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Crunch watch Mar 09: the auto industry in crisis

By Ben Pulman and Tim Pollard Motor Industry 31 March 2009 13:48 Tuesday 31 March 2009• Porsche said that its earnings before tax rose to €7.3 billion in the six months to the end of January – including a €6.8bn windfall from its VW share options (Financial Times)• Fritz Henderson, GM's president and chief operating officer, will step up to replace Rick Wagoner, who was ousted on Sunday as CEO of General Motors (Financial Times)• President Obama is essentially CEO-in-chief of GM – despite not owning a single cent of stock, says Detroit News commentator (Detroit News)• German chancellor Angela Merkel gives assurances that any would-be investors in GM's European arm will be given state support. Opel is asking for €3.3 billion in aid – and up to 25,000 jobs in Germany depend on it, with up to 300,000 jobs across Europe including Saab and Vauxhall (BBC News)Monday 30 March 2009• General Motors' chief executive Rick Wagoner has been ordered to resign by US president Barack Obama with immediate effect. It's part of Obama's administration's critique of GM and Chrysler's turnaround plans – he's understood to be unhappy with the plans submitted (BBC News)• New GM non-executive chairman Kent Kresa has admitted that at the company's next general meeting it will have 'a majority of new directors' (General Motors)• Chrysler will receive US government aid for the next 30 days, but the Obama administration has said that if the company cannot secure a tie-up with the Fiat Group within that time period it will not receive any more money from the taxpayers and could go into liquidation.

Peugeot 2008 Crossover already selling well in UK – and half are White

More than half of UK sales of the new Peugeot 2008 (pictured) are white cars The Peugeot 2008 – the crossover/SUV take on the new 208 – arrived in production guise at the Geneva Motor Show in March and looked a properly credible effort from the beleaguered French car maker. In fact, when Peugeot announced prices for the 2008 and their UK target sales of 8,000 a year, we thought they were being conservative with their projections, especially as the 2008 starts at a very reasonable £13k. That soon proved to be right when Peugeot announced it was having to double production of the 2008 as sales were much stronger across Europe than they’d anticipated, and it seems the same is happening in the UK.

Buy a Spyker Bond and get a cheap Spyker B6 Venator

Buy a Spyker Bond and get a cheap B6 Venator (pictured) Last year, Victor Muller seemed to have pulled off something of a coup for Spyker by delivering concepts of the B6 Venator Coupe and Spyder to much acclaim, which looked like a car that could kick-start Spyker’s rather troubled business model. After a foray in to Saab ownership, Victor Muller lost Spyker to CPP, but CPP’s reliance on finance from Victor’s pal Vlad the banker proved to be CPP’s downfall and Victor emerged, somehow, back in control of Spyker. But despite Victor’s legendary ability to schmooze finance from the most unlikely sources, it seems he’s run in to a bit of trouble with financing production of the Venator, so he’s come up with a plan that looks to be a cross between a lottery and crowd funding.