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Crunch watch August 09: the auto industry

By Tim Pollard, Alex Michaelides, Ben Pulman and Freddie Fulton Motor Industry 31 August 2009 10:00 Welcome to CAR's news aggregator as we round up the seismic change in the auto industry. Top tip: news summaries are added from the top hour-by-hour  Monday 31 August 2009• Bank holiday today in UK; staff on a well earned break from Crunchwatch!Friday 28 August 2009• Toyota will stop producing vehicles at the New United Moor Manufacturing plant in California next March. Company officials and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the decision, which comes in the wake of factory partner GM’s announced that it would abandon the venture back in June (Detroit News)• Tengzhong may finalise its deal to buy Hummer from GM next week, well placed sources told AN (Automotive News, subscription required)• German economics minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg says it is 'hardly realistic' for GM to keep hold of its European outfit Opel and Vauxhall (Automotive News Europe, subscription required)• Ford's US cop car favourite, the Crown Victoria, is going to cease production in 2011 (Detroit News)Thursday 27 August 2009• Nissan and Chrysler have abandoned plans to build cars for each other in the wake of Chrysler’s alliance with Fiat.

Hyundai ix35 launches at Frankfurt

Th Hyundai ix35 at the Frankfurt Motor Show The exterior styling is Ford Kuga by way of VW Tiguan – but somehow more convincing. With the optional 18″ wheels it looks purposeful and aggressive, but even in stock form it looks great. Passenger comfort is well taken care of with a well thought-out cabin with lots of decent quality materials, and nice features like the panoramic roof, cooled glove-box and good connectivity.

One Lap of the Web: BMW M4 coupe, 'Fast & Furious 7' and soap box racing

We spend a lot of time on the Internet -- pretty much whenever we're not driving, writing about or working on cars. Since there's more out there than we'd ever be able to cover, here's our daily digest of car stuff on the Web you may not otherwise have heard about. -- We all know the new BMW M3 coupe – ahem, M4 coupe -- is on the horizon for the German brand, but we can only speculate about the new performance car.