"auto firm" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
You could use it to describe a company that handles automotive sales and services, for example, "Parker's Auto Firm has been helping customers choose their perfect vehicle for over 20 years."
C1 Korean Cuts Stake in Auto Firm Hyundai, South Korea's largest business group, said its founder would sell a 6.1percentt stake in the Hyundai Motor Company.
And the world's largest auto firm, Japan's Toyota, called back 9m vehicles in 2010 after some of its cars were found to have faulty pedals that caused them to accelerate rapidly.
In Japan, auto firm Toyota topped the charts, with a nomination rate of 59%.
That relationship appears to have ended after Nutonomy was acquired by auto firm Delphi last year.
Shanghai Auto, GM's partner and the largest Chinese auto firm, generated $11.7 billion in revenue last year on the sale of 800,000 vehicles bearing foreign nameplates.
Last November Mahindra realized its long-cherished ambition when it snatched a 70% stake in cash-strapped SsangYong Motor, Korea's fifth-largest auto firm, for $463 million.
Sergio Marchionne, Fiat's chief, has forecast that only six global auto firms will survive within the next five years.
Jeff Lanctot, chief strategy officer at Avenue A Razorfish, an interactive advertising agency, said financial services and auto firms in particular were pulling back.
America's big three auto firms - Ford, General Motors and Chrysler - were all due to submit business plans to Congress as they seek financial support to weather the economic downturn.
Take the car industry, held up by frontbenchers on all sides as proof that it doesn't matter that no big British-owned auto firms exist any more – we still make the damned things.
As described in a new book, "Designated Drivers: How China Plans to Dominate the Global Auto Industry", by Greg Anderson, state planners intended, by 2010, to have "three or four large, globally competitive auto firms" like America and Japan, and for these to have their own successful brands and technology.
