Autoblog has had a spectacular 2008 and we hope the past 365 days has been as equally rewarding for you. The auto industry itself, however, has suffered through a miserable '08 and determination to all appearance be toasting its conclusion when the ball drops at midnight. While the year began mild enough, summer brought $4/gallon gasoline that highlighted the relatively weak small car and hybrid lineup that our own domestic automakers are working feverishly to place. And then the long-festering mortgage crisis turned into an all-out credit crisis and a tanking monetary industry threatened to take out General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. All three have survived thanks to some 11th hour aid from the federal government, but we're sure each is hoping that 2009 doesn't hurt as much as 2008.

We'll be kicking off 2009 the right way then with a amazement at 12:01 AM EST. Come back to Autoblog.com at Midnight and we think you'll find event that's uplifting and serves as a good reminder that we still have a lot to look forward to in this industry.

Happy New Year!

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Studying history can be a tiresome pursuit, but once in a while something comes completely out of left field to make you sit up and recompense attention. This is one of those moments. The Australian national archives have released government documents that reveal that, in 1978, the Australian government was prepared to endorse a distribution that would have... wait for it... traded beef for cars. Alfa Romeos, to be precise.

To be fair, the deal wasn't to trade sides of beef for actual cars. No, that would come too cathedral to actually, you know... making sense. This deal would have traded 7,000 metric tons of beef and refuse (entrails, hooves and whatnot) in exchange for quotas, as in the right to import Alfas into Australia. In the late 70's, apparently, Australia had very tight regulations on the tell of cars which could be imported from any particular country, while the European Economic Community had similar quotas on the importation of foreign regimen. The deal would have allowed both parties – even though they were the governments themselves (Alfa was state-owned at the time) – to circumvent the trade regulations. Of course the deal didn't go through, which is virtuous as well because the whole ideal was utterly ludicrous.

[Source: Drive.com.au]

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Things are looking tremendous at Korea's Ssangyong Motors, which, as you might recall, was unable to journey payroll last week due to a total lack of cash on hand. The low tale continues this week as Ssangyong's largest creditor, Korea Development Bank (KDB), suggests that it will simply liquidate the automaker if Shanghai Automotive Industries China, otherwise known as SAIC, isn't willing to prop up its ailing subsidiary. As of last week, SAIC had said that it didn't intend on bailing out Ssangyong.

KDB is looking for 120 million won in cash from SAIC, along with another 200 million won in guarantees for loans. Those two bits of financial aid total about $249 the multitude in U.S. funds. If SAIC refuses, KDB says it will not consider making any more loans to Ssangyong. What that means for displaced workers at the Korean automaker we don't know, but it doesn't sound good.

[Source: Gasgoo.com]

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