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The BBC’s Chanel 4 News is reporting that thousands of jobs at two UK car plants could be at risk as a result of a worldwide sales slump. General Motors, the world’s biggest car company which owns Vauxhall, said it will be bankrupt within months unless it gets an emergency cash injection from the US government to help it during the global financial crisis.

The firm said it had called off merger talks with Chrysler and was asking the government for help after using up $6.9 billion (£4.4 billion) in the third quarter of 2008.

The company employs around 5,000 workers at plants in Luton and Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, which produce around 215,000 vehicles a year.

Meanwhile, German car giant BMW announced that production of the Mini was to be curtailed, with workers at plants at Oxford and Swindon told the two-week Christmas shutdown would be extended to four weeks this year as a result of the credit crunch.

The motor industry has been hit by falling demand across the world, with sales of new cars slumping to their lowest level in 25 years.

The news from BMW follows an announcement earlier by Jaguar Land Rover that a voluntary redundancy scheme is to be extended to hundreds of workers.

GM said it planned to make more job cuts, including another 5,500 salaried and factory workers.But the Detroit-based firm warned that this alone would not be enough to keep it afloat.

GM chairman and chief executive officer Rick Wagoner said the firm would “take every action” possible to avoid bankruptcy.

GM’s announcement came hours after Ford revealed it had lost $129 million (£82.4 million) in the third quarter after burning through $7.7billion (£4.9 billion) in cash.

The car company said it would cut another 2,260 white-collar workers in North America, but added it could keep going through 2009.

On Thursday, the chiefs of Ford, GM and Chrysler, known as Detroit’s “big three”, asked the US Congress for some $50 billion (£31.8 billion) in federal aid to help them survive the credit crunch.

A museum dedicated to the MG car has reopened in Abingdon. The MG Museum opened on October 25 on the second floor of the County Hall Museum, in Market Place.

The small museum, organized by former MG employee Brian Moylan, ran for a trial each weekend throughout last winter. However, it has now been given a permanent home – with the promise of more space to follow when the museum is revamped.

Abingdon Works Centre, the local branch of the MG Car Club, donated £500 towards expanding the exhibition.

Driving.ca is reporting that the current financial crisis is having an impact on the collector-car scene, with prices all over the map at the first Barrett-Jackson Auction held in Las Vegas, Nevada recently. Hemi Mopar madness has ended - the days of the $80,000 Austin Healey and six-figure E-Type Jaguars are over for now.

A 1962 Healey 300 MKII (Lot 762), which was a ground-up restoration by Healey Lane, of Oregon, was perfect yet sold for a mere $53,900. In January, that car would have sold in Scottsdale, Ariz., for $80,000. (All prices in U.S. dollars.)
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Two out of three people who lost their jobs when car maker MG Rover collapsed in 2005 are now earning less money, research has revealed.

About 60% are now working outside manufacturing and generally earning less money, with an average salary cut of £3,400. People who now work in wholesale and retail real estate and business services education or health and social work took the biggest cuts.

Birmingham Business School and the Work Foundation polled 204 of the 6,300 people made redundant when MG Rover closed its Longbridge plant.

Almost a quarter of respondents said they were in debt or needed to draw on their savings to get by, 36% said they were just about able to manage on their current incomes, and 38% were in a position to save money.

However, nine in 10 of those surveyed were now employed, and the report says that fast action by local agencies to support and retrain workers was a ’success story’ as large-scale, long-term unemployment in the West Midlands was avoided.