Subaru Pleo 1999 Left Side Mirror Assembly [8613600] on 2040-parts.com

Saab fans gather outside GM headquarters

The 60-plus-year history of Saab may come to an inglorious end in the next few days if General Motors and Dutch supercar maker Spyker--or perhaps a dark-horse bidder--fail to reach an agreement to save the iconic Swedish maker of premium cars. But the potential death of yet another GM brand raised some voices of dissension--and passion--as a crowd of about 30 Saab enthusiasts braved temperatures in the 20s and snow flurries to show their support for Saab at a gathering near GM's global headquarters in downtown Detroit. The event was organized by the Ryan Emge, editor of a Saab.History.com, and was part car show, part rally and part family gathering.

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.

Ford Fiesta Sport+ launched

Ford is launching the Ford Fiesta Sport+ Now the latest Ford Fiesta has matured nicely in to the market, Ford are busy tweaking what the Fiesta has to offer in response to feedback from sales in the first year (over 350k sold). We had a revision of the Fiesta range back in October (models tweaked and a new top-end Fiesta Individual revealed) and before that we had the Fiesta Sport, an all show and no go version. But now we get the Ford Fiesta Sport+ if you want your Fiesta to look ‘Sporty+’.