Fast car, small car, less car, more car

In Detroit, shares of the grand old Ford Motor Company hit a 22-year low Monday as investors remained leery of the automaker's ability to punch through tough economic times and high oil prices.

And in Australia, Ford's international chief Alan Mulally is reportedly pressuring federal government for more financial assistance to remain competitive if tariffs on imported cars are halved beyond 2010. Mulally met Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Industry Minister Kim Carr days after Ford Australia announced it would cut up to 350 manufacturing jobs because of flat large-car sales, according to Fairfax newspaper reports.

Meanwhile, over at GM Holden Australia, last month saw the highly anticipated release of its HSV W427 – the most powerful locally-made car ever, featuring a gas-guzzling 7.0-litre V8 engine. And despite sky high petrol prices, a price tag of $154,500 and what Autoblog describes as "serious" front end issues, all of the 90 units (from a limited total production of 427) produced this year have been snapped up already.
Clearly, the Antipodean appetite remains strong for "performance vehicles", wherein "even moderate throttle applications deliver a generous shove back into the bright red leather seats", in the words of The Sydney Morning Herald's Toby Hagon.

Cross, then, to India where – as local farmers burn effigies of Tata Motors' Nano in protest of being forced to sell fertile land to make way for the car's West Bengal production plant – state governments are falling over each other with alternative offers to host the landmark project.

The Tata group sparked a global industry race to create the ultimate low-cost passenger vehicle for emerging markets when it announced its plans early this year to build the "world's cheapest" Rs100,000 mini car, says Joe Leahy in the Financial Times.

"But the group may have made a costly mistake by basing the project in West Bengal, the eastern Indian state whose communist leaders have been trying to woo industry with tax breaks and other benefits in recent years," says Leahy.

Hailed by the world's press this year, the Nano factory has become "a symbol of the simmering confrontation between industry and farmers" in a nation torn between its image as an emerging manufacturing hub and the reality that two-thirds of the population depends on agriculture, says Randeep Ramesh in The Guardian.

More than 1,000 acres "of luxuriantly fertile fields" were acquired by the West Bengal government to set up the Nano plant, says Randeep, replacing thousands of farmers raising four crops a year with a factory that will churn out 250,000 cars a year.

Ratan Tata, the group's chairman, is now threatening to relocate the plant rather than face violent protests, even if this means forgoing the $US343 million already invested in the project.

Ford slips to 22-year low as investors remain wary, Boston Globe

Ford demands extra assistance to compete, The Sydney Morning Herald

Oz-some: HSV W427 launches Down Under, Alex Nunez, Autoblog

HSV W427 – First drive of Australia's most powerful car, Toby Hagon, SMH via Stuff.co.nz

Protests may delay world's cheapest car, Randeep Ramesh, The Guardian

Tata flooded with offers to relocate, Joe Leahy, Financial Times