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VW’s big jump in profits shows the cost for ‘Premium’ badges

Volkswagen’s profits jumped by £5.7 billion to £25.5 billion with sales numbers up by one million. But the big profits come from ‘Premium’ badges. What’s in a name?

Watch the sad, final moments of a crusher-bound heap

Automotive wrecking yards are good places to reflect on the real-world values of heavily depreciated vehicles versus global current scrap-metal prices, and to see which cars have suddenly had the fix-it-versus-total-it line moved by insurance companies (the early-21st-century Subaru Legacy Outback, for example, appeared in large numbers in high-turnover wrecking yards just during the last year, as fairly minor collision damage on these cars is no longer worth fixing). You'll see the things that a car's last owner does in a desperate attempt to sell (or at least live with) an increasingly decrepit heap (as we learned in "Repo Man," you really will find a Little Tree in every car). During a recent trip to a San Jose, Calif., yard, I encountered this sad yet strangely compelling scene.

MINI Beachcomber Concept revealed

The Countryman-based MINI Beachcomber Concept Another month in 2009 and yet another MINI. When we reported last month on the MINI Rolls Royce Edition we reckoned that BMW had managed to produce a dozen new models of the MINI in 2009, although the number of new models and limited editions is so large we thought we might have missed one or two. But if we were right with the dozen models at that point you can now make that a baker’s dozen with the reveal of MINI’s latest creation – The MINI Beachcomber.