BMW has appointed Synergy as its Strategic Sponsorship Agency Partner for the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.

Synergy put forward a good quality pitch and will now advise BMW on its strategy for its time as a Tier One partner of London 2012.

The partnership was announced in November last year and means that BMW will provide the Olympics with more than 4,000 vehicles, from cars to bicycles, to support the Games’ athletes, technical officials, media and sports federations.

The manufacturer is also a Sustainability Partner for the Olympics and as part of this will provide a low emissions fleet.

Richard Hudson, marketing director for BMW (UK), said: "BMW is delighted to have Synergy on board. As a leader in their field they are well placed to help us activate our sponsorship to its full potential."

Green-Car-Guide.com recently named the BMW Group as the Greenest Manufacturer of the Year for the second time in three years.

Vauxhall is offering students at Coventry University the chance to work for its design team.

Students need to create innovative and creative car interiors and present them when the competition ends in mid-March.
Top judges from Opel Vauxhall Design and Coventry University will judge the entries.

The overall winner will be given the opportunity of going on placement with General Motors (GM) Europe’s design team in Russelsheim.

Richard Shaw, advanced chief designer at Opel/Vauxhall, is championing the competition as a former student of the university.

He said: "We are very committed to helping tomorrow’s car designers explore their skills on a practical level."

"As many design challenges focus on exterior form, we thought to challenge the students to mainly focus on what they feel the interior environments of tomorrow will need to encompass," he added.

Thanks to improved sales and orders at the end of last year, GM made the decision to retain the Opel and Vauxhall brand.

To mark the 20th anniversary of the Mazda’s MX-5 model, the manufacturer is releasing a special edition version of the model.

The Mazda MX-5 20th anniversary Limited Edition car will go on sale on March 1st 2010 at £16,850 and comes complete with ten new pieces of equipment worth more than £650 as well as new colours.

Worldwide, more than 850,000 MX-5s have been sold since it was first released in 1990 and it has received more than 170 awards.

Sales and marketing director for Mazda UK Mark Cameron said: "British motorists have enjoyed a long-term love affair with the Mazda MX-5 which shows every sign of continuing to flourish through the next decade."

The 1.8 litre anniversary model will celebrate the car’s heritage as well as appeal to proud sports car owners, he added.

On March 2nd at the Geneva Motor Show the manufacturer will unveil its new Mazda5.

Rolls-Royce has announced the appointment of a former BMW regional general manager as its new regional director for Asia Pacific.

Paul Harris will move to Singapore to replace Colin Kelly who, after eight years, is to re-establish his own business in Canada. He is to be supported by a team in Beijing.

Mr Harris spent nearly 25 years at the BMW Group in the UK and Europe where he most recently worked in the position of general manager in Northern Europe.

He said: "It is a real privilege to be working with the pinnacle brand in the Asia Pacific where we have a healthy order bank and outlook for both the Phantom family and the new Ghost models."

It is currently an important area for Rolls-Royce as Asia is predicted to be one of its fastest growing regions.

The company recently announced the appointment of Torsten Mueller as its new chief executive.

Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium has been fitted with new luxury pitch-side seats thanks to the team’s official car supplier, Citroen.

The 40 seats are made from leather and come with sporty, figure-hugging contours along with both Arsenal’s crest and the new Citroen logo.

Loughborough’s Auto-kit international has designed the seats and the company’s commercial director Martin Mangat said that it was a pleasure to install the seats.

Since 2008 Citroen has provided C5, C4 Picasso and Berlingo Multispace models for Arsenal players, management, coaches and staff.

The club has also made use of Citroen LCVs which have been used to take training equipment to Arsenal’s various matches around the country.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said: "We are delighted with the new Citroen dugout seats, which are a real improvement and very much in keeping with the overall stadium design."

Ex Formula 1 star Kimi Raikkonen will compete for Citroen in the 2010 FIA World Rally Championship which starts on February 12th in Sweden.

Honda has introduced a new finance package for its Insight hybrid, improving its affordability.

The new package means that drivers can get behind the wheel of one of these low-emission vehicles for just £199 a month with an APR of 5.9 per cent.

Its on-the-road price makes it cheaper than its nearest hybrid competitor by £3,165, Honda says.

The model comes complete with CD audio system, electric folding door mirrors, steering wheel-mounted audio controls, Vehicle Stability Assist and, when the seats are up, 15-inch alloy wheels, 408 litres of boot space.

Tom Gardner, head of marketing at Cars for Honda (UK),said: "Introducing this latest finance package is just another string to the Insight’s affordability bow. It helps customers spread the payments, while also benefiting from the low outright purchase price and low running costs."

The Parker’s annual depreciation report recently announced the Honda Jazz is the best motor for retaining its value.

The best-selling car under the government’s scrappage scheme has taken to the racing track.

Around 20,000 Hyundai i10 cars have been sold since the introduction of the scheme – up 263 per cent in 2009 on the previous year.

But Car Dealer Magazine decided to enter one of them into the national ‘banger’ championship race to see how well it fared.

A Hyundai donated by the company, with just 823 miles on the clock and a list price of £8,885, faced 35 other cars at Wimbledon Stadium.

The interior trim had to be stripped, the glass removed and bumpers thrown away for it to comply with the conditions of the race. But just after just one lap it was shunted into the safety barrier from behind, making its racing experience a short one.

Ironically the car had to be scrapped, being a prototype used for development of the model and training.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) recently revealed that new car registrations completed through the scrappage scheme are heading towards 290,000.

Nissan Sunderland Plant is the UK’s largest car producer for the 12th year in a row, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

The Sunderland plant manufactured 338,150 units in 2009 – more than a third of the 999,460 passenger cars made in the UK last year.

Its highest volume car was the Qashqai with nearly 200,000 produced, making the figure since the car was launched in 2007 well over half a million.

Trevor Mann, Nissan, senior vice president for manufacturing, Europe, said: "This is good news for everyone at the plant. Credit for the achievement goes to our Sunderland workforce which continues to work extremely hard to meet demand."

He added that the strong performance reflects the continued success of models such as the Qashqai and was confident looking forward saying that Sunderland’s aptitude for making models which suit the market would help it overcome the touch conditions in the industry.

Nissan’s new minicar, the Roox, went on sale last month.

Mazda’s Mazda6 has been given a facelift and the new car will be unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in March.

The upgrade comes complete with improved refinement, cabin ambience, environmental compatibility and safety performance.

Its new 2.0 litre DISI (direct-injection spark ignition) engine makes the car more efficient, reducing carbon emissions.

The revamped model is sportier, with new headlights and rear lights helping to give it a new identity, Mazda says.

Mazda’s MZR-CD 2.2 litre diesel is available in three different power categories, all of them offering better efficiency.

Its five-speed automatic transmission has been fine-tuned for the new petrol model, offering improved acceleration as well as fuel economy.

The Mazda6 will go on sale across Europe in spring 2010.

Also being previewed at the international show is the Mazda5, which will join the Mazda6 facelift on March 2nd 2010 and is also going on sale across Europe later this year.

With the end of the scrappage scheme drawing ever closer and VAT rising back up to 17.5 per cent, BT Yahoo Cars has outlined what could be the cheapest options this year.

Hyundai’s i10, which has been the highest-selling car of the scrappage scheme after selling around 20,000 models so far, is available for £7,760, and is described by the news provider as "a solidly built, five-door supermini for seven grand". It also comes with a five-year warranty.

The Fiat Panda, which seems like it has been around forever, is available for a similar price and couples utilitarianism with style.

Citroen’s C4 was the top family hatchback at a price of £14,395 with the Skoda Superb the top family saloon. Coming in at £16,325, while not technically a saloon, it is described as having an "idiosyncratic" and "quirky" appeal.

The most affordable premium car was the Jaguar X-Type. Starting at just £21,000 it is not cheap, but for its quality dealers will be even more desperate to offload them.