
It’s depressing to be reminded all over again today of the sad and shabby history of MG-Rover. Much more sad is that it looks dangerously likely that history might repeat itself with Vauxhall-Opel.

It’s depressing to be reminded all over again today of the sad and shabby history of MG-Rover. Much more sad is that it looks dangerously likely that history might repeat itself with Vauxhall-Opel.

Until this morning I couldn’t reliably spell Koenigsegg. It was a little company of fewer than 50 employees making fewer than 20 cars a year. Now it has effectively taken over Saab.

This economic chokehold on the motoring industry is squeezing air out of everyone, but it’s doing us a great service at the same time. It’s culling the weak. Separating the wheat from the chaff.

Well, Foreman called it wrong. I thought Fiat would get control of Vauxhall and Opel, but the giant Canadian car-components-maker Magna won. I was looking at it from an automotive point of view, and the result was skewed by politics.

The band is about to stop in the big game of Manufacturer Musical Chairs, and Fiat – having already snapped up Chrysler – looks set to get its hands on GM Europe too.

President Barack Obama has showed his teeth. He’s told the boss of GM to resign. Presumably he wouldn’t have done that unless he was about to give GM the billions in loans the company is asking for. The president needed to get some collateral, didn’t he?

Top politicians are lining up to proclaim that Vauxhall/Opel isn’t worth saving. Which is mortally wounding for the company because without billions of cash from European governments, it will go bankrupt within weeks.

Fritz Henderson, GM’s Chief Operating Officer, has announced plans to split Opel and Vauxhall into a separate division that can then be opened up for outside investment. GM has also announced that it is looking for £2.9 billion in state aid from countries across Europe to keep the various operations afloat, or risk losing some [...]
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