1st Gear: Italian automaker Fiat agreed late Thursday to acquire the U.S. Treasury's stake in Chrysler Group for $560 million, ending the Obama administration's involvement with the Auburn Hills automaker. The move gives the Italian automaker a 52% majority stake in Chrysler. The U.S. exit ends a 30-month involvement of two administrations in saving the company from collapse, beginning with the Bush administration's decision to bail out Chrysler with $4 billion in December 2008. President Barack Obama will join Chrysler and Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne at the company's Toledo Supplier Park to crow about the deal today. Because you always crow when you receive $560 million in cash for a multi-billion dollar investment.
2nd Gear: Despite seemingly strong sales numbers last month, Nissan Leaf sales have failed to meet initial expectations in the US (Although it did beat the Volt, and isn't some silly journalist-constructed faux race the only metric that really matters?). Nissan had initially planned on allocating up to 20,000 units of the Leaf's 50,000 unit production run in 2011 to the US market, but Nissan has revised estimates downwards to 10-12,000 units. Maybe it's because most of America doesn't have a sub-100 mile commute.
3rd Gear: Audi continues its niche-filling ways, now offering natural air conditioning and enhanced UV exposure to drivers of its high-performance R8 GT coupe. That's right, say a hearty Guten Tag to this week's new Audi — the R8 GT Spyder. If you want one, you better mach shnell to call your Audi dealer as, like the coupe, it's limited to just 333 units. By the way, if you add up the 333 GT coupes and 333 spyders, you come up with 666. Coincidence? We think not. Wallpaper-sized images on our Facebook page.
4th Gear: According to Bloomberg, Japan's national broadcaster NHK is reporting that Mazda is preparing to withdraw from its joint venture US plant in Flat Rock, Michigan. The plant, shared with Ford, currently produces the Mazda 6 for the US market, but has been suffering from overcapacity and poor profitability in recent years. Mazda has not confirmed the report, but is known to have been reviewing the plant's future. Oddly enough, I'm down in Flat Rock today. I'll see what I can find out.
5th Gear: Volkswagen Group's slow reveal of one-off concept cars continues at the Worthersee Tour on the shore of Lake Worthersee in Austria. The latest is the Volkswagen Golf R Cabriolet concept. And rather than inject its supermini with 496 bhp of steroids or decapitate its rally car, VW has decided to blend two of its most recent Golf variants, merging the Golf Cabriolet's roofless bodyshell with the Golf R's four-wheel-drive powertrain.
6th Gear: The next-generation Chrysler minivan and a companion crossover will have all-wheel drive, according to Chrysler Group LLC CEO Sergio Marchionne. In a brief preview of future product plans, Marchionne said the automaker will continue to produce a "classic minivan," as well as a "people carrier that is still taking shape." They will share underpinnings and be built in Windsor. "This platform better have more capability than the one we have, including all-wheel drive capability and the ability to get narrower," Marchionne said. A more narrow body caters to European buyers. Chrysler offered all-wheel drive until 2004, when it was discontinued to make way for Stow 'n Go seats that fold into the floor. In addition to the AWD minivan news, Marchionne told the Detroit News the next-gen Jeep Compass and Patriot will be built at Fiat's Mirafiori plant in Italy.
Reverse:
⏎ Why are gas prices higher in Michigan? [Detroit Free Press]
⏎ Carla Bailo grabs the R&D reins of Nissan in North, Latin America. [Detroit News]
⏎ Kia to boost capacity at Georgia plant. Probably because they're building good-looking cars that actually sorta rock. [Wall Street Journal]
⏎ Kiss Edition Mini Countryman Models Hit eBay. [New York Times]
⏎ Why The SRX Hybrid Was Killed. [GM Inside News]
⏎ The Porsche Design Type 64 Berlin Rome car will be making its first ever appearance on UK soil in July. [Classics at the Castle]
⏎ G.M.'s Bryan Nesbitt Pledges Design Differentiation for Chinese Market. [New York Times]
Today in Automotive History:
On this day in 1957, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the chemical company E. I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co. must give up its large stock interest in the Detroit-based automobile company General Motors on the grounds that it constituted a monopoly, or a concentration of power that reduced competition or otherwise interfered with trade. [History]
Photo Credit: Bill Pugliano / Getty Images News
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