AB Volvo will invest $42 million in a new production line at its trucks cabin factory in Umea in northeast Sweden. The investment, entailing 140 new jobs, will increase the factory's output capacity to 60,000 cabins per year from 50,000.

BMW's new Mini Cooper is the 2003 North American Car of the Year and the Volvo XC90 has become the 2003 North American Truck of the Year. The awards were announced during media previews at the Detroit auto show. The tiny 4-seat Mini Cooper, was chosen over the Nissan 350Z and the Infiniti G35. Volvo's XC90 beat the Honda Element, Hummer H2 and Nissan Murano in the truck category which also includes SUVs.

BMW has unveiled its new Rolls-Royce limousine, fitted with umbrella stands and a cigar case, the car is built at a new, dedicated car plant in the grounds of a country estate in England. The new Phantom's price tag $332,000, and its fittings, are in keeping with tradition. The 9-feet-long Phantom is at the vanguard of BMW's push into the super-luxury market, which includes motoring marques such as Rolls-Royce, Bentley and the Maybach.

Chrysler, Hyundai Motor Co. and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. will jointly manage a U.S. plant that will produce a new four-cylinder gasoline engine. The plant is one of 3 the companies plan to build as part of a joint venture announced last May. The others will be in Korea and Japan. The location of the plant will be announced within the next 3 months.

DaimlerChrysler AG has begun talks with Chinese officials to begin assembling Mercedes C-Class and E-Class luxury cars in a joint venture with a local partner. The Chinese workers would build the vehicles from kits shipped from Germany. It eventually expects to assemble 20,000 to 30,000 Mercedes cars a year in China.

DaimlerChrysler AG is in talks to manufacture the new light commercial vehicle of its German rival Volkswagen. DaimlerChrysler could assemble up to 50,000 units of Volkswagen's new LT3 vehicle per year in its plant in Ludwigsfelde, Germany. The firms agreed last year to jointly develop the next models of their light commercial vehicles, DaimlerChrysler's Sprinter model and Volkswagen's LT3 model, continuing a cooperation that started in 1996.

Delphi Corp., the world's largest automotive supplier, has added 10 money-losing U.S. plants to a business unit dedicated to fixing, selling or closing unprofitable parts of the company. The plants have 11,800 hourly and salaried workers, or about 8% of Delphi's employment, and represent between $2 bn and $3 bn a year in revenue. Starting in the first quarter of this year, Delphi will break out the results of AHG.

Fiat has sold its 6 % stake in GM for about $1.16 bn to help it meet targets agreed with its creditor banks. One source said the buyer was Merrill Lynch, which is also advising Fiat on its restructuring. The 2 carmakers said the sale would not affect an option that allows the sale of 80 % of Fiat Auto to GM. Fiat has laid off about 15,000 workers in the last 12 months, with another 2,000 to go in June when Fiat stops production of its boxy Panda car.

Fiat may receive help from the Italian Government. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi says the government could be called upon to help the troubled carmaker but would respect EU legislation if it did so. Fiat has been struggling to return its crisis-hit carmaking unit to profit and the government was involved in talks with the group and with workers' unions aimed at softening a revival plan that includes more than 8,000 layoffs.

First Automotive Works (FAW), China's largest automaker, will spend $181 mn on a plant to make diesel engines using technology from Germany's Deutz AG. The project would be owned by a subsidiary of FAW -- and aim to make 30 types of engines with annual capacity of 50,000 units by 2006. Construction of the plant in China's northeastern city of Dalian would begin next year and be completed by the end of 2005.

GM says it will offer cash rebates of up to $3,000 and no-interest loans on most of its 2003 models through Feb. 28. U.S. automakers are battling for market share with a deluge of rebates, interest-free loans and other offers. GM said its latest offer covers most 2003 Buick, Chevrolet, GMC, Oldsmobile and Pontiac models.

Honda plans to streamline its Southeast Asian production. All local production of Honda's City subcompact is expected to be centralised in Thailand by 2004, so ending assembly in Indonesia and the Philippines. As a result, output capacity at Honda's Thai plant will be raised to 120,000 vehicles a year, up from 70,000. A similar move may be considered for other models, including the Accord and the Civic.

PSA Peugeot Citroen has selected Trnava in Slovakia as the location for a new car assembly plant. . The plant will have an annual capacity of 300,000 cars and employ 3,500 people. It will manufacture small cars starting in 2006 which will be exported throughout Europe. The western Slovak city of Trnava near Bratislava was selected for its location at the heart of Europe, its access to rail lines, highways, water ways and neighboring markets, and the availability of cheap, skilled labor.

Saab, the loss-making Swedish unit of GM should focus on growth in the USA and expand its product portfolio, says GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner. "The best way to get Saab big and profitable is to grow in the U.S.," he says. "Fast growth in the United States has the highest priority. I am not saying that this would happen at the cost of Europe, but the focus must be here," he said in an interview in Detroit. He also implied that some of the forthcoming Saab models could be produced in the United States.

Telco of India has agreed to supply its home-grown Indica hatchback cars to the UK's MG Rover Group, to be sold under the Rover brand in Europe. The Tata Indica will be manufactured with MG Rover-specific modifications at TELCO's plant in Pune in western India. Telco sold 64,000 Indica cars in the year to March. It has sold over 200,000 cars since launch.

Vietnam has decided to delay the implementation of a policy under which tariffs on imported car parts would have risen sharply. The December decision would have resulted in a doubling or, in some cases, quadrupling of tariffs from January 1 on imported parts for the small but rapidly growing auto-making industry. The Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers' Association said earlier this month the tariff hike on parts would raise retail prices of cars by at least 15 % next year and by 35 % in 2004.

Volkswagen and the automotive unit of engineering and electronics giant Siemens are likely to invest $500 mn in a venture manufacturing diesel injection systems. VW and Siemens VDO are said to be planning a factory with about 600 staff in the east German town of Stollberg. The German federal state of Saxony may also support the project with up to $160 mn in subsidies.

On the lighter side .... some strange but true stories.

British television presenter Johnny Vaughan says his pet dog crashed his sports car in a bizarre accident. The bulldog nudged his $100k Maserati into gear and stepped on the accelerator -- sending it flying into a van. The crash happened after Vaughan stopped his car with the engine still running. As he got out of the car and walked round to the passenger's side, the dog leapt on the controls, causing $20k of damage.

A car dealer Way Lay Chin in Singapore, faced a massive repair bill after his wife damaged 18 cars with a sledgehammer. She mistakenly believed they belonged to his mistresses.

In France mechanics found 3 mice nesting on a car battery after owner Jules Dupier of Nice heard squeaking coming from his engine bay.

A would-be thief in Frankfurt, Germany left a note of complaint after deciding not to steal a car stereo. The note which was addressed to the owner said, 'Your radio is s***, and not worth stealing!'

A Frenchman who raced through a motorway road block, triggering a high-speed police car chase that ended in a minor crash, has blamed aliens from Mars for his reckless driving. The 42-year-old told police he was being "chased by Martians" when he charged through a road block on the A55 motorway. A breathalyser test for alcohol proved negative, but police are still awaiting the results of drugs tests and a psychiatric examination.

A drunk 55 year old New Yorker ran his car into a ditch. He clambered out of the wreck and stumbled back onto the road, only to be hit by another car driven by his drunken wife who had gone looking for him.

Police in Edwardsville, Pennsylvania were on the lookout for a stolen white Ford. They soon spotted the car in broad daylight in the middle of a shopping centre car park on the town's busy street. They arrested 2 men who were busily painting the white car black.

A bank robber in Martinsburg, West Virginia used a red Jeep Wrangler as a getaway vehicle. Police combed the area looking for the Jeep and spotted it the next day with a For Sale sign in the window. It was in the front garden of a local woman who quickly confessed to the crime.

Mrs Barbara Byrne, 60, was stopped by police while driving with a dog on her lap, 4 on the passenger seat, 22 others in the back of the car, a cigarette in one hand and a can of coke between her knees. It took 2 police cars to stop the lady as she swerved from side to side on the A1 near Cambridge, England. She said she was simply taking her pets on a 100 mile trip to Skegness so that they could walk on the beach. Mrs Byrne was banned from driving for one year.

A man who erased his drunk-driving record from a police computer and replaced it with a "smiley face" ended up with a suspended license and a fine when police failed to see the funny side. The 19-year-old computer whiz had been arrested for drunk driving and found an unmanned computer as he arrived at the police station for his hearing. He deleted his file from the computer's hard drive and inserted ";)" -- the text message shorthand for a winking smiley face -- in its place. The judge handed the man a 3-month suspended prison sentence, a $425 fine and suspended his driving licence for three months.