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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.

Keep Cruisin', Marv Spector

For the last 30 years or so, you could belly up to the service counter at Specter Off Road in scorching Chatsworth, Calif., deep in the Valley, underneath the red-and-white arrow that stretches the length of the squat stucco building. You'd first have to stroll past the long and dark row of dizzying Toyota Land Cruisers -- Japanese fire trucks, FJ60s with roof-mounted machine guns and a propane-powered 1973 Baja 1000 champion. Past the glass cases of old photos and model kits and RC cars from Japan.

Saab gets approval for voluntary reorganization on appeal

...and Victor Muller smiles Victor Muller never says die, and the news that Saab has, after all, been granted the right to court protection from its creditors for a period of reorganisation has vindicated his stubborn refusal to give up on Saab. The Court of Appeal in Gothenburg has this morning overturned an earlier judgement by the District Court in Vänersborg which rejected Saab’s application to get the court’s protection during a period of ‘reorganisation’, which you can read as ‘Waiting for the dosh to arrive from China’. The news last week that Rachel Pang – a director of Pang Da, one of Saab’s putative investors – has come out in a very bullish way about the prospects for the investment by Pang Da and Youngman getting the final rubber stamp from China’s NDRC in Beijing won’t have harmed Saab’s case one bit.