Belgrade - The last of the Yugoslav-era cars, known for their lack of reliability as much as tasteless design and crude unworkmanlike finish, rolled off the assembly line in Serbia on Friday, nearly two decades after Yugoslavia itself fell apart.

Zastava, the car factory in the central Serbian town Kragujevac, has effectively ceased to exist and, following a massive investment by the Italian giant Fiat, is to begin making a modern small car.

Launched in 1953 in a country recovering from a destructive war while trying to implement its own form of socialism, Zastava was to prove that Yugoslavia could build a car of its own.

Los Angeles - These days the big news in the US auto industry seems to be coming from Washington where Detroit's "Big Three" automakers are begging politicians for a few million greenbacks to save their ailing companies.

But the real green in the auto industry was on display at the Los Angeles auto show, where the focus was on exactly the kind of environmentally friendly cars that American automakers so studiously ignored for so many years, to their ultimate detriment.

The largest Indian passenger car maker Maruti Suzuki, launched a new car model A-Star on Wednesday. A-Star is developed at the Manesar facility of the company and it is the fifth model in A2 segment. The car would also be exported in Europe, Middle East, Latin America, Asia, Australia and Africa. The company has set a target to sell 50,000 units of A-star in Indian market while one lakh units would be sold in international markets. The company is optimistic to export 2 lakh units by 2010-11.

Toyota, major Japanese Automobile Manufacturer, has put the launch of Prius, the world's first mass-produced hybrid vehicle on hold, owing to a steep duty structure and inability to fix a competitive price.

Toyota was working on bringing Prius at a price tag of Rs 20-22 lakh. But Honda is already offering the Civic Hybrid at Rs 13.36 lakhs, a price which makes Prius a bad deal for the end customer. Honda recently reduced price of Civic Hybrid by Rs 8 lakh due to low demand.

Bangkok  - In one of the first blows to be felt from the "Hamburger Crisis" in Thailand, General Motors Thursday announced plans to close its Thailand plant for two months, paying employees 75 per cent of their wages.

"If we don't close down we will have an oversupply," said GM spokesman Chartchai Suwannasevok, confirming the US giant's plan to close its plant in Rayong province for the months of December and January.

Bonn, Germany  - A David-and-Goliath takeover offer for the German factories of General Motors sent the share price of the bidding company, SolarWorld, crashing 16 per cent lower Wednesday.

SolarWorld, which assembles and installs smaller electricity generating systems that rely on wind or the sun, asked GM to give it four factories, a German research centre, the Opel brand and 1 billion euros (1.25 billion dollars).

The Bonn-based company said it would inject an additional 1 billion euros of its own cash and loans to convert Opel into "Europe's first green automobile maker," designing cars with low- emission engines.