Italian Car News--4.18.12

French and Italian car sales show the real state of Europe's economy The Guardian (blog) European new car sales, for instance. Car sales in Italy were down 26.7% in March compared with a year earlier. Registrations across the EU were down 7.0% to their lowest March level since 1998. According to an Association of European Automakers (ACEA) ... See all stories on this topic » The Guardian (blog)

Audi Nears Ducati Purchase Wall Street Journal ... to buy Italian motorcycle maker Ducati Motor Holding SpA for around $1.1 billion including debt, according to people familiar with the matter, a move that would intensify its rivalry with BMW AG and expand the luxury-auto maker's offerings. See all stories on this topic » Wall Street Journal

Audi Is Said to Be Ready to Buy Ducati New York Times (blog) By JACK EWING FRANKFURT– Audi, the luxury car unit of Volkswagen, plans to enter the motorcycle business by acquiring Ducati, an Italian maker of high-end two-wheelers, a person briefed on the transaction said Tuesday. The purchase of Ducati will ... See all stories on this topic » New York Times (blog)

RPT-UPDATE 2-Audi to buy superbike maker Ducati for 860 mln euros Reuters "The purchase does have a trophy feel to it, in the sense of something you might mount up on the wall next to the stag you shot last year," said an auto industry analyst, who himself drives a Yamaha R1 superbike. When exclusive Italian superbike rival ... See all stories on this topic »

European car sales at lowest in 14 years Telegraph.co.uk The number of cars sold was the lowest in March – a key month because of the introduction of new registration plates in some countries – since 1998. Sales slumped by 26.7pc in Italy, 23.2pc in France and 4.5pc in Spain. The decline in sales highlights ... See all stories on this topic » Telegraph.co.uk

Car Sales in Europe Down to 14-Year Low autoevolution This has affected new car sales in a major way, and last month demand dropped to a 14-year low. Fiat, Renault and PSA Peugeot Citroen posted the biggest drops. What's more, backbone countries like France and Italy, the second and third biggest markets ... See all stories on this topic »

F1: Ferrari Setting 2012 Pace In The Pits… SPEEDtv.com (Photo: LAT Photographic) Ferrari does not have a leading car so far in 2012, but when it comes to pit stops, the famous Italian team is setting the pace. That is the finding of the Spanish sports daily Marca, reporting that Fernando Alonso's 2.4 ... See all stories on this topic »

Italy leads drop in EU car sales AutoSpies.com March is traditionally the strongest month for car sales across the 27-nation bloc. It was the sixth consecutive month of falling European car sales. The second biggest decline came in France, where sales were down 23.2%. Italian and French carmakers ... See all stories on this topic »

From Mini, An Art Car That's More Than Just Art Parts Wired News It's on display at the Salone del Mobile, an Italian furniture show at the University of Milan that runs through April 28th. To offer new perspectives on the design of the Mini's individual elements, Scholten and Baijings "peeled the Mini One like an ... See all stories on this topic » Wired News