Most American pistonheads’ exposure to SsangYong is limited to Jeremy Clarkson beating one to death with a sledgehammer (or similar). However, not only did South Korea’s fifth largest automaker once build Jeeps for the U.S. Army, in the 1970s they changed their name to Dong-A Motor. Obviously, they have since reconsidered. These days, they owe about half a billion dollars to various creditors and suppliers. As such, SsangYong managment has decided to go ahead and liquidate some assets and fire 37% of the company.

Not so fast, says The Wall Street Journal. According to the daily fishwrapper, a group of recently fired workers at an auto plant in Pyeongtaek occupied the shuttered plant several weeks ago and they have been using slingshots and molotov cocktails against approaching riot police in the lead up to Tuesday’s raid. Until the raid, police responded by dropping tear gas on the workers from helicopters.

Finally, the police have attacked and about 80 commandos backed by choppers retook a few buildings. However, they have stopped short of capturing the highly flammable paint shop where between 500 and 540 strikers are still holed up. Said a union rep over the possibility of a raid on the paint shop, “We will respond to it, bracing ourselves for death.”

[Source: The Wall Street Journal | Image: Jung Yeon-Je/Getty]

The greening of motorsport continues with NASCAR, which has a program to plant 20 acres of trees at race tracks every year. Individual tracks are doing their own things as well, with Pocono Raceway the latest to go a step further: The New York Times reports that it is planting 25 acres of solar cells, equaling about 40,000 panels, to create three megawatts of its own power.

The track’s power bill was about to go up to $500,000 per year, and they figured a better way to spend the money would be investing in renewable energy. The solar farm, being built by enXco and planned for completion next year, will cost up to $17 million but it will eventually pay for itself. In addition to the money the Raceway will save by using its own power, it can sell the excess production back to the regional grid operator for “seven figures” each year.

True, it doesn’t exactly make motorsports green, but it’s a good step. And we have to admit – it makes a lot more sense than KERS. Thanks for the tip, Deepa!

[Source: The New York Times via Green Launches]

Over the past decade or so, automakers and aftermarket shops have placed a lot of attention on stylish hoops. Barely a decade ago, 17-inch wheels were reserved for a high-end vehicle’s top trim model, whereas now you can get factory 20’s on larger vehicles, and 18s are becoming increasingly common on compacts.

Though high-end alloys have fast become a must for any new vehicle, it’s hardly a brand new phenomenon, as we were reminded at the 2009 Concours d’Elegance at Meadow Brook. While wheels today use aluminum to keep weight down, early wheels were made of wood. And when you’re looking at a Cadillac or Lincoln from the early Nineteens, the timber is just gorgeous. As vehicles became more modern, wood turned to steel. Note the generous size of the wheels in relation to the overall size of the vehicle. Some of our favorite wheels reside in the wheel well of Fifties and Sixties-era Ferrari and Jaguar cars, as highly polished wires helped make these two-seaters look that much better.

Click on the gallery below to peruse through some of our favorite wheels at Meadow Brook. We have also added some of our favorite brand badging from the show for your enjoyment.

Right, so some of you might remember Mirage GT Carbon Edition from Porsche tuner Gemballa. As the name suggests, they took an already hypercar cool Porsche Carrera GT and added lightness, a.k.a. lots of additional carbon fiber. They also tweaked the power a bit, with the 5.7-liter V10 making 670 horsepower in this application. The resulting car had a quicker zero to sixty time (3.7 vs. 3.9 from the factory) and a higher top speed (208 mph for the Gemballa/205 mph for the car from Stuggart). Only five editions would be built, which of course leaves us with the perennial uber-car dilemma: It’s not exclusive enough.

Meet the Gemballa Mirage GT Gold Edition. It’s very much like the Carbon Edition – there’s still plenty of carbon fiber – only this one’s got lots and lots of gold. Gold in the sills, the wheels, the air intake, the wing, the rear diffuser, the trunk lid, the brake calipers, the rear brake vent outlets, the wing mirrors and the engine bay. There’s gold all the hell over the place inside the car, too, including the vents, the HVAC controls and the bottom of the gear shift. Which brings up the only point we have to make about the Mirage GT – either edition.

Gemballa went on ahead replaced the birch/ash wood shift knob with carbon fiber. The lightweight wooden knob was an homage to balsa wood shifter in the legendary 917. And really, the knob’s kinda the entire point of the car. So… What’s that? Porsche went ahead and sullied the memory of their beloved 917 by offering an optional carbon fiber knob in the Carrera GT? Well then, Gemballa… carry on.

Italian style and American power — it’s a match made in heaven. The Iso Grifo of the ’60s and ’70s was birthed from this blissful union, along with more recent collaborations including the Giugiaro Mustang and Bertone Mantide. Upstart San Francisco coachbuilder SV Motor Company believes in the formula and and has officially released details of its upcoming 9 Competizione sports car. We previously reported on the car last month, but this is our first look at the Real McCoy. Based on a Chevrolet Corvette C6 and utilizing the LS3 powertrain, the 9 Competizione features Italian-designed carbon fiber bodywork that lowers the curb weight to just 3085 lbs. Performance figures are scarce, but SV claims the car can pull 1.03g and brake from 60-0 mph in 107 ft.

In typical coachbuilt style, the 9 Competizione offers a wide range of personalized options including 25 exterior color choices, multiple wheel options, and several interior colors and materials to choose from. Customers can even pick five different brake caliper finishes. SV has boldly capped production at 1,000 units, and while pricing has not been announced, the company claims the 9 C will cost no more than $100,000.

As the only American automaker not recently put through a government-sponsored bankruptcy, it comes as little surprise that Ford has taken over the spot long held by General Motors as the Official Sponsor of the NHRA. The first sign of dissension in the ranks came earlier this year as GM’s bankruptcy filing ended the contracts the automaker had previously forged with Cagnazzi Racing, KB Racing LLC, Kurt Racing and Pedregon Racing to provide cash, parts and support vehicles.

This new multiyear agreement between Ford and the NHRA means that for the foreseeable future, all official vehicles used by the racing organization will now carry the Blue Oval badge, including trackside safety vehicles. For its part, Ford seems pleased with its newly prominent role within the drag racing community. Brian Wolfe, Ford’s North America Director of Motorsports, said in a statement:

We’re very excited to be partnering with NHRA on this program. We see this as a very good business proposition in terms of being able to actively reach out at-track and online to the NHRA fan base in ways that we haven’t been able to do in recent years. We’ll be able to allow that fan base to see and experience some of our great new products at-track while also partnering with the successful Motorcraft and Quick Lane program to give fans a look at the total Ford ownership experience.

[Source: NHRA]

Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi picks the image that goes on the cover of each breathlessly-awaited edition of the franchise. For the latest version of the game for the PSP, the Corvette ZR1 graces the box. Though he hails from Japan where there’s many flavors of off-the-hook cars from the island’s indigenous automakers, Yamauchi’s got a love affair with American iron. “If you’re looking for the optimum specs, layout, and styling in an FR car, it would be the ZR1,” Yamauchi told Motor Trend. New screenshots of the ZR1 as it appears in Gran Turismo PSP have hit the web as well, fomenting worldwide desire.

The second American car to decorate a Gran Turismo box (the first being a Ford GT), the single Corvette image won out over a mock-up that included a Viper and a Mustang. It seems that while Gran Turismo gives gamers access to cars they may never see in the flesh, it does afford its maker the ability to poke around real examples of such awe-inspiring vehicles. For most GT fans, both new versions of the game and the cars that inhabit its digital simulations are the things of feverish dreams. The difference is that when the game finally drops, it will be obtainable.

We’ve been hearing for quite some time that the subcompact Suzuki Swift could possibly make it Stateside, and while we think it probably should have made the trip about four years ago when the latest generation was first introduced, we’d still accept another fun-to-drive little hatchback with open arms.

With that in mind, it’s with keen interest that we gaze upon these new spy photos of a left-hand-drive Suzuki Swift out and about testing in heavily camouflaged form. We can clearly see at least a passing familial resemblance to the newly-unveiled Suzuki Kizashi sedan, primarily in the revised Swift’s mostly uncovered face.

According to the spy shooter, the next-gen Swift will be available with a range of gas and diesel engines across the pond and may be offered with both hybrid and all-wheel-drive options. We’re not holding our breath for any of this to come to America, but Suzuki fans all around the nation are surely keepin’ the faith. Hat tip to James!

[Source: Next Autos]

Turn 10 Studio’s bi-weekly update on the new cars and tracks of the upcoming Forza 3 video game turned its attention to American Muscle today, offering a sneak peek of some of the current and classic American Iron that will be featured in the game. Not surprisingly, the latest round of muscle cars are on the 400+ car list including the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro and 2009 Dodge Challenger SRT8. You’ll also be able to pilot the king of the Nürburgring, the 2008 Dodge Viper ACR, around the legendary German track and see how close you can get to the record time of 7:22.1. As always, many of the classics will be available including the 1967 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 427, 1970 Ford Mustang Boss 429, 1967 Shelby Cobra 427 S/C and more.

Like the last update, which featured sedans and SUVs, Forza 3 also previewed some unconventional track vehicles like the 2008 Saleen S331 Supercab and the 2006 Dodge Ram SRT-10. Rather not take either of those on a road course? Well, you’re in luck. The update also included news about a new track, Sedona Autopark Raceway – that’s a drag strip. Gamers can set the distance of the strip anywhere from an eighth-mile to a full mile to test the acceleration capabilities of their digital rides.

According to a report from German newspaper Die Tageszeitung, Michael Schumacher – already one of the richest athletes in the world – will earn a cool million Euros (that’s $1.44M USD to us Yanks) for each race in which he’s substituting for injured Ferrari factory driver Felipe Massa.

Schumacher stands to earn an extra million Euros for each race victory, which initially seems like an oversize bonus until you consider that wins have been in uncommonly short supply so far this year for the Italian race team. It’s also expected that Ferrari will keep the German driver in his non-driving advisory role with an extension of his current five million Euro per year contract.

In related news, Schumacher won’t be getting the chance to test the latest Ferrari F60 F1 chassis until the next scheduled practice session for the European Grand Prix. Ferrari had petitioned for an outside-the-rulebook exception to get Schumacher a bit of seat time in its current car but the request was reportedly denied by Williams, Red Bull and Toro Rosso. Suffice it to say that the Scuderia was not pleased.

[Source: Autocar, Ferrari | Image: BacardiLimited]