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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.

VW Touran Facelift (2010) announced

The 2010 VW Touran Facelift The Leipzig Motor Show starts this weekend, and we already know that a number of German car makers are going to debut new models. BMW are showing the new 5 Series Touring and Audi are going to show of the facelifted TT. And now we know that Volkswagen are going to treat us to a facelifted version of its people-carrying box with windows – the VW Touran.

Fiat 500byGucci. Yep, another ‘Special’ Fiat 500

Fiat 500byGucci - legs by Natasha Poly Somewhere along the way both Fiat and MINI decided that the ultimate marketing tool for their trendy, retro-inspired superminis was an endless stream of variations and special editions. And it’s worked. So it’s no surprise then that we’ve got another new Fiat 500 to add to the list of special edition Fiat 500s, this time it’s linking to an iconic design brand with the Fiat 500byGucci (and that’s Fiat’s joined-up ’500 by Gucci’, not our fat fingers on the keyboard).