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News watch August 2010: today's industry news

Welcome to CAR Magazine's news aggregator as we round up the daily stories in the auto industry. Top tip: news summaries are added from the top hour-by-hourTuesday 31 August 2010• HSBC has sold its US car loan business to Spanish bank Santander, for an estimated £2.6bn in cash and assumed debt. The move sees the bank further distance itself from the collapsed US sub-prime market (Financial Times, subsription required) • Toll roads do not improve congestion, according to the Campaign For Better Transport. Its claims M6 toll road operator Midland Expressway Ltd is losing ‘tens of millions of pounds’ each year, while conditions on the original M6 have failed to improve (Campaign for Better Transport) Friday 27 August 2010• Spyker, which bought Saab earlier this year, has posted a €139m loss after tax in the first half of 2010 it announced today (Financial Times)• Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne says the business is performing strongly in the third quarter – and has ruled out selling Alfa Romeo.

Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe

By Ben Oliver Motor Shows 09 January 2007 05:53 Drophead Coupe makes waves in Detroit CAR Online brought you the first pictures of the new open-top Phantom and exclusive video footage last month, but this £260,000 monster still stole the Detroit show when Rolls-Royce chairman Ian Robertson officially unveiled it in what will be by far its biggest market. The 100EX concept on which the production car is based stole the 2004 Geneva show too, and features which we all thought would only be seen on the concept, such as the teak ‘decking’ on the hood cover and the rear-hinged suicide doors, have made it to the finished car. Production starts at Goodwood this summer.

One Lap of the Web: Mini challenges Porsche; kit cars; and brand loyalty

We spend a lot of time on the Internet -- pretty much whenever we're not driving, writing about or working on cars. Since there's more out there than we'd ever be able to cover, here's our daily digest of car stuff on the Web you may not otherwise have heard about. Mini wished the Porsche 911 a happy 50th anniversary.