New Mini Cooper 2004 Coil Pack on 2040-parts.com

Bondholders snub GM, bankruptcy filing likely

Nowhere near enough General Motors bondholders agreed to exchange their debt for stock before a midnight Tuesday deadline, making a bankruptcy filing by the automaker highly likely. GM had set a threshold of 90 percent of the $27 billion in bond debt it wanted to exchange for 10 percent of the stock in a reorganized company for the deal to take place. In a statement Wednesday, GM said the amount of notes tendered was substantially less than the 90 percent target.

Lotus gets Ferrari Designer

Ferrari Designer Donato Coco joins Lotus as Director of Design As we’ve reported umpteen times this year, Lotus are getting things very right. They’re selling the new Lotus Evora hand over fist and have plans in place to a convertible Evora and of course the new Lotus Esprit. Part of the long-term plan at Lotus is to bring the Hethel boys back to the top of the heap in the way Lotus were in the glory days of Colin Chapman.

TVR showing signs of life, maybe

It seems that old British automakers never die. But they don't really seem to fade away entirely, either, drifting in and out of solvency and suffering the indignity of dead-end revival attempt after dead-end revival attempt. Witness poor MG, which the Chinese are attempting to badge-engineer back into existence.