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Crunch watch Dec 08: the auto industry in crisis

By Tim Pollard and Simon Stiel Motor Industry 31 December 2008 14:05 Wednesday 31 December 2008• GMAC, GM's finance arm, said it would immediately revise its criteria for providing loans, after the US government bail-out of the General's credit arm. It will now supply credit for anyone with a score of 621 or more on the Fico scale, the scale used to assess Amercian customers' creditworthiness (Financial Times)• The news means that 80% of US consumers would now qualify for a loan from GMAC – which should improve sales in the depressed US market (Detroit News)• Chrysler is being lambasted for taking out full-page adverts in the American national press thanking the nation for supporting its auto industry. But critics point out this is a fresh waste of bail-out resources, as pages in the Wall Street Journal – one of the titles in which the ad ran – reportedly cost up to $264,000.

Infiniti Q50 Eau Rouge would get over 500bhp

Infiniti Q50 Eau Rouge would get over 500bhp The Infiniti Q50 Eau Rouge Concept was actually revealed in photos by Infiniti 10 days ago, but now it’s had a proper Detroit reveal and, although just a concept, it offers promise. Yes, the Q50 Eau Rouge is about Infiniti cashing some of the kudos they get from sponsoring Red Bull, so we get lots about the Q50 being inspired by F1, F 1 flappy paddles, F1 aerodynamics… But the fact is that the Q50 Eau Rouge does look promising and Infiniti has made a decent fist of adding go faster bits and bobs – including carbon fibre, inside and out – without making the Q50 look silly. But what’s most interesting is that the Q50 Eau Rouge perhaps has the potential to tackle cars like the Mercedes E63 and the BMW M5 if, and it’s still an if, it goes in to production.

JLR to build Range Rover Evoque & Jaguar XJ in India

The 2014 Range Rover Evoque (pictured) joins the Jaguar XJ as new Indian-built cars Jaguar Land Rover already bolt together the Land Rover Freelander and Jaguar XF in India, which explains why they are the best-selling models in JLR’s range in India. That’s because import duties for cars in India can be as much as 170 per cent, so building cars locally make them much more competitively priced. At the Delhi Auto Expo Ralph Speth, JLR’s CEO, confirmed plans to start building the Jaguar XJ in India (including the XJ with the 2.0 litre EcoBoost engine), despite the complexity of producing as complex a car as the XJ outside the UK.