GM to keep GMC, Pontiac, exec says

A senior General Motors executive today denied reports that President Barack Obama's automotive task force has pressured the automaker to dump GMC and Pontiac. Company sales chief Mark LaNeve also denied rumors that GM plans to terminate the franchise agreements of poorly performing dealers before June 1 to accelerate its dealership consolidation campaign. "The strategy we laid out for you [in February] is still the strategy," LaNeve, GM's vice president of vehicle sales, service and marketing, said today in an interview with Automotive News.

Ford justifies its Vignale sub-brand (video)

The Ford Mondeo Vignale (pictured). Ford’s first Vignale-badged car Earlier this month, as the Frankfurt Motor Show approached, Ford revealed that it’s going back to a sales tactic they created in the 1970s – badge-engineering their cars with a coachbuilders name to create an upmarket sub-brand. Last time Ford played this game we had almost 30 years for the Ford Ghia, a range of Ford’s mainstream models that had all the toys as standard to try and create an appealing high-end option for buyers.

Interior Motives Design Awards 2009

Tonight, amidst the turmoil of a recession-struck auto industry, innovation and optimism shone through the work of a talented young group of international student designers at the seventh annual Interior Motives Design Awards. And none more so than that of the overall winner and newly crowned Interior Motives Student Designer of the Year 2009: Philip Woodman from Coventry University. Launched in February 2009 and themed ‘Sustainable and Clever', this year's competition fielded a record number of entries from 32 different countries and culminated this evening in a glamorous awards ceremony at Frankfurt's renowned Cocoon club in Germany.