VW to announce Italdesign takeover on Tuesday

Volkswagen will announce Tuesday that it will take a 90 percent stake in Italdesign Giugiaro S.p.A, people familiar with the matter told Automotive News Europe. The Giugiaro family will retain 10 percent in the Italian design house that is famous for styling cars such as the first-generation VW Golf. VW plans to acquire control of Italdesign to help reach its goal of becoming the world's largest automaker by 2018 with sales of 10 million vehicles a year.

‘Old Pang’ spends another €15 million at Saab

Pang Qing Hua - Pang Da boss - thinks Saab are 'Great, great, great'! The ‘Old Pang’ bit isn’t our derogatory name for the head of China’s Pang Da – who are busy getting in to bed with Saab – but is how the Beijing Times referred to Pang Da boss Pang Qing Hua on his return from Saab;  ’Old Pang Returns from Sweden’, they said. We have no idea how old Pang Qing Hua is, but he’s old enough to have amassed a few bob from owning a huge car distribution network in China, and is flush with cash from a recent floating.

Lotus Evora by Mansory (2011) at 2011 Geneva motor show

In the avalanche of hype surrounding Lotus's future ambitions, the current range of Lotus vehicles has been largely overlooked. With this in mind, Lotus has turned to an unexpected source to inject some media buzz and visual freshness into the Evora for the 2011 Geneva motor show: Mansory. Under the slogan 'Is it always wise to customise? If you must then do it with some style' Lotus has commissioned Mansory to customise the Evora – continuing the run of controversial new moves that the firm has made under CEO Dany Bahar’s leadership. Mansory has applied its well-known carbonfibre fetish to the Lotus coupe, bringing the Evora closer to the edgy styling cues of design chief Donato Coco’s next-generation Lotus concept cars.