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Treasury says auto bailout tally drops to $20.3 billion

In December, the US Treasury announced that it was going to sell all of its shares in General Motors within 12 to 15 months. The first tranche of the 500-million total shares was purchased by GM, which took 200 million of them at $27.50 per share. That price represents an eight-percent premium over the market price at the time. The remaining 300 million shares will be sold "through various means in an orderly fashion."
Of the $418 billion disbursed through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a report in Automotive News indicates that "about 93 percent" has been paid back, and the latest figures put Treasury's loss from the program overall at $55.58 billion. That's a $4.1 billion improvement on the last figure, when the expected red ink added up to $59.68 billion. The auto industry's portion of that loss is estimated to be $20.3 billion, a 16-percent drop from the earlier estimate of $24.3 billion.
The Treasury now owns 19 percent of GM, but if all goes well, there will be no more cause for anyone to utter "Government Motors" by the end of Q1 next year. A loss of some kind is still expected, however. Although GM's stock price is close to $29 at the time of this writing, that's still $4 below its IPO price and well below the $72 share price necessary for the government to come out even on its GM investment. On second thought, maybe the ribbing will continue.

Chrysler and Google launch virtual 200 factory tour [w/video]

Google is no stranger to showing off some of the most interesting automotive destinations in the world, like the museums for Lamborghini and Ducati, or even a Tesla showroom. However, it's taking that technology even further with a new, in-depth look of the Sterling Heights Assembly Plant where the Chrysler 200 is made. Unlike these earlier online excursions, the new Chrysler factory tour is a fully guided experience that includes several 360-degree videos explaining many parts of the production process.
"Just as we pioneered a completely new Chrysler 200, we are pioneering a new way for consumers to research a vehicle. The Factory Tour is an opportunity for us to prove to consumers that the all-new 2015 Chrysler 200 is not one ever built before," said Olivier Francois, Chrysler's chief marketing officer, in the company's release.
Chrysler was already pretty proud of its nearly $1 billion in recent updates to the Sterling Heights factory having released a look at the 200's assembly process earlier this year. However, the new Google tour goes far deeper by including 12 videos, and between highlighted stops, viewers can swing the camera all over to get a full view of the action. The whole thing is an intriguing way to show the way a modern car gets built.

The Aficianauto sets his lens on Black Beauty

In the short time we've known about the works of The Aficionauto, we've become fans of the video series highlighting some of the most famous and iconic movie/television cars ever. While past episodes featured cars from 1980s movies and tv shows, the latest video shows off the 1965 Chrysler Imperial affectionately known as Black Beauty We saw the Imperial for the first time at the 2009 Comic-Con; the car actually used in the 2011 action comedy The Green Hornet.
Of the 30 cars made for the movie, host Chris Rutkowski says that Sony only preserved two, and if you're a collector of movie cars, this one is currently being sold for $165,000. Scroll down to watch as Rutkowski takes Black Beauty for a spin through Beverly Hills, CA with its assortment of exposed weapons including the hood-mounted machine guns, numerous missiles and flame thrower.