Skoda’s Citigo goes topless for upcoming Volkswagen festival

Skoda will bring an open-top version of the Citigo city car to the upcoming Worthersee festival in Germany. Worthersee began as a Volkswagen owners’ club meeting, but has expanded into a major event; Volkswagen and its various brands often bring outlandish concept cars along to please the crowds.

The CitiJet is based on the current Citigo Sport and uses that car’s standard 1.0-litre 74hp engine. The chopped roof means it’s now a two-seater, though, and it features 16in alloys and a music system that flashes the LED lights in time to the beat. It’s certainly not destined for production, but some of the sportier elements could end up on a future warm-hatch version of the Citigo.

Fiat-Chrysler makes London move to silence the naysayers

Fiat and Chrysler are to place the headquarters of the their newly conglomerated company in London, and not in the US as had long been expected.

The news was confirmed by Fiat Chrylser boss Sergio Marchionne this week. By choosing London as the location for its new HG, Fiat Chrysler is hoping to sidestep criticism that the company would be favouring the Italian or American sides of the company if it kept its headquarters in Turin or moved them to Chyrsler's Auburn Hills, Michigan location.

“The headquarters will be in London,” Marchionne said. “It’s clear that group executive functions, the board, my office, some of my functions, need to operate out of London, but that doesn’t mean that I’m giving up my operational responsibilities of the US. We will be multifaceted, we will do stuff everywhere.”

The move has, however, caused some consternation in Italy, where there are still fears that Fiat’s increasingly US-centric outlook is threatening jobs and factories there. Marchionne has promised to keep factories in Italy open, and even to expand.

Fiat’s unions are taking his word for it – for now.

Rolls-Royce opts to keeps its V12 production in Germany
Rolls-Royce has decided not to move the production of its V12 engines from Germany to the UK. The decision came in spite of Volkswagen expanding Bentley's UK-based facilities to allow it to build its own W12 engines for the Continental GT and Flying Spur. Rolls-Royce's engines are all currently made in BMW's engine foundry in Munich and that situation will continue because, according to Rolls-Royce, there simply isn't the necessary expertise in the UK to build them. There have also been concerns raised about the space available at Rolls's Goodwood-based factory and the cost-savings that come from having its engines developed and built alongside sister BMW units. Rolls-Royce pushed its sales last year to a record 3,300 units, thanks in part to the arrival of the new Wraith coupe.