• Ford's US cop car favourite, the Crown Victoria, is going to cease production in 2011 (Detroit News)Thursday 27 August 2009• Nissan and Chrysler have abandoned plans to build cars for each other in the wake of Chrysler’s alliance with Fiat.

Gulf One Z06 tops $1 million at auction

An icon of 1960s racing, the Gulf One Corvette Z06 racer, was in familiar position last weekend at the Mecum Auction--first. The 1963 car sold for $1.05 million at the Kissimmee, Fla., event--doubling the price of a 1962 Mercedes 300 SL, which went for $525,000, not including the buyer’s premiums. The racer is based on a production Corvette Sting Ray.

Pink Rolls Royce FAB 1 actually has a pink vinyl ‘Wrap’

But it seems Rolls Royce must have thought much the same, as it turns out that the impressive paint job isn’t actually that at all, but a pink vinyl wrap provided – free of charge – by car vinyl wrap experts Raccoon. Raccoon chose a gloss laminated film to wrap the Ghost to make sure it looked as indistinguishable as possible from a bespoke paint job, and it worked. No one has noticed the pinks Rolls Royce doesn’t have a custom paint job and that’s down to Raccoon taking extreme care to carefully wrap not just the outside panels, but also stuff like door sills and any areas that might otherwise give the game away.