> If you're designing a car from scratch and not just plagiarising
> chassis from old models and components from old models, any i.MX
> chip would do the job.

I'm really no expert regarding automotive semiconductors but the following Freescale automotive documents:

http://www.freescale.com/files/automotive/doc/brochure/BR32BITAUTOMP.pdf
(no mention of i.MX at all)

http://www.freescale.com/files/microcontrollers/doc/roadmap/BRAUTOPRDCTMAP.pdf
(don't miss the smallish table near bottom on the right of page 2)

http://www.freescale.com/files/microcontrollers/doc/selector_guide/SG187.pdf
(pages 20 to 24)

...don't make the impression to me as if i.MX could currently replace each and every MPC55xx/56xx for each and every use case, even if the car is designed from scratch.