First GM sells their stake in Suzuki, and now Ford has announced that they plan to sell two-thirds of their stake in Mazda. As with the GM sale, Ford is scrambling to find cash.

Ford, currently owns 33.4% of Mazda, which is a controlling interest. This understanding is about a 20% stake. This would net Ford $540 million based on Mazda's closing price today, which is barely a quarter of what a 20% stake in the Asian maker was worth one year ago. Mazda's shares rose 6.4% to 184 yen today amid media reports of a coming sale.

Full story here.

GM only owned 3% of tiny Suzuki, but they're desperate for cash, so they sold their stake back to Suzuki. That gave the General $230 million–and every little million helps.

Suzuki claims this will have no impact on their future plans. In fact the two automakers will continue working together despite the sale. "We are committed to continue promoting and implementing not only our existing projects, including development collaboration on advanced automotive technologies, but also collaboration on entries in new emerging markets," Suzuki said in a news release.

Full story here at Carscoop.com.

Last month Straightline reported that Chrysler would not be using Getrag for their dual-clutch tranny (Chrysler's dual-clutch transmision may be dead). Chrysler's concern (or claim) was that Getrag was underfunded for the project. Now we learn that Getrag's U.S. plant, because of Chrysler's pullout, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection–and they're suing Chrysler LLC.

So, in addition to not having a supplier for a dual-clutch automated manual transmission, Chrysler has got a lawsuit to deal with; just what the doctor ordered…

Full story here.

Here's AutoObserver's take: Harbinger of Things To Come: Chrysler Supplier Getrag Files Bankruptcy