Not news as the story is a few weeks old, but VW is going to be buying Karmann and its assets. It came to my attention a couple of days ago.

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financia ... 3ALKG2.htm

Amongst those assets will be the Chrysler Crossfire tooling, which makes owning one of those cars suddenly “interesting” - Karmann engineered and build the Crossfire and they have all the tooling and have stopped making Crossfire modules (read: body parts). Apparently, getting a spare bumper is going to be very difficult - they would have to be either shipped in from the USA or come from breakers. Hopefully Chrysler will be able to supply new parts soon - there are still cars out there under warranty.

Mechanically, the Crossfire is Mercedes Benz, which means that internal bits are available, It’s the body work that’s in question.

Note to self: drive more carefully, don’t park near people carriers, and sift eBay for spares.

It is big news here. Karmann are the biggest employers in the town where I work!

I’m not doubting that - I think it]s good news too - Karmann and VW have a history. I just hope that if some numpty in a Nova rear-ends me, I can get a new bumper!

Last year, I contacted Karmann through their web site about where I could obtain some badges to put on my car - I didn’t get a reply. A few weeks later, an envelope with some banded and transfers arrived in the post. They just send them out to people who ask. Or they did send them out. I don’t know if they still do . So my car has some Karmann badges in a couple of discrete places. A few people seem to be doing this - they want Karmann to be recognised as the car’s builder/manufacturer.

I hear from someone I know who is waiting for a new rear bumper that Chrysler have sorted out the problem, and that spare body panels will start to be available again. *phew*

The closed the gates on the factory in Rheine yesterday, for the last time. 130 people jobless the week before Christmas.

A few will be transfered to the Osnabrück factory.