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U.S. sales of quirky 5-series GT disappoint BMW

BMW's 5-series Gran Turismo was meant to be a stylish alternative to minivans and crossovers when it debuted in November 2009. But sales of the tall, quirky five-door have been disappointing. Now, BMW of North America CEO Jim O'Donnell says he wishes the company hadn't stopped selling the 5-series wagon in the United States last year.

Mini cancels the mini Mini, aka the Rocketman

The Mini Rocketman, aka the mini Mini, has been shelved, CAR understands. BMW has recently signed off a slew of new Minis, many of which are revealed in the new February 2012 issue of CAR Magazine, but the baby Mini was not one of them. Why BMW has canned the mini Mini Mini showed the Rocketman concept as design study to show what a shrunken Mini true to the brand's core values could look like in the twenty first century.

Official: Aston Martin gets its hands on Mercedes AMG engines & Electronic Architecture

Aston Martin & AMG confirm they’re getting in bed together Back in December we reported that Aston Martin had new investment from Investindustrial and wondered if that would mean – thanks to an existing relationship between Investindustrial and AMG – if we’d see Aston Martin finally getting access to AMG’s engines and platforms. By May, things had moved on and it was clear that Aston Martin and AMG were in talks for Aston Martin to get access to their engines for the next generation of AML’s cars. Now those talks have borne fruit and AMG and AML have signed a letter of intent for Aston Martin to “access significant Mercedes-AMG GmbH and Mercedes-Benz Cars’ resources, allowing the development of bespoke V8 powertrains and the use of certain components of electric/electronic (e/e) architecture.” Interestingly, there’s no talk of V12 engines – which could mean Aston Martin are going to move from the current Ford V12 for the DB9 and Vanquish to a powerful V8 from AMG – and nor is there talk of sharing platforms.