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Weekly Recap: FCA hit with record fine as NHTSA crackdown continues

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration slapped Fiat Chrysler Automobiles with a record fine this week that could reach $105 million. The punishment comes after NHTSA found problems with the automaker's execution of 23 recalls that affect more than 11 million vehicles. The consent agreement, announced Sunday, calls for FCA to pay a $70-million cash fine and requires the company to spend at least $20 million over a three-year period on industry outreach programs and to beef up old recall campaigns. Failure to comply will result in another $15-million fine. FCA also agreed to federal oversight, which includes an independent monitor to oversee the company's recalls. The $70-million cash fine equals a penalty NHTSA levied on Honda in January. "Fiat Chrysler's pattern of poor performance put millions of its customers and the driving public at risk," NHTSA administrator Mark Rosekind said in a statement. "This action will provide relief to owners of defective vehicles, will help improve recall performance throughout the auto industry, and gives Fiat Chrysler the opportunity to embrace a proactive safety culture." FCA called the deal a "consensual resolution," but admitted that it "failed to timely provide an effective remedy" during certain recalls. "We are intent on rebuilding our relationship with NHTSA and we embrace the role of public safety advocate," the company said in a statement. The announcement kicked off a busy week for the automaker. NHTSA agreed FCA did not need to recall 4.7 million vehicles after an investigation failed to find defects with a power module used in some Jeep, Dodge, and Ram vehicles. A Georgia judge also reduced a civil verdict involving a death in a Jeep Grand Cherokee crash. Amid all of that, the company reported net profit of about 333 million euros, or $364 million in the second quarter on Thursday. OTHER NEWS & NOTES FCA ramps up Hellcat production Despite a decidedly legal and financial week for FCA, there was still time for the performance side of the business to briefly grab the spotlight. The automaker is more than doubling its production of the Dodge Challenger and Charger SRT Hellcats in response to strong demand. The order bank opens the second week of August and production begins in September. FCA will finish up its scheduled 2015 model-year Hellcat builds, and cancel any "unscheduled" versions, though customers will get discounted pricing for 2016.

Corvette gets slidey with Britain's best performance cars

Autocar wants to find Britain's best driver's car, and it's challenging a murderers' row of some of the world's best performance vehicles to find out, including the latest Chevrolet Corvette Stingray. All of them were therefore assembled at the Castle Combe Circuit to find a winner.
If it wants to take the crown from this pack of mostly European competitors, the 'Vette has to beat some steep competition. Its challengers include monsters like the Ferrari 458 Speciale, Ariel Atom 3.5R and Jaguar F-Type Coupe. As a further hurdle for the winner to clear, Autocar also has last year's champ among the fighters - the Porsche 911 GT3.
Even if you're not at all interested in the C7, there's still something here for practically any fan of fast cars. The competitors include relative oddities among the pack like the Renault Mégane RS Trophy and Alfa Romeo 4C. Plus, Autocar has some well-positioned microphones that let you hear the Atom wailing like a banshee and the roar of the 458 Speciale. Check out the video to see which one of these all-stars takes home the award this year.

Second day of RM's Monterey auction continues the million dollar madness

RM Auctions' two-day event during the Monterey car week is pretty much a matter of appetizer and main course. Friday night's appetizer saw a trio of multi-million-dollar Ferraris, along with a pre-war Mercedes-Benz and a Jaguar D-Type. You can read all about those beauties right here. But as we said in that post, the action would really happen on Saturday night. The prices listed below include RM's ten-percent commission fee, and, as you'll see, the auction house did pretty well for itself.
We've already told you about the $27.5 million winning bid for the 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4 NART Spyder, with all the profits headed to charity. While there were more seven-figure winners on night two, the overall prices weren't quit as high as we saw on Friday night. The Ferrari F50 (pictured above) shown during the car's Geneva debut back in the 1990s and with only 1,100 miles on the clock took $1,677,500 (on a $1.25 to $1.6 million estimate). Another winner was a 1935 Hispano-Suiza K6 Cabriolet, which brought in $2,255,000 on a $1.5 to $2 million estimate. A 1974 McLaren M16C Indianapolis, the race winner of the 1974 Indy 500, brought home $3.52 million, essentially doubling its expected price of $1.25 to $1.75 million.
The night wasn't a success for everybody, though. The 1928 Mercedes-Benz 680S Torpedo Roadster, which took Best In Show at the 2012 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance failed to reach its $10-million expectations, selling for $8.25 million. That's not peanuts by any stretch, but a car that only goes for about 80 percent of its expected price isn't something to be enthusiastic about. A 1960 Maserati Tipo 61 Birdcage, which was expected to go for $3 to $4 million only took in $2,090,000.