Saab 9 5 Automatic Transmission Module on 2040-parts.com

News watch March 2012: today's auto industry news

Welcome to CAR Magazine's news aggregator as we round up the daily stories in the auto industry. Top tip: news summaries are added from the top hour-by-hour Friday 30 March 2012• Fiat is suffering from its decision to suspend new product innovation during the recession, argues ANE. It is losing ground on account of delays to its Punto range, which won't be replaced until 2014, and the ageing Bravo, which was launched in 2007 and has no successor in sight (Automotive News Europe)• Mercedes plans to build the new four-door coupe spun off the A- and B-class architecture at its new Hungarian factory (Automotive News Europe)• Opel denies rumours it may sell the Eisenach factory in east Germany where it builds the Corsa supermini (Automotive News Europe)• Mercedes is cutting the time it takes to build a car from 43 hours in 2008 to nearer 30 hours by 2015, according to production boss Wolfgang Bernhard.

Scion sets sticker prices on limited-production xD, xB models

Scion has set base pricing for its 2012 limited-production xD and xB automatic models at $16,980 and $18,840, respectively, including delivery charges. For the manual-transmission versions, prices for the xD and the xB increase to $17,780 and $19,790 respectively. Both models debuted at the Texas State Fair on Thursday and are slated to begin filtering into dealerships in October.

Hennessey to build limited-edition Venom GT WFE

Hennessey Performance is building an extremely limited run of World's Fastest Edition Venom GTs to celebrate the company's top speed run of 270.4 mph set at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in February. It holds the unofficial record for fastest series-produced road car and the official record for standing-start acceleration. The Venom GT hit 186 mph in 13.63 seconds.