Brp 0337774 Shifter-clutch Dog on 2040-parts.com

New GM Europe chief's plans for Opel/Vauxhall

Nick Reilly speaks out on the future of GM Europe By Richard Webber Motor Industry 07 December 2009 13:54 Following General Motors' back-track on a buy-out from Magna in November 2009, the company's president of international operations Nick Reilly was appointed interim head of GM Europe. Now he's been made the permanent CEO of Vauxhall and Opel, making him the man charged with guiding GM's European division back to profitability.GM has big plans for Opel and Vauxhall, but has made no secret that there will be widespread pain and change before the good times return. The turnaround plan is nearing completion and it's expected there will be around 8300 redundancies, spread around Europe.

Mini Vision concept: what does it say about the brand's future?

The sight of Mini design head Anders Warming presenting a holographic, 3D projection of the Mini Vision concept as if appearing in his own cartoon was certainly a new one on us, but it captured the quirky, slightly left-field image the subsidiary of BMW Group has cultivated since its relaunch 13 years ago. As the 'Vision' tag suggests, this is billed as a marker of intent for the brand's future design direction rather than a pre-production teaser of the new Mini hatchback (Cooper in most markets) we'll see later this year. However if the third-generation 'new' Mini doesn't look remarkably similar we'd be amazed, such is the level of productionized detailing on this purely digital model.

Ford Fiesta ECOnetic: On the Drive

We test the new Ford Fiesta ECOnetic to see if it's as 'Green' as it seems But how good would it actually be to live with? We all know that headline fuel consumptions can be misleading, but was this new ‘Eco’ Fiesta really all that economical? We’d had numerous emails and comments after that first drive, all saying basically the same thing: Yes, it headlines at 76mpg, but what will it do in the real world?