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Chrysler has reportedly stopped production of the 1.4-liter engine that powers the Fiat 500 until demand catches supply. As a result, it has had to lay offsome employees that build engines. United Auto Workers’ local representative says Chrysler has let go nearly 100 employees. Fiat has only sold 16,000 500s in the US. This is sad news to those of us at CarLoves.com since we are unashamedly fans of the little Italian car. But frankly, given the poor performance of Chrysler’s Fiat Studio roll out, we’re not surprised. Only recently could you even buy a Fiat 500 in Las Vegas...

Ah, back when GM ruled... As a car-crazy American kid in the late 70s, only GM cars were cool to me, except Mustang or a 'Cuda maybe. I myself had a  '75 Camaro and then a couple Firebirds, and when I was in high school, if your dad drove a new Olds Cutlass Supreme (America's best-selling car at the time) or Pontiac Grand Am/ Grand Prix, that meant you had sporty style and class- very cool. We simply weren't into imports, and Ford and Chrysler did not have fresh designs on the same level as GM in my mind... more...

Bookings for U.S.-made products designed to last at least three years fell by 0.8% last month, the Commerce Department said. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected a 1.0% decrease. Transportation orders slumped 7.5% to account for virtually the entire decline... ...Excluding transportation, however, orders climbed 1.7% in September. Demand increased for computers, primary metals, fabricated metals, heavy machinery and electrical equipment.

Asian brands continue to dominate Consumer Reports' 2011 Annual Auto Survey, sweeping the top nine spots. Toyota's American brand Scion leads the pack, followed by Lexus, Acura, Mazda, Honda, and Toyota. The brands scored strong on predicted reliability tests. Of the 91 Japanese models for which Consumer Reports has sufficient data, 87 (96 percent) were rated average or better. 24 Japanese models earned the highest rating.

...Retail sales rose a seasonally adjusted 1.1% last month, the Commerce Department said. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch expected an increase of 0.8%... Excluding the auto sector, sales rose 0.6%, but that was still higher than market expectations of a 0.4% increase...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC managed to shrug off an ornery Mother Nature, some wild stock-market fluctuations and a stubborn economy to report Thursday double-digit percentage gains in U.S. sales for August. That wasn’t the case for the leading Japanese manufacturers. Toyota Motor Corp. /quotes/zigman/199376/quotes/nls/tm TM -0.95% fell behind Chrysler by just a few hundred cars and Honda Motor Co. /quotes/zigman/193599/quotes/nls/hmc HMC +0.96% saw its sales slip by more than 20% for the fourth consecutive month. GM /quotes/zigman/1466682/quotes/nls/gm GM -4.22% said it sold 218,479 cars and trucks in August, an 18%...

Criminals seem to have a thing for big vehicles. The Cadillac Escalade remains the car most likely to be stolen, according to new data from the Highway Loss Data Institute. This is the fourth year in a row the Escalade has topped this list. The rankings for most stolen cars are based on auto insurance claims data from 2008 and 2009.

Obama to automakers: ‘You can’t just make money on SUVs and trucks’ By Andrew Restuccia - 08/15/11 02:37 PM ET The country’s automakers should ditch their focus on SUVs and trucks in favor of smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles, President Obama said Monday. “You can’t just make money on SUVs and trucks,” Obama said during a town hall forum in Cannon Falls, Minn. “There is a place for SUVs and trucks, but as gas prices keep on going up, you have got to understand the market. People are going to try to save money.” Obama has positioned the revival and reshaping...

Automakers are pushing back against an Obama administration proposal that would almost double vehicle fuel-efficiency standards, launching a new ad campaign warning of hundreds of thousands of job losses across the country. The White House has long been negotiating with automakers and environmentalists over the enormous increase in fuel efficiency standards. But the automakers, who say the standards would stagger the auto industry, appear to be losing faith in the possibility of a compromise. President Obama was hoping to get automakers to sign off on a nearly 100 percent increase in mileage standards by 2025, aiming for another Rose Garden...

...Quality Planning’s Top Ten Most Ticketed Cars Mercedes-Benz SL-Class Convertible Toyota Camry-Solara Coupe Scion tC Coupe Hummer H2/H3 SUV Scion XB Hatchback Mercedes-Benz CLS-63 AMG Sedan Acura Integra Coupe Pontiac Grand Prix Sedan Mercedes-Benz CLK 63 AMG Sedan Volkswagen GTI Hatchback

Nearly a month after suspending almost all production at its assembly plant Trollhaettan, Sweden, because it couldn't pay suppliers for parts, Spyker Cars NV's Saab Automobile is scrambling to finalize a plan to further finance operations before the unit collapses. Any deal now constructed to save Saab automobile production will involve an intricate web of international players that stretches from Russia to the U.S. Russian banker and investor Vladimir Antonov has tried for weeks to initiate an investment that might steady the cash-strapped Saab – Antonov already has in place a deal to purchase the portion of Spyker Cars' business...

While officially nonpartisan, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) occasionally lends its credibility to the most fashionable theories emanating from the left. The agency’s green eyeshades issued a report Wednesday that perpetuates one of Washington’s biggest lies: that drivers don’t pay enough in taxes. Bureaucrats and rent-seeking corporate allies have teamed up to advocate a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. They want continuous tracking of everyone’s driving so that every mile can be taxed. The claim is that driver’s aren’t paying their fair share because the $35 billion collected in federal gasoline taxes doesn’t cover highway spending. Never mind...

Excerpt only website: The government is taking over three Tylenol plants following a blizzard of drug recalls and a Food and Drug Administration criminal investigation into safety issues at the factories. The FDA and the Justice Department on Thursday took action against McNeil PPC and two of its executives -- its vice president of quality and its vice president of operations for over-the-counter products -- for failing to comply with federally-mandated manufacturing practice. McNeil, a division of Johnson & Johnson (JNJ, Fortune 500), said it had agreed to put its plants -- one in Las Piedras, Puerto Rico, one in...

The share of Americans planning to buy an auto in the next six months rose to 13.2% this month, easily the highest reading since the Conference Board began tracking this measure in 1978. Auto sales for GM(GM), Ford (F) and others have been hot in recent months. Auto loan credit approvals for first-time buyers have risen for the first time since the start of the recession, climbing 4.5% since October, LeaseTrader.com said.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Few people in this city 800 miles south of Detroit cared much about the auto industry until Hyundai announced it would build cars here nine years ago. These days, Montgomery cannot stop talking about it. Hyundai and its sister company, Kia, which opened a plant last year just across the Georgia state line, have brought thousands of well-paying jobs to the region and even helped nurture a little Korean culture in Montgomery, the first capital of the old Confederacy. Hyundai is running its Montgomery plant almost nonstop. Rarely do more than a few weeks pass without word...

What's better than morning coffee...? Try an adrenaline rush... now available online lol- Here's a cool Shell commercial produced for the European market: ostensibly the Ferrari F1 racing team sponsor is selling gasoline here, but the historic Ferrari racing cars steal the show... Scuderia Ferrari actually pulled several near-priceless Formula One veterans out of storage and flew them around the world to film them running hard through the streets of Rome , Rio , New York , Hong Kong and Monaco.  And there are no special effects or dubbed sound here, just original 14,000+rpm cars tearing up the streets... as the genuine...

The new Mini Cooper Countryman can get 63 MPGs on the highway – just not on our highways. Like so many other high-mileage, diesel-powered vehicles, it’s not available in the United States. Instead we get gas-electric turkeys like the Toyota Prius hybrid – which maxes out at 48 MPGs on the highway. If you drive it at around 47 MPH in the left lane with your turn signal blinking… .

  The New York Times reports that the auto industry "overhaul" (AKA General Motors' bankruptcy) is about to "pay off handsomely" for UAW workers at GM. GM, along with Ford, is expected to announce profit-sharing checks for hourly workers this month. UAW president, Bob King, states that workers expect to get a piece of GM's profits. There was a time when publicly traded companies were expected to deliver profits to shareholders in the form of dividends or increased share price. This model seems to have been subordinated at General Motors where the desires of politically favored union members seem...

MOSCOW (AFP) – The Russian government on Tuesday approved a plan to build a highway through a forest outside Moscow, in defiance of protests that had become a rare rallying cause for the opposition. Demonstrations against the building of the new highway between Moscow and Saint Petersburg through Khimki forest had prompted President Dmitry Medvedev to postpone the project, in a rare nod by the state to popular pressure. But Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said the government commission tasked with investigating the project had after all given its green light to the plan. The commission approved the building of...

On our brand new 2011 Jetta, we just discovered a flaw,imo, no parking lights, only day-time FRONT lights (no lights rear of car). I was thinking that could be dangerous, because many people count on parking lights in the early dusk, and might think the day-time lights also have lights in the rear. Some people also count on parking lights (with rear lighting) if they pull over to the side of the road, say with car trouble, and choose parking lights, rather than the hazard lights. We thoroughly read the part on lights, so it won't be a problem for...