1973 Vw Thing Resto-custom on 2040-cars

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Porsche-Piech buy 10% stake in VW's holding company

In August, 2009, as the scuttled merger of Porsche and Volkswagen had gone bad and Porsche was backed up against the ropes, Porsche Automobil Holding SE (PAHSE) relinquished a ten-percent stake in itself to Qatar Holdings as well as options it held on 17 percent of VW shares. The sale meant that, for the first time since the founding of the company 61 years before, an entity outside the Porsche and Piech families had a say in the running of PAHSE.
Buying that ten-percent stake back returns full ownership to the two families, the holding company's sole possession being ownership of 50.7 percent of VW's common shares. The price paid wasn't disclosed, but at market rates the purchase would be worth close to $1.25 billion. Qatar intends to hold onto the 17-percent stake it has in Volkswagen.

Get ready to Camino-ize your fourth-generation VW Jetta with this kit

Inexpensive, small pickup trucks used to be everywhere in the US, whether they were from Japanese brands like Datsun or Toyota, the truly weird Subaru Brat or even from Europe with the Volkswagen Caddy based on the Golf. These days that market has completely disappeared, but if you're willing to pick up some tools to build your own, there's a company out there bringing the Caddy back as a kit for the Jetta.
Mark Smith knows a thing about building a vehicle at home. He has over two decades in the DIY-car business as a co-founder of Local Motors and the company that became Factory Five Racing. His latest venture is Smyth Performance and already offers a mid-engine, VW-based kit called the G3F. His new product, though, started as a fluke. "I just wanted a shop truck," said Smith to Autoblog. He already had a Ford F-450 but found that he was driving around with the bed empty most of the time. The result was a pickup truck based on the fourth-generation Jetta that he dubbed the Ute.
The kit retails for $3,500 and ships in three, big boxes, and it's designed to be built and painted in a weekend. Buyers get fiberglass exterior panels, a fiberglass rear window surround, sliding rear window, an aluminum reinforced bed with a tubular steel subframe, taillights, a fully functional steel tailgate, and other parts. In the end, you get a vehicle with a six-foot bed and a payload of around 700-750 pounds. The Ute maintains all of the factory suspension, fuel tank and emissions equipment and requires just a few cuts in the body to complete. "We did a modern Caddy," admits Smith.

If VW defaults on loans it may sell Bentley or Lamborghini

If something goes catastrophically wrong with Volkswagen Group's recent $21 billion loan, brands like Bentley or Lamborghini could hit the auction block. According to two insiders to Reuters, the beleaguered German automaker agrees with its creditors to sell assets if the company somehow can't pay back the debt in a year. One of these anonymous people claimed the company hasn't yet deliberated over what to sell. However, the sources were willing to speculate that the power engineering portion of Man could be among the first to go. "Volkswagen may also consider divesting luxury car brands Bentley and Lamborghini or motor bike brand Ducati, although these units don't really move the needle," an insider said to Reuters. VW Group negotiated with the banks earlier this week to get the massive loan. The cash is necessary as a buffer in case the automaker doesn't have enough money on hand to repair vehicles or settle upcoming fines. VW would reportedly issue bonds in the spring to begin paying the debt. The company's bills will start racking up quickly in the new year. German authorities mandate a recall there in early 2016, and repair campaigns in the US for the 2.0- and 3.0-liter diesel engines are inevitable. There are also hundreds of class-action lawsuits to settle. The company needs to resolve its CO2 emissions scandal in Europe, too. In response to these financial threats, VW management created a cost-cutting plan to slash the research and development budget by $1.1 billion next year.