Who’s really driving the rescue of Vauxhall?

It’s an axiom of auto-makers — as it is of most producers of goods — that they are squeezed between suppliers and customers. Upstream suppliers have options to reduce costs and improve profits while their customers downstream, the retailers, can set prices to suit their markets. Although the producer likes to think of himself as king, in fact his thankless task is to squeeze such profit as he can from the narrow margin between supplier and customer. So why, you may well ask, does Magna International, a Canadian supplier of vehicle components, unheard of to the British and European public, want to relieve ailing General Motors of the challenge of running Vauxhall and Opel?

In the motor industry in particular, suppliers are loth to be seen as competing with their customers. Automakers, who jealously guard their exclusive access to the market through contracted dealers, dislike suppliers with ideas above their station.