BMW's most senior executive in Britain has launched a savage attack on the 4 men who took over MG Rover, describing their actions as "the unacceptable face of capitalism"., Jim O'Donnell, managing director of BMW GB, said their actions had been "a disgrace" and that BMW now felt "let down" by them. BMW sold MG and Rover for just £10 in May 2000, and provided a £427m loan. Since then, they have set up a £16.5m pension fund for themselves.

Chery, one of China's most aggressive new carmakers, plans to build a factory in Eastern Europe within 5 years as it accelerates its expansion abroad. The wants to construct assembly plants in Pakistan, Egypt, Venezuela and Syria, and is in "advanced negotiations" with several eastern European countries. It also wants to enter North America. Chery is already poised to start production at a factory in Iran and will build its QQ mini-car with a local partner in Malaysia.

Chrysler™s 300 sedan has been named by US magazine Motor Trend as its 2005 car of the year. The magazine praised the car as a "compelling combination of power, responsiveness, room and refinement". Motor Trend™s staff tested 24 new vehicles to find what it called the automobile that best represented exceptional value, superiority in its class, and the most significant development on the new car scene.

DaimlerChrysler will introduce its first diesel truck with a new catalytic converter designed to use urea to clean nitrogen oxides from exhaust emissions in early 2005. Urea, which is currently a bulk fertilizer can be used to help clean exhaust fumes. For fertilizer producers the new automotive application of urea could be a boon, creating an additional market, though truck makers will need a cleaner, industrial grade than what is spread on fields.

Fiat plans to buy back automotive electronic components maker Magneti Marelli after selling it off last year. The European Union Commission approves and says both companies are active in different product markets and Magneti already is Fiat's main supplier of electronic components such as speedometers and navigation systems.

Jaguar™s F1 team has been bought by Austrian soft drinks firm Red Bull which is owned by billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz. Red Bull has been involved with motorsport for more than a decade and owned a majority stake in the Sauber team until 2002. It will use Cosworth engines in 2005 and Ford has now sold Cosworth to Kevin Kalkhoven and Gerald Forsythe, the co-owners of the U.S. based Champ Car Series.

Jaguar will not break even until 2007 despite job cuts, and losses could run into "hundreds of millions" of pounds this year. "There is no quick fix. It will take two or three years to stabilize this business," Jaguar Chief Executive Joe Greenwell told reporters recently. Jaguar will make fewer cars in the future and will focus on improving quality and profitability, he said. Ford announced plans in September to cut 1,150 Jaguar jobs as it scales back production at its Browns Lane plant in central England.

Honda™s Legend, its newest luxury sedan, has received the Japanese auto industry's Car of the Year award for 2004-2005. The Legend also picked up the Most Advanced Technology Award for its high-tech features including the Super Handling All-Wheel-Drive system, which Honda has said was the world's first to distribute torque between the left and right wheels to boost traction on slippery surfaces. Volkswagen™s Golf was named Import Car of the Year.

Honda has taken a 45 % stake in the British American Racing Formula 1 team for what has been described as "a substantial sum". The British American Tobacco-controlled team employs Jenson Button, the racing driver. David Richards, the Prodrive engineering group chairman who has overseen BAR's rise this year, will step aside, and Prodrive's contract with BAR to develop the team, is being terminated a year early.

Lotus, the legendary sports car company, is axing up to 350 jobs at its headquarters near Norwich UK despite nudging into the black last year. The company, which is 100pc-owned by Proton in Malaysia, said the cuts were necessary after losing a major consulting project and completing an existing work programme. Lotus makes its Elise and Exige models at its base at Hethel, which has been Lotus's HQ since 1966 and employs 1,500 staff.

MG Rover is set to be rescued with the help of more than £1bn of Chinese cash. An agreement with the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) is expected in January and will mean that control of the Longbridge-based motor manufacturer will pass out of British hands. A new joint-venture company will design, develop and produce cars. It will be 70 % owned by the Chinese and 30 % by MG Rover.

Nissan Diesel, the Japanese truck maker has reported a 9 % jump in half-year operating profit, and it expected to reward its shareholders with a dividend for the first time in five years. Thanks to a 32 % jump in overseas sales, Nissan Diesel, owned 24 % by Nissan Motor Co. and 18 % by Renault SA, said operating profit reached a record $182.3 million in the six 6 months to Sept. 30. Revenue inched up 0.3 % thanks to a surging demand for its trucks in South Africa, Indonesia, Malaysia and other markets which made up for a sales fall in Japan, China and Thailand.

Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp (SAIG), China™s largest carmaker, is to buy Ssangyong Motor, South Korea™s fourth largest carmaker, for about $500m. The deal will be the first Chinese acquisition of a foreign car group and likely to help the state-owned Chinese company advance its technology while giving Ssangyong a foothold in China.

Spyker, a luxury sports car maker from the Netherlands, has launched a challenger to Ferrari. The £150,000 Spyker C8 is a 200mph, mid-engined, two-seater built by a company whose name predates the first world war as a car maker - and briefly built fighter aircraft - before ceasing trading in 1925. The company was revived 4 years ago by Victor Muller, a Dutch lawyer and entrepreneur and now has a workforce of 60 with an expected output of 35 cars this year.

Toyota has raised its global production target for 2006 to around 8.4 million vehicles, a goal that could put it ahead of GM as the world's largest automaker on a unit basis. Toyota, which had previously set a goal of making 7.6 million units in 2008, accelerated its production plans, following improved sales of the Corolla and other popular models in America and Asia.

Toyota™s Prius has been awarded the European 'Car of The Year 2005'. The Prius is the cleanest family car with emissions of just 104g/km; it combines a 1.5-litre petrol engine with a powerful electric motor. At speeds of up to 30mph the Prius can run on its electric motor alone making it a zero emissions vehicle in city traffic and when stationary. The COTY Jury is made up of 58 senior journalists from 22 countries. They voted as follows: Toyota Prius (406 votes) , Citroen C4 (267), Ford Focus (228), Vauxhall Astra (180), Renault Modus (151), Peugeot 407 (135) and the BMW 1-series (83).

Visteon has offered buyouts to its 8,300 U.S. salaried workers, part of an ongoing effort to trim costs at the struggling company. The buyouts, or voluntary termination incentive program, offer lump-sum payments in exchange for a worker's voluntary termination. The payments will equal 1.5 weeks of the worker's base salary for every year of employment. The minimum is 12 weeks of salary and the maximum is 52 weeks.

VW and Proton have signed a partnership to assemble VW vehicles in Malaysia for sale in Southeast Asia. Europe's largest carmaker said it would not take an equity stake in Proton as part of the deal, which envisions launching the first locally assembled VW models in Malaysia by the end of 2005 and generating sales of over 15,000 units in 2006. VW says the auto market in the ASEAN trade region should grow by 67 %, or 1 million units, to 2.4 million vehicles sold annually by 2015.

VW has further scaled back its investment plans amid a continued slump in the automotive industry. VW will invest $20.96 billion in 2005 and 2006, a reduction compared with the previous planning round. It said 11.8 billion of this will go to VW's core automotive division, a drop of 6 %. Investments at its Chinese joint ventures, which aren't included in these figures, will total 2.1 billion euros during the next two years, 22 % less than corresponding figures of the previous planning round.

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

A man in Northern Ireland was arrested for having an out of date tax disc on his car. He had parked his car next to a police car in a Belfast shopping centre.

Hundreds of drivers in France have been sent speeding tickets by a new speed trap in Sarthe for doing 70km/h in a 90 km/h speed zone. Refunds are now being made.

A sales promotion at a car dealer in Sydney, Australia turned into a riot when 3000 people tried to buy 250-plus cars from as little as £50 each. Police intervened when customers started fighting.

Opera singer Marcus Zaporelli paid an £85 Milan parking fine with a cheque written on a wooden toilet seat. œI showed the authorities exactly what I thought of their ticket,� he explained.

A thief was arrested in Tokyo after asking 2 passers-by to help him push start a car he joked was stolen. The pair turned out to be off-duty policemen.

Cricket player Charles Croswell hit a huge ˜six™ during a match at Geelong, Australia “ and the ball smashed the windscreen of his own BMW in the car park on the edge of the boundary.

A computer error at the UK car insurance company Elephant.co.uk resulted in Justin Ugle, 20, of Hook in Hampshire, being sent 275 reminders to set up a direct debit to pay for his policy.

Thieves in Buenos Aires, Argentina who stole a truck from outside a meat factory, got a shock when they discovered 34 human corpses inside which were destined for experiments at a medical college.

The busiest spot on the world™s most congested road has been identified as California™s East Los Angeles interchange. A mind- boggling 387 vehicles pass this spot every minute.

A dog drove a car though its owner™s vegetable patch in Wellington, New Zealand. Larry the Jack Russell knocked the automatic car into drive after Robert Hill had left the engine running.