Industry analysts believe the recent partial sale of Aston Martin to the private equity firm Investindustrial isn't great news for fans of the storied but cash-starved brand. They believe the Italian firm is more likely to give the company a spit and polish in preparation for a later sale, rather than invest funds in new models. So where do the tractors come in?

The unsuccessful bidder was Indian-owned Mahindra, which makes SUVs, utes and tractors. On face value Mahindra seems a mismatch, but history suggests otherwise. First, there's the so-far successful takeover of Jaguar and Land Rover by Indian car maker Tata, and second, there are some fairly compelling historical links between tractors and supercars.

Ferruccio Lamborghini, for example, turned out a pretty mean tractor before moving on to sports cars. And those who know their automotive history (or perhaps Googled Aston Martin for this story) will know that the famous DB initials that adorn some Aston Martins pay homage to British tractor maker David Brown Limited.

It bought Aston Martin soon after World War II and was responsible for the legendary DB5 of James Bond fame.

Before the Aston buy-out, David Brown had produced tractors with Harry Ferguson (of Massey-Ferguson) who, when he wasn't building tractors, developed the world's first four-wheel-drive formula one car, the P99, which Graham Hill drove to sixth at the 1963 Australian Grand Prix.

Holdin' their breath

And still on motor sport, news that former Holden Racing Team boss John Crennan is about to tip a bucket on his previous employers will have some folks on pit lane squirming in their flame-resistant Nomex jocks. Crennan now heads up Kelly Racing, which switched from Holden to Nissan at the end of this year, and obviously has no plans to return to the Lion's den.

The man who spent 50 years at Holden promises to list 50 reasons why it has fallen from grace. But he looks set to save his best gibes for HRT, which he guided to eight V8 Supercar championships.

Crennan has promised to give a full and frank appraisal of the Holden factory team, which has had a lean trot of it recently, having not won a championship for a decade (Rick Kelly and Garth Tander won in sister teams). In fact, Holden Motorsport would have enjoyed a fairly lean trot in the past decade, if it weren't for Ford's uncanny ability to shoot itself in the foot. Had Ford not dumped Team Vodafone, the blue oval would be basking in the glory of five straight V8 championships - and eight out of the past 10. That decision surely ranks as the automotive version of Decca Records knocking back the Beatles because ''guitar groups are on the way out''.

Stick beats carrot

If you wanted to prove that waving a big stick works better than dangling a carrot, look no further than the European car industry. Set a fairly tough mandatory emissions target of 130 grams per kilometre by 2015, the industry is on track to do it easily.

A recent report says average emissions for 2011 were 136g/km, with Fiat, Toyota, Peugeot and Citroen already under the mark. But green lobbyists in Europe aren't impressed, claiming it was a soft target. They should come to Australia: its magic number is 206g/km. To be fair, that figure includes utes, SUVs and vans, where the Europe number doesn't. But take out commercial vehicles and the number is still 184g/km.

Of course, we're not a patch on the US, where Ford has set a new monthly sales record with the SVT Raptor, a 6.2-litre V8 version of the F-Series truck that defied a climate of high petrol prices to set a new monthly sales record in October.