Crown Automotive Sales Co. 488499 Hood Appearance Set on 2040-parts.com

Crunch watch Mar 09: the auto industry in crisis

By Ben Pulman and Tim Pollard Motor Industry 31 March 2009 13:48 Tuesday 31 March 2009• Porsche said that its earnings before tax rose to €7.3 billion in the six months to the end of January – including a €6.8bn windfall from its VW share options (Financial Times)• Fritz Henderson, GM's president and chief operating officer, will step up to replace Rick Wagoner, who was ousted on Sunday as CEO of General Motors (Financial Times)• President Obama is essentially CEO-in-chief of GM – despite not owning a single cent of stock, says Detroit News commentator (Detroit News)• German chancellor Angela Merkel gives assurances that any would-be investors in GM's European arm will be given state support. Opel is asking for €3.3 billion in aid – and up to 25,000 jobs in Germany depend on it, with up to 300,000 jobs across Europe including Saab and Vauxhall (BBC News)Monday 30 March 2009• General Motors' chief executive Rick Wagoner has been ordered to resign by US president Barack Obama with immediate effect. It's part of Obama's administration's critique of GM and Chrysler's turnaround plans – he's understood to be unhappy with the plans submitted (BBC News)• New GM non-executive chairman Kent Kresa has admitted that at the company's next general meeting it will have 'a majority of new directors' (General Motors)• Chrysler will receive US government aid for the next 30 days, but the Obama administration has said that if the company cannot secure a tie-up with the Fiat Group within that time period it will not receive any more money from the taxpayers and could go into liquidation.

Volvo V40 & V40 Cross Country: 2014 updates announced

Volvo are updating the new V40 for 2014 with new engine and gearbox options and a new 4WD option for the V40 Cross Country in Europe. There’s a new petrol engine choice – to go with the existing T3, T4 and T5 – in the 120PS T2 petrol engine, a 1.6 litre which offers 53.3mpg and emissions of 124g/km, a good choice if you don’t like to hustle, don’t do big mileage and pay your own bills. As well as a new engine option, Volvo are offering an auto option on the V40 D2 and V40 R-Design D2 which manages economy of 68.9mpg and emissions of 102g/km.

Citroen DS Revival – update

We brought you news a few days ago of Citroen’s announcement that they are going to revive the Citroen DS, and launch the first model at the Geneva Motor Show next month. Citroen's DS Inside Concept to show at Geneva Old cynics that we are, we reckoned that this would be nothing more than a bit of badge engineering – Citroen’s ‘Ford Ghia’ moment. And to be honest, the release of the picture you see here, which is Citroen’s DS Inside Concept, and the basis for the first of the ‘DS’ cars, the DS3, hasn’t really changed our minds much.