Tanabe 1tr1aa005 Vsl 52mm Afr Digital Wideband Air/fuel Ratio Uego Gauge on 2040-parts.com

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.

Spied: 2014 Corvette Stingray Indy pace car

UPDATE: The Stingray has indeed been named the 2013 Indy 500 pace car; check out details and photos here We've suspected that the 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray would earn a place of honor as the pace car for the 2013 Indy 500. Now, spy photos of a safety-light-equipped C7 caught testing at the General Motors proving grounds in Milford, Mich. seem to confirm our hunch.

JCB DieselMax

Following its display at the Goodwood Festival of Speed last month, the JCB DieselMax has recently proved itself the fastest yet diesel-powered car during Speed Week at the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah. Andy Green, who in 1997 broke the sound barrier on land in Thrust SSC, piloted DieselMax to reach a top speed of 350.09mph, increasing the existing record set in 1973 by over 100mph. Helping the JCB DieselMax achieve this is a drag coefficient of just 0.174 and two 4.4-liter four-cylinder engines, each producing 750PS.