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Bernie Ecclestone wants Saab – Spyker make new bid

Bernie Ecclestone is behind the Genii bid for Saab I think if we tried really hard we could be doing at least one story a day on the saga that is the sale of Saab by GM. There’s no point re-hashing the history – if you read here regularly you’ll have had your fill of the story that’s more like a Soap Opera than a business deal, but if you want all the back stories just look under Saab. But now – at the 11th hour – we have two new bits to add to the story.

U.S. new car sales surge at fastest pace in nearly 7 years

U.S. sales of cars and light trucks surged 9 percent in November 1.24 million units and rolled off dealership lots at the fastest pace in almost seven years. The industry's annualized sales rate, adjusted for seasonal factors, rose to 16.4 million last month, up from 15.3 million a year earlier and easily topping analysts' forecasts in the 15.8 million range.

2014 Subaru XV – less choice, more refinement

The 2014 Subaru XV (pictured) gets a bit of a tweak The Subaru XV arrived in the UK in 2012, and it’s a perfectly able and reasonably-priced compact crossover from Subaru. But within a year of launching the XV Subaru decided to inject a bit more appeal in to the XV with a price cut of £2,300 across the range and now, not more than six months later, they’re fiddling with the XV range again. The 2.0 litre petrol XV gets new valve-train components to cut engine noise and revised suspension, with extra soundproofing improving NVH levels across the range, a revised power steering system for added stability and feel  and thicker and reshaped suspension lower arm and extra reinforcement around the base of the A-Pillar for better crash performance.