Archive for the ‘China’ Category

Sadly, this hasn't been HUMMER's year. The brand was already known as the poster child for gas guzzlers; now it's being bought by a company in China (with final details expected this week), and sales on the lots have tanked. So what's a HUMMER dealer to do? Expand operations, of course. Branch out. Maybe use a portion of his/her dealership to sell guns and ammo like Jim Lynch of Chesterfield Missouri. Sounds like a win-win for the brand's sporty demographic. And hey -- aren't most of those guns made in China, too? [Freep]

Just when you think the auto world is ending in an onslaught of grim grey Korean econoboxes ... life gets better. And sometimes you just can't make this [stuff] up.

Take last Friday's little news item from WardsAuto, for example. A Russian company that was supposed to assemble copies of a Japanese Toyota from Chinese kits has instead been building and selling the little Tiggos itself. Oh, the horror.

We can do no better than to excerpt the salient points of a few sentences that lay out the dastardly deed:

"It has come to our attention that...entities in Russia have been assembling and/or distributing Tiggo vehicles without our...

It's been widely reported that Chinese automaker Geely is putting the finishing touches on an offer to purchase Volvo -- and frankly, when we saw yesterday's release about Chinese astronauts' love for the Volvo S80L, we thought the deal was done. However rumors have surfaced that a group of Swedish businesses, called Konsortium Jakob AB, is aggressively raising funds for its own bid. There are even rumors that Volvo Truck Corp. has put money in the kitty, though the company denies it. That's an awful lot of speculation so early on a Tuesday morning. [AutoCarUK]