Breaking news has Congress creating a tentative agreement between the US Government and the “Big 3″ that allows $15 billion of available loans. An agreement reached between the White House and Congress posed that the money should come from $25 billion in loans previously approved to help the automakers retool for energy fuel efficient vehicles, rather than drawing the aid from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Fund for struggling financial institutions. Does this mean at some future time the US Government will be asked for yet another $25 billion for the retooling? The Senate and House of Representatives have confirmed they will be meeting on Tuesday to vote on the deal and finalize the appropriation of money. In addition, this is only part of the money that has been asked for. In March, after President Elect Obama takes office, a meeting to determine if additional money will be granted will take place.

However, on the other side of the world, as American automakers get $15 billion in federal loans, Kia has been setting the auto industry en-fuego on fire with it’s aggressive push into small and innovative cars that rival their Japanese counterparts. Looking at what the Japanese have been doing for the last 20 years, Kia (and Hyundai) have been slowly and silently creeping up behind Toyota and Honda with great looking cars and industry leading warranties. With the new Optima, Boreggo, Soul and Forte, Kia is slowly and surely clearing a pathway to the top of the entry level car market.

In the BMW community there are many well known cars around the country. One in particular is Jon Sibal. Jon’s a graphic designer and his BMW shows it. His custom renderings have not only changed the face of his 3-series, but that of many other cars, including various cars that often show up at SEMA. However, this year, there’s going to be one car in particular that uses his designs, yet he had no part in. Here’s the picture:

The new Hyundai Coupe, with help from racing drive of D1 drifting fame, have put together a “racing concept” car to get people excited about the new coupe. In the process of doing so, they may have stolen a rendering by Jon that was done for a Lexus LF-A front bumper. As you can see by the picture below, the designs are from the hood-line down are an exact copy. Doing a quick copy-paste and resize in Photoshop only makes the case for Hyundai worse. I only hope that whoever did this design for Hyundai realizes you can’t go around taking other people’s designs off the internet.

Source: JonSibal.com