2002 Chrysler Pt Cruiser Base Wagon 4-door 2.4l on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Ferrari families have 'agreement' to prevent takeover

With its initial public offering already a massive success, Ferrari is now officially a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. While anyone can buy those shares, don't expect investors to take control away from some of the top owners of the Prancing Horse anytime soon. To maintain their power, Enzo Ferrari's son, Piero, and Exor chairman John Elkann will sign a deal guaranteeing themselves nearly half of the automaker's voting rights, Bloomberg reports. As part of this arrangement, shareholders that agree to hang onto Ferrari stock for at least three years would receive additional voting rights in the company, and that would give Piero and Elkann a combined 48.7 percent of the automaker by banding together. While not quite complete control, the move should be enough to prevent a takeover of the business. "We have an agreement among the families to protect our interests in Ferrari," Piero said to Bloomberg. This agreement won't really become a concern until next year because only 10 percent of Ferrari will be traded for now. FCA will distribute another 80 percent to its shareholders in early 2016, and Elkann's Exor will be getting the largest portion of the Prancing Horse in the spin-off. Meanwhile, Piero holds the remaining 10 percent but has absolutely no intention to sell his stake in his father's business. The newly public Ferrari will push to grow volume with a goal of moving 9,000 vehicles annually by 2019. To reach that 30-percent boost, expect to see a new model every year, and some of them might use a new, modular platform that's reportedly under development. Related Video:

Historic race cars highlight the RM Sotheby's 2023 Le Mans sale

Auction house RM Sotheby's is celebrating 100 years of the 24 Hours of Le Mans by organizing a big sale on the day before the race. The cars scheduled to cross the auction block have all spent time on the track, and the catalog shows how racers have evolved since the 1930s. Browsing through RM's auction catalog is like taking a five-minute course in the history of racing. The oldest car is a 1932 Aston Martin Le Mans 'LM8' that's had a remarkable life. It was developed and built for competition and entered in the 1932 24 Hours of Le Mans by the Aston Martin factory team, where it finished seventh. It was ultimately sold to a private owner but it survived, which shouldn't be taken for granted: teams often destroyed obsolete race cars, and the list of special vehicles that didn't survive World War II is longer than you'd think. Paul Sykes bought the car in 1955 and used it as his daily driver. Imagine walking out of a shop in a British village in the 1960s and finding a 1932 race car parked next to your Mini. Sykes ultimately bought another daily driver, but he kept the Aston Martin for a total of 55 years. The second-oldest car is a 1936 Delahaye 135 S with a body by coach builder Pourtout. RM notes that this is one of the most significant pre-war competition Delahaye models and adds that it finished second in the 1938 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It continued racing until 1956 and then spent several decades hidden in storage. It was fully restored in 2005, and it's now eligible to compete in historic races such as the Mille Miglia and the Le Mans Classic. Restoring it was easier said than done: the car was rebodied twice before being tucked away. None of the cars crossing the block were built in the 1940s, so we skip ahead to the 1950s with a 1954 OSCA MT4 by Morelli. It's one of 72 built, according to RM, and only 19 of those were fitted with the twin-cam, 1.5-liter 2AD engine. It raced at Le Mans in 1954 but ended up disqualified following an accident. Another highlight from the 1950s is a 1958 Lister-Jaguar 'Knobbly' finished in yellow and green. We said that all of the cars crossing the block have spent time on the track, but that doesn't mean they were built to race. The 1963 Ferrari 250 GTE 2+2 Series III is a street-legal model, yet it's included in the auction because it was used as a safety car during the 1963 edition of the race.

Five automakers now being investigated by NHTSA for airbag woes

It appears that Toyota's renotification to owners of recalled vehicles from last year is just the tip of the iceberg for what could potentially be a much larger industry-wide recall. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is opening a preliminary evaluation investigation into roughly 1.1 million vehicles from Chrysler, Honda, Mazda, Nissan, Toyota and parts supplier Takata regarding faulty airbag inflators in several models.
NHTSA has received six reports - three directly, two from Takata and one from Toyota - of vehicles with ruptured airbag inflators from 2002-2006, which resulted in three injuries. So far, all six incidents have occurred in high humidity areas like Florida and Puerto Rico. According to Toyota's latest recall announcement, the inflators may have an improper propellant that could cause it to rupture in a crash and the bag to deploy abnormally.
This new investigation follows a previous recall from April 2013 of about 3.4 million vehicles worldwide for the airbag inflators from Takata. As Autoblog reported, Toyota jumpstarted the new situation when it found that the original list of serial numbers for the faulty part was incomplete and discovered more cars in need of replacement. Honda and Nissan told us that they were investigating whether further models would need called in again as well. Mazda told Autoblog: "Regarding the current Takata situation, we're working closely with NHTSA and investigating the situation, but nothing else to report at this time." Chrysler Group responded to us with the statement: "Chrysler Group engineers are conducting the appropriate analysis. The Company will cooperate fully with the National Highway Traffic Administration."