Ford F-150 and Chevy Silverado maintained their positions as the two best-selling vehicles in the United States, despite the fact that pickup sales declined 26 per cent.

Toyota, for the first time, moved up to third place after Dodge sales fell by one per cent, which is still not good news for Toyota which owns 8.25 per cent of the market.

Tundra sales fell by 30 per cent in '08 and well short of its stated goal of 200,000 units per year. The Toyota Tacoma and the ageing Ford Ranger made the biggest upward move among the mid-size pick-ups. The last-place trophy goes to Nissan, as its 34,000 sales represent a meagre 2.11 per cent of the market.

This year is shaping up to be a big one for hybrid, and Honda has revive the Insight brand. The original Insight was the first hybrid to make it to the US market, but it was never very commercially successful.

Honda only managed to sell about 18,000 Insights worldwide over six years. Honda has created a five-seat hatchback that it says will be the most affordable hybrid in the world. Honda is targeting worldwide sales of 200,000 Insights a year, with half of those going to North America.

The Insight makes good use of its Fit based chassis for fun steering and handling, and still manages to get outstanding fuel efficiency of 63mpg.

Hyundai has completed the development of an all-new six-speed automatic transaxle that will improve fuel efficiency and reduce CO_² emissions.

The dealership has applied for nearly 300 patents related to the technology which makes it smaller, more compact and lighter than any other six-speed on the market today.

The transaxle will first arrive in the new Hyundai Grandeur, equipped with a 3.3-litre V6 petrol engine.

In this application, it delivers a 12.2 per cent gain in fuel economy.

The unit is also maintenance-free: the gearbox is 'filled for life' with automatic transmission fluid and needs no topping up, reducing servicing costs.

Developed over a four-year period, this new six-speed automatic gearbox offers numerous technical merits. Despite the extra gear, it is 12kg lighter than the five-speed it replaces. It is considerably simpler, having 62 fewer parts. A total of 16 different Hyundai models will get this transmission, including a redesigned Santa Fe, which is due to arrive in late 2009 and early 2010 in some markets.

One of Honda's sports cars, the S2000, will come to an end at the close of the 2009 model year. The S2000 has been around for 10 years and a pink version was seen in the movie, Fast and the Furious.

Sales of the S2000 for December '08 numbered 72 units and the amount sold for 2008 was 2,538 coming from 4,302 units from the year before. Honda has sold 110,000 in its 10-year run.

The high-revving roadster has always had more in common with the company's high-performance motorcycles, thanks to its 9,000 rpm redline and minimal low-end torque

Persons living in Japan have certainly got their wish come true, a brochure of the 2009 Toyota Wish has surfaced on the Internet.

The Wish will have a choice of two engines. First will be Toyota 2ZR-FAE, which is a 1.8L DOHC that produces 142hp and 130ft-lbs of torque. This engine is also found in the Corolla and the Matrix and improve the Wish power by 22hp and 8ft-lb of torque.

The other engine for the Wish is a 2.0L version of the same engine, producing158hp and 145ft-lbs of torque.