Comments on: Vauxhall/Opel/Saab: the die is nearly cast

By: Joe King

Joe King — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:49:27 +0000

Not exactly on the subject but still topical. I see that UK’s most unreliable make Porsche.
http://www.reliabilityind ex.co.uk/man_index_2.html ?apc=3128339010848601&se archtype=relindex#
Now have big financial problems.
http://www.carguideweb.co m/articles/4503/

By: Lloydy

Lloydy — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:20:41 +0000

I like the fiat VXR picture haha. Now draw it with bits falling off it, might look italian then.

Vauxhall should be british owned or vauxhall/opel german owned. I like the second one, but the prices of vauxhalls would shoot up. But vauxhall UK sounds good, then we’d get ourselves out of this economy, and have some nice shiny new vauxhalls. just one rule though if this happened. NO CHAVY UPGRADES MOTORWORLD!!!

By: KarMa

KarMa — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:12:49 +0000

Dave, take care that Magna is indeed insolvent, but they seem to be in a privileged position in getting prime materials from Russian mines, which is most probably why banks don’t complain about that too much.

By: KarMa

KarMa — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:53:44 +0000

Fiat definitely needs to restore Left-hand drive cars again… it will probably be “expensive ones in the UK, cheapos in India”.

Please do consider that FIAT makes no mistery in willing to reduce the Italian production, since Central European working rights are considered something too much to cope with, considering that most Italian FIAT factories, are ageing and it would cost too much to make them “politically correct for 21st century standards”.

…Plus Italians tend to be either “homey” people or “not homey a tiny bit”, without grey areas in the middle, and Italy still is the European Country overcrowded and overbuilt the most.

By: Dave In Aus

Dave In Aus — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:41:38 +0000

So the Russians are buying GM Europe! As they are incapable of making a quality product, I forsee Fiat eventually owning Opel/Vauxhall,as Magna is itself insolvent, and cannot rely on state aid forever. Sooner or later all car companies will have to start making cars that people want, not what thay think they can sell.

By: Joe King

Joe King — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:23:51 +0000

Fiat says the combined entity will need funding of about 7 billion euros over the next two years, assuming no cash or financial debt contributions from Fiat or GM. The plan will mean finding “another production mission within Fiat Group” for its Termini Imerese plant, and “another mission” for the Luton plant in the UK.
From the Fiat statement above, you can see that Fiat had plans for the Luton plant.

Remember Fiat already has offices in Luton. Where they supply car manufacturing plant Inc robots etc to other car manufactures. Inc Ford, Nissan and Mini. Luton already has a large Italian population and a great tradition of working hard and building up Britain. As they did in the Brick factories in Bedford after the Second World War.

By: KarMa

KarMa — Sat, 30 May 2009 14:25:54 +0000

Yep, that hits the point.
There’re quite some good sources of information on Magna’s Russian capital part (also the Financial Times is quite clear on the subject). Enfavouring Magna is something “weird”, understandable only taking into consideration the direct control of prime materials, aka mines, but closing both eyes on HOW it happened, which is something west european politicians usually justify with the usual “Aw, c’mon, you couldn’t legally be rich in the Soviet Union”… which is true, but, even skipping the ethical part of the game, it doesn’t mean “stable” a tiny bit.

By: Joe King

Joe King — Fri, 29 May 2009 18:43:20 +0000

Read this warning

http://en.rian.ru/russia/ 20090316/120584232.html

By: KarMa

KarMa — Fri, 29 May 2009 18:02:00 +0000

Update:

…it seems they did prefer Magna, and therefore Russian and Canadian capital instead of EU-Italian-USA money. Good luck, then, and so long for “German political coherence” about the EU, which they tend to rule when the topic is industry.
It might be the “right” move, and it does mean a step forward integration of Russian capital in the EU, but it is neither a liberal or a UE-based one.

By: KarMa

KarMa — Wed, 27 May 2009 21:08:51 +0000

Being Magna the company that makes jeeps and chryslers for Europe, plus the (quite dreadful) BMW X3, I don’t see the point.
It is quite bad that these decisions have to be taken right before the European elections, even if the German government usually doesn’t cause big crashes just to be popular and “saving the egg today and who cares about the dead chicken tomorrow”… this is usually the Italian liberals’style of presenting themselves to the elections: “woo-hoo it’s a great victory, we kept Alitalia at home and didn’t cut” -one month later- “whoops, we have to give it away for free, it’s your fault, it’s the fault of evil communistic trade unionists and you evil communistic citizens didn’t spend enough in tickets as well, we tried”.

Let’s hope that Angela doesn’t copy B-style.