Volkswagen of American went the comedic route by recently launching a series of online videos spotlighting a Saturday Night Live star to promote its models. VW teamed up with SNL funnyman Bill Hader and SNL writer John Mulaney for the "Inside the VW Academy" series, which is composed of 18 videos designed to not only get a chuckle, […] [Read More]

General Motors chairman and chief executive officer Dan Akerson reached out to franchise dealers this week in an attempt to heal the wounds caused by the company bankruptcy, store reductions and other problems. Akerson began a recent speech by being blunt, stressing, “The hard truth is that GM didn’t always do a great job listening […] [Read More]

AutoNation posted double-digit gains in retail new-vehicle sales during 2010 and closed the year on a high note, enjoying significant growth during December and in the fourth quarter. Specifically, AutoNation dealers saw their retail new-vehicle sales climb 13 percent on a year-over-year basis during 2010. [Read More]

Nissan and Infiniti dealers now have another selling point to move certified pre-owned vehicles, thanks to a new offering via Sirius XM Radio. It was revealed Monday that 2008 model-year and newer CPO Nissan and Infiniti vehicles with factory-equipped XM Radio will now include an introductory subscription the XM Everything package for three months. [Read More]

Saab Automobile AB has named an interim chief operating office for Saab Cars North America as Michael Colleran steps down.  Immediately moving into the interim role is Matthias Seidl, who is Saab Automobile’s executive director of global sales. Seidl assumes Colleran’s duties of leading Saab in North America while also maintaining his current responsibilities. Officials […] [Read More]

In some good news for the domestic auto industry and potentially other sectors of the economy as well, Ford said Monday that it plans to bring more than 7,000 jobs to the nation’s embattled job market during the next two years. These new jobs will be spread throughout the U.S. and will include both hourly and salaried […] [Read More]

Fiat now owns a quarter of Chrysler Group’s shares thanks to the automaker reaching the first performance-related metric in a series of three milestones detailed in Chrysler’s Operating Agreement, each of which automatically adds 5 percentage points to the stake owned by Fiat. [Read More]

Certified pre-owned sales closed 2010 with 10 consecutive months of year-over-year improvements and 13 brands posted full-year CPO records, as the certified market showed improvement from a sluggish 2009. According to statistics provided by Autodata Corp., the industry moved 1.64 million CPO units during 2010. While this marked a 7.1-percent year-over-year gain, the industry has […] [Read More]

Sparking what he believes will be double-digit percentage gains for new-vehicle sales, Paul Taylor, chief economist of the National Automobile Dealers Association, rattled off five factors he expects to ignite that growth. “The auto industry is coming back strong from what has been a difficult economy,” Taylor projected. “Auto sales are playing a key role […] [Read More]

The last year was certainly one of great transition for Saab Automobile AB, but company executives said Friday they are pleased with the progress the Swedish automaker has made since being purchased by Spyker Cars N.V. in February. For full-year 2010, Saab’s wholesale unit sales — defined by officials as revenue-generating sale to dealers — […] [Read More]