Highlight of the week for most j-a folk, except for shop-minder here, was our second Industry Intelligence Seminar held in Swindon, once famous as a railway town (huge locomotive works) but better known these days as the home of many of the Hondas sold in Europe.

Quite a bit of interesting news came out of the two sessions – the first at the National Motorcycle Museum near Birmingham last month – we have now grouped it all together in one place.

Detroit automakers were both in the news this week – at home, Chrysler announced more spending and more welcome Michigan jobs while, in Germany, GM’s chief assured workers at Opel’s HQ the automaker does not plan a speedy cut-losses-and-flee solution to the current problems with the European unit.

That followed a report earlier this week that GM and PSA have halted talks on a deeper tie-up due to concerns over the  French firm’s financial state and government bail-out.

Kia continues to hold its UK sales unit in high regard, naming MD Michael Cole as new COO for Europe. He takes up a role once held by current Kia UK chief Paul Philpott who returned to the UK operation in July this year as the first non-Korean president of any Kia subsidiary in Europe.

Toyota hit the headlines again with another huge global recall but it’s worth considering a little perspective – from the 496,000 cars being recalled in Europe, only a dozen have been affected so far, with no accidents reported.

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Have a nice weekend.

Graeme Roberts, Deputy Editor, just-auto.com