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GM lays off 450 at Lansing Grand River Assembly

General Motors will lay off 450 employees at its Lansing Grand River factory, The Detroit News reports, which is 100 more than the company said it'd be letting go last month. Lansing Grand River Assembly currently builds the Cadillac ATS and CTS, both of which have suffered sluggish sales, with the smaller sedan down 20 percent through last month and the larger model down 2.3 percent, The Detroit News reports. "We are adjusting plant production capacity to better align with market demand. Beginning in January 2015, the plant will operate on a single shift," a GM statement read, before explaining that not all the laid off Grand River employees will be jobless. Of the employees that have been laid off to make room for the single work shift, around 200 will transfer to the Lansing Delta Township factory, home of the Lambda-platform crossovers, GM's statement confirmed. The News expects this one-shift arrangement to continue until at least late next year, when the Alpha-platform Chevy Camaro transitions from General Motors' Oshawa, Ontario factory to Lansing. Cadillac President Johan de Nysschen said at last month's LA Auto Show, "It may not necessarily be permanent, a time may come when we've gained momentum and we can reinstate it. But for now, the adjustment to production capacity is in alignment with our plans for 2015."

A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.

eBay Find of the Day: Ryan Gosling Eldorado from Lost River

What's better than a car connected to Ryan Gosling? A car connected to Ryan Gosling and Matt Smith (the eleventh Doctor Who for our less nerdy readers). This 1966 Cadillac Eldorado convertible is driven by Smith in Lost River, Gosling's directorial debut. The movie was filmed in Detroit, with plenty of footage at the Packard factory, and the car is located in the nearby enclave of Hamtramck. Truth be told, this car has questionable star appeal and it needs a lot of work. Lost River currently holds a 20% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I've never seen an episode of any Doctor Who – a fact that amazes Seyth Miersma. And while I agree with Kroll Show character Wendell Shawn that Gosling is a "beautiful idiot," that's not enough for me to buy a car with an exhaust leak. The body on this Eldorado looks clean, but there is plenty of restoration work for the next owner. The listing states that most of the exterior and trim needs to be installed, and the front seats are in rough shape. Other details are vague – the carburetor "might need to be rebuilt" and the radiator and fan "may need to be replaced" but neither statements explain why. On the upside, the 340 horsepower (gross rating), 429 cubic inch V8 runs well. Reserve is not met at the current price of $4,000, but this could be a chance to get a classic '60's convertible for cheap. Featured Gallery eBay 1966 Cadilac Eldorado View 18 Photos News Source: eBay Celebrities TV/Movies Cadillac Auctions ebay Find of the Day celebrity ryan gosling