There's another way to look at this - an elderly Austrian gentleman(Ferdinand Piech, Chairman of VW's Supervisory Board) attempts to show another elderly Austrian gentleman(Frank Stronach, boss of Magna International) who's top dog. Both are very wealthy, very powerful, very proud and very pig-headed(probably).
It is good that Karmann may get the contract, as they've already shed over a thousand workers through Administration. Didn't VW already take a financial interest(10%) in Karmann recently?
I think this won't affect ultimately Magna's desire to buy Opel. Other carmakers, besides Piech's VW and to a lesser extent BMW, have already said they see it as no problem having a supplier as a direct competitor, as long as the two branches are kept separate - Daimler for one. Magna stood to lose a lot of its revenue if Opel(GM Europe) had gone totally bankrupt as GM worldwide was its largest customer, so to some extent it was safeguarding its core business. If BMW pulls the MINI SUV Magna will still have other contracts for its Steyr assembly facility in Austria, including of course the Aston Martin Rapide, the quintessential British luxury car - built in Austria with a German built engine. Funny business the car business, but it's still motivated by people and their wills and egoes.
