An online advertising campaign for Ford has gone badly wrong, with the car firm standing accused of bad taste over its depiction of a new SportKa decapitating a cat.
Ford's European operation and Ogilvy & Mather, its advertising agency, began an investigation on Thursday into how a proposed ad - which both insisted had been rejected - had begun circulating on the internet. Animal protection groups attacked the "abhorrent" advert, which shows the ginger cat having its head cut off by the sunroof before its body slides down the bonnet. The car maker said the advert was conceived as part of a "viral" campaign, where short videos are released on to the internet and redistributed by email, as people find them funny. But it insisted it was not meant to be developed. As an alternative, a clip showing a comedy pigeon being thwacked by the bonnet, had been chosen. That ad caused controversy among some pigeon fanciers and was also condemned by animal rights groups. Ford has been trying to build a "bad boy" image for the SportKa, an overpowered version of its tiny Ka pitched as "the Ka's evil twin". It flatly denied releasing the video deliberately to boost this image.
Honda is suing a Chinese manufacturer, alleging that it copied its CRV. The move is the latest example of a foreign company attempting to use the courts in China to combat industrial piracy. A spokesman for Honda said that Shuanghuan Auto in central Hubei province had refused to halt production forcing the Japanese firm to file a suit in a Beijing court last November. Honda's motorcycle arm has filed nearly 20 suits in recent years against Chinese firms, alleging all and or parts of its bikes had been copied. In one case, it eventually formed a joint venture with one of the alleged pirates.
BMW's new X3 - the Land Rover Freelander rival and baby version of the X5 - seems to be something of a hit for the German marque. Amid media reports that the British allocation of X3s is already sold out even before it arrives there next month, BMW is adding a night shift at the Austrian factory building the small off-roader. BMW said it had instructed Magna Steyr - to whom production has been outsourced - to increase production by a third to about 100,000 a year.
The Circuit of Ireland rally gets underway this weekend. Once a truly national event, this year's rally, sponsored by Buy & Sell, is concentrated in Fermanagh and the surrounding counties. Race centre is in the Killyhelvin Hotel in Enniskillen with racing on the Saturday in Cos Fermanagh, Tyrone and Monaghan. Sunday will see the rally in Donegal and Tyrone, before it finished up with stages in Fermanagh and Tyrone on Monday.