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Cash for clunkers plan revives trade fight

Import brand automakers and dealers warned on Thursday that a vehicle scrappage proposal before the Senate would violate trade agreements and could weaken the economy. The Senate could vote on the plan on Thursday, which would offer $10,000 to any moderate- or low-income consumer who trades in a car or truck that is at least 10 years old and buys a new one that is more fuel-efficient and "assembled in the United States." The trade-ins would be scrapped rather than resold. The U.S.-made mandate "smacks of the protectionism that led to the Great Depression," said Barbara Nocera, the top Washington lobbyist for Mazda North American Operations.

The fall and rise of the budget car

Twenty years ago, the classic bargain brands like Lada seemed to be going the same way as the Soviet empire that spawned them. Woefully dated and badly made, only a weirdo would have bought a new Lada rather than a second-hand model from Ford, Vauxhall or VW. However, one of the big trends in the car industry today is the re-emergence of bargain cars.

Range Rover Evoque: The 5 Door

Range Rover Evoque 5 Door As it would have been very difficult to miss, Land Rover dropped a huge amount of bumph on us the other day about the Range Rover Evoque. Mind you, even though we got a huge press release which ran to more pages than we cared to count, and a pile of new photos including interiors for the first time, there’s still a chunk of detail missing. We don’t for example have performance figures, much beyond a 7.1 second 0-60 mph for the 238bhp EcoBoost Evoque.