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Saab reportedly bought by Chinese-led consortium

A Chinese-controlled consortium has completed a deal to buy the assets of bankrupt Swedish carmaker Saab, media reports said. National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) will pay 1.5 billion to 1.8 billion kronor ($210 million to $250 million) for Saab, excluding spare parts company Saab Automobile Parts AB, according to reports in Sweden. NEVS did not confirm the reports.

Lamborghini Brand and Design Director steps down

According to well-placed sources within the automotive design community, Car Design News has learned that Manfred Fitzgerald, Brand and Design Director at Lamborghini, has been asked to leave the company. It is presumed his role with the company's design aspects will likely be absorbed by current Audi Group Head of Design Wolfgang Egger. Fitzgerald had been working at Lamborghini since 1999, shortly after the sports car maker was bought by parent company Volkswagen through Audi AG.

Forecasters see slow auto-sales recovery through 2011

U.S. auto sales in 2010 and 2011 will continue to crawl -- not walk or run -- out of last year's recession, according to forecasters at the Auto Industry Hot Topics Conference here. “It's going to be a long crawl out of this, but we're crawling in the right direction,” said David Wyss, chief economist for Standard & Poor's, which co-sponsored the conference along with J.D.