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Crunch watch Jan 09: the auto industry in crisis

By Tim Pollard, Ben Pulman and Gareth Evans Motor Industry 30 January 2009 12:39 Friday 30 January 2009• Honda is about to close the Swindon factory for four months when Friday's shifts are finished; the shutdown will affect 2500 of the 3700 staff, who will receive full pay for two months and then 60% pay for the next eight weeks (BBC News)• Porsche has announced a sharp drop in sales and likely profits. It forecasts a 27% drop in 911, Boxster, Cayman and Cayenne sales to around 34,000 units in the six months to the end of January 2009 (Financial Times, subscription required)• Ford wants Washington to do more to stimulate car sales, after posting a record loss of nearly $14.6 billion earlier this week (Detroit News)• Honda's quarterly profit has crashed by 90% – forcing the Japanese car maker to halve its annual profit target (Detroit Free Press)Thursday 29 January 2009• Ford of Europe is a bright spot in the Blue Oval's quarterly results today, making $1.06 billion pre-tax profit in 2008 (up from $997m in 2007). It's the first profit of more than $1bn since 1989 (Automotive News Europe, subscription required)• Volvo suffered a 'disastrous 2008' with a pre-tax loss of $1.46bn.

Subaru WRX concept stars at the 2013 Frankfurt Motor Show

The Subaru WRX concept starring here at the 2013 Frankfurt Motor Show is striking to say the least – it’s like someone has driven the Japanese firm’s BRZ sports car into the back of an old Impreza WRX STi performance saloon. In fact, that’s exactly what the WRX concept could become – the next Subaru Impreza WRX STi. Subaru killed off the rally-bred saloon in the UK this year, but we’re sure the Brits would welcome it back with open arms if it looked like this.

One Lap of the Web: Senna's sweet go-kart

-- Gran Turismo has always included some, uh, unique car choices for its video games. (Sure, the Patent-Motorwagen is significant, but hot-lapping the 1-hp horseless carriage in "Gran Turismo 4" wasn't exactly riveting, unless you used cheats.) So that's why Ayrton Senna's go-kart from the 1978 World Karting Championship should be interesting -- it's nowhere near as fast as his Lotus 97T, but it shows that "Gran Turismo" wasn't kidding when developers said they wanted fans to chart the entirety of Senna's life. Plus, if you make it go 352 mph you can finally stick it to Prost.