Honda D16 Cylinder Head on 2040-parts.com

Investor group wants to buy Saturn, sell overseas brands

An investor group called Telesto Ventures says it wants to acquire Saturn's retail operations and provide dealers with vehicles from General Motors through 2011 and mostly overseas manufacturers thereafter. A GM spokesman said today the group's proposal is legitimate and "very interesting." "I can tell you this is one of the interested parties with Saturn, and we have been working with them throughout this process," said spokesman Steve Janisse. "There are other interested parties as well who we're working with.

Porsche engineer Rolf Frech named engineering chief at Bentley

The Porsche-ization of luxury-car maker Bentley moved another step forward on Wednesday as Rolf Frech was named as its engineering chief. Frech, who has been Porsche's director of the complete vehicle engineering group for the past decade, replaces Ulrich Eichhorn, who is set to become head of the VDA, the German auto-industry association. Eichhorn, 50, joined Bentley as engineering chief in 2003 from Volkswagen, where he had been in charge of research and development.

News watch February 2012: today's auto 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-hour Wednesday 29 February 2012• Following on from yesterday's news of a cross-holding between PSA and GM, it now appears that Peugeot Citroen would offer a €1bn rights issue to create cash and strip back jobs as part of its proposed alliance with GM (Automotive News Europe)  • The Bloomberg Riskless Return Ranking, a survey of investor performance, suggests that Kia has outperformed all 22 other car makers with a risk-adjusted return of 9.2% in the past five years. Second highest was Hyundai, whose shares rose 4.8% in the same period (Bloomberg)• Fisker has a new chief executive officer, as founder Henrik Fisker moves to executive chairman. The new boss is Tom LaSorda, the former top man at Chrysler pre-bankruptcy (Fisker)Tuesday 28 February 2012• General Motors is in talks to buy a 5% to 7% stake in PSA Peugeot Citroen, according to reports by news agencies Bloomberg and Reuters.