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Ford, Hyundai, Toyota lead industry to 15 percent gain

Ford, Toyota, Subaru and Hyundai Group spurred a year-end U.S. sales rally that took some sting out of a painful year. Overall, December sales of 1,030,096 light vehicles rose 15 percent from December 2008, when the credit crisis and a deepening recession dragged industry demand to 27-year lows.

BMW M3 set to compete in DTM from 2012

It might have pulled out of F1, but the upshot is that BMW has announced plans to enter the German Touring Car Championship (DTM) in 2012 with the M3, plus it’s developing a new racer and 1.6-litre turbocharged engine, and will continue its other production car-based racing activities. ‘Following the withdrawal from Formula One, the realignment of our motorsport programme is raising our presence in production car racing to a whole new level,’ said BMW board member Dr. Klaus Draeger.

Hyundai move from Baboons to Kids to test quality

Hyundai let a troop of 4 & 5 year olds loose on an i30 to test quality Last year, Hyundai let a troop of 40 safari park baboons loose on an i30 to see if, left to their own devices, they could trash Hyundai’s very well bolted together (just ask Martin Winterkorn) i30. It was a clever way to demonstrate that the i30 doesn’t just look good, but is made of a bit more than recycled baked bean cans and Fairy liquid bottles. The i30 came through the baboon test with flying colours (even the company tasked with cleaning it up after the baboons commented on the story that they were impressed by how unscathed the i30 was), but Hyundai has now come up with a quality test that makes the baboon adventure look like a walk in the (safari) park.