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Ford-designed Santa’s sleigh

By Tim Pollard First Official Pictures 17 December 2008 14:30 Blue Oval designers at Dunton in Essex, UK, penned this trio of Ford-inspired sleighs to help fashion Santa’s just-in-time delivery system. It’s a job they’re familiar with, working on successive series of Transit vans in the past – and they’ve put their practical skills to good use on their Ford sleighs. These sledges are seen through the prism of Ford’s latest ‘kinetic design’ mantra.

£10 million cash boost for Lotus

Business secretary Vince Cable has visited Lotus’ Norfolk headquarters today, where he announced the company would be awarded £10.44 million from the Regional Growth Fund. The money will be used for research and development of products, as well as staff training. The sports car company expects to create 313 full time jobs to support production over the coming years.

Crunch watch Jan 09: the auto industry in crisis

By Tim Pollard, Ben Pulman and Gareth Evans Motor Industry 30 January 2009 12:39 Friday 30 January 2009• Honda is about to close the Swindon factory for four months when Friday's shifts are finished; the shutdown will affect 2500 of the 3700 staff, who will receive full pay for two months and then 60% pay for the next eight weeks (BBC News)• Porsche has announced a sharp drop in sales and likely profits. It forecasts a 27% drop in 911, Boxster, Cayman and Cayenne sales to around 34,000 units in the six months to the end of January 2009 (Financial Times, subscription required)• Ford wants Washington to do more to stimulate car sales, after posting a record loss of nearly $14.6 billion earlier this week (Detroit News)• Honda's quarterly profit has crashed by 90% – forcing the Japanese car maker to halve its annual profit target (Detroit Free Press)Thursday 29 January 2009• Ford of Europe is a bright spot in the Blue Oval's quarterly results today, making $1.06 billion pre-tax profit in 2008 (up from $997m in 2007). It's the first profit of more than $1bn since 1989 (Automotive News Europe, subscription required)• Volvo suffered a 'disastrous 2008' with a pre-tax loss of $1.46bn.