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New GM Europe chief's plans for Opel/Vauxhall

Nick Reilly speaks out on the future of GM Europe By Richard Webber Motor Industry 07 December 2009 13:54 Following General Motors' back-track on a buy-out from Magna in November 2009, the company's president of international operations Nick Reilly was appointed interim head of GM Europe. Now he's been made the permanent CEO of Vauxhall and Opel, making him the man charged with guiding GM's European division back to profitability.GM has big plans for Opel and Vauxhall, but has made no secret that there will be widespread pain and change before the good times return. The turnaround plan is nearing completion and it's expected there will be around 8300 redundancies, spread around Europe.

Who's Where: Karim Habib joins Mercedes-Benz

Karim Habib, former Team Leader for Advanced Design at BMW, joined Mercedes-Benz earlier this month, becoming Head of Advanced Design at the German automaker's Stuttgart studio. Habib will work under newly appointed Mercedes-Benz Head of Design, Gorden Wagener. Habib, who celebrates his 38th birthday today, was born in Beirut, Lebanon and attended elementary school in Iran, France and Greece before moving to Montreal, Canada in 1982.

Nissan X-Trail N-TEC+ launched

Nissan has launched a new X-Trail model – the X-Trail N-Tec+ – with ‘Sporty’ looks and extra gadgets. Last year we got the Nissan X-Trail Platinum Edition with all the options ticked and a price of almost £30k, and now we get the sporty version – the Nissan X-Trail N-Tec+ – with more gadgets and extra kit at £27,790. Nissan are trumpeting the X-Trail N-Tec+ as the ‘Sporty’ X-Trail (if that’s not an oxymoron) and pitching it between the Acenta and Tekna versions.