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MONDEO IRISH WINNER: The Ford Mondeo has won Irish car of the year.

MONDEO IRISH WINNER:The Ford Mondeo has won Irish car of the year.

The family car, which came third in the recent European car of the year competition, won the Irish prize by 122 points, with second place going to the Kia C'eed on 104 points.

PORSCHE RECALLS:Porsche is recalling 128 of its 911 GT3 and 911 GT3 RS sports cars to repair switches that control traction and adjust suspensions, the company said on Tuesday. The recall covers models made between September 28th and November 9th of this year, it said in a statement.

OLDEST ROLLS-ROYCE SOLD:The oldest Rolls-Royce in the world broke records this week when it was sold for almost €5 million. The 1904 car sold for almost twice its estimate when it was bought by a private collector at Bonhams in London, in an auction that began at €1.4 million.

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TOYOTA EMPLOYEE DIES OF OVERWORK:A Toyota employee in Japan died of overwork after logging more than 106 hours of overtime in a month, a judge ruled last week, reversing a ministry's earlier decision not to pay compensation to his widow.

The ministry refused to pay the widow the usual compensation for a spouse's work-related death, saying the man had only logged 45 hours of overtime in the month before he died, Japanese media reported. But the court ruled that the employee had worked more than that. The employee, who was working at a Toyota factory in central Japan, died of irregular heartbeat in February 2002 after passing out in the factory around 4am.