CAR interviews Volvo design vice president Peter Horbury (2010)

By Tim Pollard Motor Industry 04 February 2010 07:00 CAR recently spent some time one-to-one with Peter Horbury, Volvo's new vice president of design. Horbury, who pioneered Volvo's modern look in his previous stint as design boss from 1991 to 2002 spent five and a half years in charge of Ford's North American design studio. But in May 2009, Volvo CEO Stephen Odell asked Horbury to return to the top job in Gothenburg.

Baby Rolls-Royce named as Ghost

By Ben Pulman Motor Industry 20 April 2009 09:00 Rolls-Royce has revealed that its new sub-Phantom saloon will be called Ghost. The announcement was made by Rolls CEO Tom Purves at a press conference held at the Shanghai motor show this morning, and he also teased at other future models that will bear the Ghost name. RR4 was just the codename for the ‘baby’ Rolls, as it was the fourth model in the new-generation of cars under BMW ownership (after the Phantom, Phantom DHC and Phantom Coupe).

Volkswagen & Suzuki – it’s handbags at dawn

Volkswagen Suzuki Partnership - things aren't exactly rosy Back in 2009 Volkswagen invested a rather large chunk of change (around €2 billion) in Suzuki in exchange for a 20% stake in the Japanese car maker, and there were big hopes for advantages for both parties. Volkswagen were looking for a quick-fix route to the burgeoning car market in India, where Suzuki were doing very well, with sales in India last year of 1.13 million cars – almost half its production – in comparison to VW’s paltry sales of just 53,000. In return, Suzuki were expecting to get a quick route to cutting-edge hybrid and electric tech for their range, and access to VW’s engines.