Car lovers view their rides as their castles. If someone like that is on your holiday gift list, here are a few gadgets, all under $200, that will add to their quality time on the road.

• Navigation systems:

Shoppers are snapping up cars and trucks so quickly that General Motors Co. is boosting production for the rest of the year to keep up with demand driven by “cash for clunkers.“ It’s another sign that automakers believe consumers are returning to showrooms after a yearlong slump. Ford Motor Co. last week moved to increase its output, and other automakers took similar action earlier this month. GM said yesterday that it would add 60,000 vehicles to its production schedule in the third and fourth quarters and bring back 1,350 laid-off workers. The company now plans to make 535,000 cars and trucks in July-September.

A group of car and truck dealers have banded together to offer their own sales incentives in hopes of getting drivers who don’t qualify for the “cash for clunkers” program to buy vehicles. The privately funded Automotive Stimulus Plan, which currently involves about 40 dealers from across the country, is designed to help fill in the gaps left by the government’s program, said Brian Benstock of Paragon Auto Group in New York City.

61 percent:
U.S. government
  17.5 percent: United Auto Workers union through its retiree health-care trust
  11.7 percent:
Canadian government
  9.8 percent: bondholders from the old company

Metro Business asked George E. Hoffer, an economics professor at Virginia Commonwealth University who specializes in the transportation industry, about the future of the auto industry: “There are both internal factors and external factors. “Externally, nobody knows when the economy is going to turn around. . . . Second, we’ve got increasingly stringent standards being imposed on the auto industry.

Sen. Jim Webb yesterday called the Senate’s refusal to help the auto industry “a woeful misapplication of the priorities that should govern our stewardship as political leaders.“ Webb and Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., joined 50 other senators Thursday night in trying to force Senate action on a $14 billion government loan to Detroit’s Big Three automakers.

The planned $14 billion auto-industry bailout did not sit well with Virginia Republicans in the House of Representatives. Seven of the eight GOP representatives voted against the bailout. Rep. Thomas M. Davis III of the 11th District was not recorded as voting. The state’s three Democratic representatives voted for the plan. Earlier yesterday, two GOP members of Congress from the greater Richmond area expressed reservations over the bailout.

The two Richmond area Saturn dealerships are consolidating into one. The Saturn of West Broad store on West Broad Street east of Parham Road will close today. About 20 employees and 100 vehicles will move to the Saturn of Richmond store on Midlothian Turnpike, said Haywood “Huddy” Hyman Jr,, who owns both dealerships. Hyman said the move is being made to save money. Sales at the two stores are down 25 percent so far this year compared with the same last year.