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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.

U.A.S Graz-BMW partnership project

The University of Applied Sciences in Graz, Austria (U.A.S Graz) has collaborated with BMW, Munich on a project to design ‘the new SUV'. "Today's SUVs are very heavy, have an aggressive appearance and use too much fuel", says Prof. Gerhard Heufler, head of Industrial Design department at U.A.S Graz.

Ford Mustang 50th celebration gets two venues

Ford is planning for a big turnout next year, April 16-20, for the Mustang's 50th birthday party. So big, in fact, that it secured two venues on opposite sides of the country: Charlotte and Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Those venues will provide 282,000 seats for fans of the pony car, as well as a boatload of space in the infield and nearby.