CHRYSLER

U.S. automakers and officials at the Detroit auto show struck an optimistic yet cautious tone on Monday as they sought to put a toxic year of slumping sales and massive government aid behind.

U.S. auto executives and elected officials at the Detroit auto show on Monday sought to draw a curtain on a year of appalling sales and massively unpopular government aid.

Top automotive industry executives gathered at the media preview for the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, starting on Sunday.

U.S. automakers and officials at the Detroit auto show struck an optimistic yet cautious tone on Monday as they sought to put a toxic year of slumping sales and massive government aid behind.

Ford Motor Co swept the 2010 North American Car and Truck Awards at the Detroit auto show on Monday, marking only the third time in the 17-year history of the award that a single automaker has claimed both titles.

General Motors Co said on Thursday it will seek to sell its Nexteer Automotive business -- the steering unit the U.S. automaker took back from former parts subsidiary Delphi Corp last year.

Ford Motor Co posted a 33 percent sales gain for December as U.S. auto sales ended 2009 on an upswing after a tumultuous year that saw GM and Chrysler collapse into bankruptcy and China overtake the United States as the biggest car market.

(Corrects to show gain in Honda sales was nearly 25 percent, not 20 percent, in paragraph 6)

Ford Motor Co posted a 33 percent sales gain for December as U.S. auto sales ended 2009 on an upswing after a tumultuous year that saw GM and Chrysler collapse into bankruptcy and China overtake the United States as the biggest car market.

U.S. auto sales are expected to end 2009 on a slight upswing in December, capping a year that saw General Motors and Chrysler collapse into bankruptcy and China overtake the United States as the biggest car market.

U.S. pay czar Kenneth Feinberg on Wednesday approved compensation plans for several executives and top-paid employees at three firms that have received taxpayer aid.

Fiat may offer to raise car production in Italy 50 percent when it holds preliminary talks with the government on Tuesday, in return for tax breaks on some car sales and possible help in reducing labour costs.

Ford Motor Co said on Monday it is offering its 41,000 U.S. factory workers buyouts and early retirement offers in a bid to reduce its payroll costs as it aims to return to profit by 2011.

A push by U.S. automakers to build more fuel efficient vehicles is playing to a strength of Canada's auto parts makers and positions them to pick up market share as the industry emerges from recession.

Chrysler will keep open through 2011 its Sterling Heights, Michigan, plant near Detroit that it had once planned to close at the end of 2010, a United Auto Workers vice president said on Thursday

The U.S. Treasury will not recover any portion of the $3.7 billion still outstanding in loans it made to automaker Chrysler under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, according to the terms of a plan filed with bankruptcy court on Tuesday.

The U.S. Supreme Court ordered a lower court to dismiss a legal challenge by three Indiana pension funds to the government-backed sale of bankrupt automaker Chrysler LLC to a group led by Italian carmaker Fiat SpA.

The new restrictions covering the most of the 26 to 100 most highly compensated employees at bailed out firms AIG, Citigroup, GM and GMAC were issued today by President Obama's Pay Czar Stephen Feinberg.

The U.S. pay czar on Friday issued his latest crackdown on bailout recipients, ruling that cash salaries will be mostly limited to $500,000 for the next tier of top earners.

A lawyer for the U.S. Treasury department said Wednesday that the U.S. will lose $30 billion of the $82 billion bailout investment it made in the auto industry.

Chrysler is willing to let market share slide in the short term to further its longer restructuring goals, the company's chief executive said in a presentation of his business plan to members of Congress on Tuesday.