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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.

Modified supercars at SEMA 2013 in pictures

The SEMA tuning and modified car show held in that centre of American excess, Las Vegas, is a melting pot for all things automotive. From trucks and busses to family saloons and hatchbacks, aftermarket tuning companies go to work making the wackiest modified versions of every type of vehicle around, showing off their wares at SEMA. Not even supercars are off limits.

Porsche 911 cabriolet: First official photographs

Porsche has developed an innovative fabric and composite-plastic folding roof for the 911 cabriolet as part of a push to give it a cleaner appearance, improved aerodynamic efficiency and greater levels of refinement than its strong-selling predecessor. Pictured here officially for the first time ahead of its world premiere in January at the Detroit auto show, the new open-top 911 is planned to go on sale in North America in 2012 in Carrera cabriolet and Carrera S models. Eschewing the traditional multilayered fabric structure of the 997 series 911 cabriolet, the next model (991 series) adopts a specially developed lightweight roof that uses two fabric-skinned composite plastic panels for the upper and rear part of the structure, giving it a more uniform shape together with a tauter fit that is claimed to make it more resistant than before to buffeting at high speeds.