RPMGO.com (former Auto Unleashed)

GM still hasn’t reached a decision about Opel’s future

Posted: 24 Aug 2009 04:34 PM PDT

Last Friday, a lot of people were expecting to hear GM’s decision on Opel sale, but the company’s board announced that they haven’t agreed yet on their European arm’s fate. According to Reuters, there’s a little war going on between the two potential buyers, Magna International, on of the world’s largest automotive suppliers and Brussels-based financial investor RHJ International.

Magna has the main advantage of being backed by the German government, who is prepared to provide 4.5 billion euros ($6.4 billion) in state aid to make the deal go through. The government is willing to do that because Magna announced that they’re planning on keeping a large part of the 25,000 workers currently employed by Opel in Germany.

On the other hand, GM would prefer RHJ International as Opel’s buyer, because the deal would have a buy-back option for GM and they’re also concerned about Sberbank and Russian car maker GAZ (Magna’s partners in the deal) using the GM/Opel technology to target the growing Russian auto market.

However, according to an unnamed German official close to the negotiations, talks between GM and the German government will continue early next week and hopefully a decision will be made soon.

[Source: Reuters / Via The Torque Report]

Post published on Rpmgo.com

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Maserati GranCabrio revealed before Frankfurt debut

Posted: 24 Aug 2009 01:06 PM PDT

It’s been a while since we saw an important debut in the Maserati booth at a major auto show, but next month, at the Frankfurt Motor Show, the Italian car maker will show the all-new Maserati GranCabrio, the first four-seater convertible in their history. Though the press release says Maserati has now three different families of models (Quattroporte, GranTurismo and GranCabrio), the new model is basically the convertible version of the GranTurismo, which everyone thought it would be called the GranTurismo Spider.

However, the car looks great and it will definitely be a strong competitor in the four-seats convertible market. What I really like is the was Maserati presented the four-seats feature in the press release: “Four proper seats, so that the rear passengers are not merely supporting actors, but co-stars of the journey.” Still, we’ll have to wait a few weeks until the show to see if those back seats are truly as comfortable as they say.

Under the hood, the Maserati GranCabrio will be powered by the same 440 hp (323 kW) 4.7-liter V8 from the GranTurismo S. Maserati hasn’t released the performance numbers yet, but we expect it to be a little slower than the GranTurismo S, which sprints from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 5.9 seconds and goes up to a top speed of 193 mph (295 km/h).

Like we said before, the new GranCabrio will make its official world debut on September 15, at the Frankfurt show, with sales scheduled to start this winter and first deliveries next spring.

Photo Gallery: The new Maserati GranTurismo