FROM REUTERS:  Toyota said on Tuesday it would fix all Tundra pickups sold in the United States for the 2000 to 2003 model years to address a risk that part of the truck’s frame could corrode, causing spare tires or even the gas tank to drop to the road.

In November, Toyota Motor Corp had recalled [...]

FROM DETROIT FREE PRESS: Chevrolet is GM’s best-selling brand, the engine that drives the automaker’s U.S. operations, with 1.3 million sales in 2009. Opel, too, is vital to GM.

It’s GM’s No. 1 brand in the important European market, with 1.2 million sales last year. That makes Opel GM’s second-biggest brand worldwide by a wide margin. [...]

 FROM THE DETROIT NEWS: Chrysler Group LLC will start production of the final run of 500 Dodge Vipers on March 29 and wind up the year with the launch of the tiny Fiat 500, leaked production schedule dates show.

Chrysler officials would not verify the dates that appeared on a third-party Web site devoted to Chrysler [...]

FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS:  New ads for troubled automaker Toyota Motor Corp. are skipping the apologies and easing back into sales pitches — too soon, some say.

The campaign pushes the idea that Toyota customers remain loyal, even as the company faces congressional inquiries and some reports that its repairs may not fix the problem.

The new campaign, [...]

FROM BUSINESS WEEK:  Sex appeal has virtually disappeared from American car marketing. So when models wearing metallic minidresses shared a stage with a Chrysler concept car at the Detroit Auto Show in January, some onlookers declared the display passé and even déclassé. Olivier François, the impeccably dressed Frenchman in charge of Chrysler’s latest rebranding effort, [...]

FROM REUTERS:  The parent of China’s Geely Automobile  said it has yet to sign an agreement in its ongoing bid for Ford’s Volvo car unit, but that its plan to purchase the brand are proceeding on track.

 hejiang Geely Holdings had previously indicated it expected to reach a formal deal last month, but company chairman Li [...]

FROM DETROIT FREE PRESS:  General Motors is preparing to provide some of its dealers with rejected franchises an opportunity to reinstate their stores, and the Detroit automaker plans to provide details during a Webcast today at 2 p.m.

Last year, GM sought to wind down about 2,000 dealerships as part of its government-backed bankruptcy restructuring. MORE»

FROM USA TODAY:  After more than two years of monthly sales losses, Chrysler is finally back in the black.

Chrysler reported a small uptick in sales  of its Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep vehicles — a pimple-sized 0.5% increase in sales in February compared with a year earlier — but that’s only because the automaker relied heavily [...]

FROM BUSINESS WEEK:  Fiat will address the question of whether it’s going to spin off its automobile unit when it presents a new business plan to investors in April, Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne said Wednesday.

The possibility of spinning off Fiat Auto, which includes the Fiat, Lancia and Alfa Romeo brands, from the rest of the [...]

FROM BUSINESS WEEK:  It truly is the end of an era. Bob Lutz, the cocksure maverick who led a product renaissance at both General Motors and Chrysler, will retire effective May 1. When Lutz goes, the industry will lose one of its best car guys and a strong personality known as much for his gravelly [...]