The character Gene Kelly from Singing in the Rain is recreated in this advertisement for the Volkswagen Golf. The background song is Frank Sinatra’s Singing in the rain. The video has some funky robot dance moves to it. Kinda like Kollaboration. The remake of the original scene reflects on the Volkswagen Golf being advertised, “the original updated”. I like the concept.

Video is after the jump.

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Here are the latest spy images for the Proton Satria Replacement Model or Proton SRM24 which have been in testing phases for quite some time already. These photos were taken while the Proton SRM was parked in a parking lot, with it’s driver nowhere to be found. Because of that the photographer managed to get shots of the interior. Spyshots are after the jump!

Click here to read the rest of Satria Replacement Model Spyshots with Interior

The 2006 Honda Civic was launched today at the KL Convention Center. This would be the 8th edition of the Honda Civic here in Malaysia since it’s introduction here back in 1977. The Civic started out as a compact car for the masses, economical, clean and affordable. It’s definitely come a long time since then. I was there first person at the launch this morning to bring you the latest details on this beauty.

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A team of Proton engineers met with Mitsubishi officials at Mitsubishi Australia’s Adelaide assembly plant last week to discuss the possible import of the Mitsubishi 380 large sedan into Malaysia. This followed the shipment of a single Mitsubishi 380 here last month for climate and government regulation approval testing.

The Mitsubishi 380 is a large sedan based on the North American Mitsubishi Galant and is powered by a 3.8 liter SOHC V6 engine making 235 horsepower at 5250rpm and 343Nm of torque at 4000rpm. Malaysia and other Asia Pacific countries as an export market could relieve the pressure that Mitsubishi Australia is facing as sales on their home grounds for the car isn’t very encouraging.

More details on the Mitsubishi 380 in my previous post.

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GM is going on a share dumping spree. It previously unloaded Subaru shares partly to Toyota and the rest onto the open market. It’s recent stake dump is in the form of Suzuki Motor Corp shares. Suzuki Motor Corp and General Motors recently engaged a 17% share buyback transaction worth USD$1.96 billion. Most of the transaction is complete.

This is part of GM’s efforts to raise cash to continue operating and execute it’s turnaround plans after losing USD$8.6 billion last year. GM will continue to hold about 3% stake in Suzuki Motors after the transaction is complete.

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The world’s 2nd largest automotive supplier* with sales of more than RM103.36 billion Delphi Corp has offered help to Proton in terms of widening it’s vehicle base and pushing for export markets.

The Michigan-based company supplies automotive parts to companies like Porsche, Mercedes Benz, GM, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, Honda, Audi and Volkswagen. It employs 185,000 employees worldwide and has 164 manufacturing sites, 41 joint ventures, 53 customer centres cum sales offices and 33 technical centers in 38 countries. It has a plant here in Kuala Terengganu manufacturing wire harnesses for Proton.

Delphi Packard Electric Asia Pacific managing director Majdi Abulaban said Delphi is keen on being Proton’s strategic team mate, sharing it’s global know-how in designing and manufacturing quality components for the automotive industry. It is hoped that working together would result in better economies of scale which translates into lower costs and better quality cars for Proton.

BTW the last I heard of Delphi, it was bankrupt.

* - According to Automotive News list of Top 100 global suppliers.

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Perodua will begin exporting it’s successful Perodua Myvi compact car to Britain from July onwards if everything goes well. The Perodua Myvi has already passed British quality checks and once it’s backlog of 45,000 pending orders have been cleared by July, it will start exporting the car.

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Here are spyshots sent in by reader pycazu of the new small CBU (fully-imported) car Toyota is bringing in. They were taken on the Kesas highway. One glance and you can confirm that it is the hatchback version of the Toyota Yaris. They are already being loaded up on trailers perhaps to be sent to showrooms or storage yards, I’m not sure. This probably means it will be launched really soon here. Price range would likely be in the range of RM90-110K which brings it into direct competition with the Honda Jazz. Update: The Toyota Yaris has been launched in Malaysia. More details here. Spyshots after the jump!

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I’m pretty impressed by the elegant not too loud bodykit that Mugen has put on the Honda Fit. It looks really great in it’s orange colour too, but what really makes the Mugen Fit Spec D special compared to the other kitted up Honda Fits (Honda Jazz in our markets) out there?

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This is the much talked about Top Gear Winter Olympics episode, which features plenty of funky fusions of classic winter sports and automobiles. Really good cinematography by my standards anyway. It’s a whole episode, so it’s pretty long. Watch it during lunch hour or at night or something.

Cars featured: Audi Q7, Volvo XC90, Citroen C1, Jaguar XK8, Land Rover Discovery, Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, Suzuki Swift, and an old-school MINI Cooper.

Click here to read the rest of Top Gear Winter Olympics