1946/1948 Ford Convertible Top Yokes (pair) Hot Rod / Rat Rod on 2040-parts.com

New car sales in UK still growing – up 14.8% April 2013. Driven by PPI Claims?

It is quite hard to fathom just how UK new car sales (well, registrations) continue to rise inexorably against a backdrop of otherwise stagnant economic activity, but they do. April 2013 has seen a total of 163,357 new car registrations, up a huge 14.8 per cent on April 2012 and the best figure since 2008, and these sales figures are not being driven by fleet buyers but by private motorists – private sector registrations grew by 32.3 per cent in April and are up by 15.2 per cent year to date. Not surprisingly, it’s the Superminis that are performing strongly – although all sectors are showing a rise – and it’s the Ford Fiesta that continues to be the best seller in the UK with sales of over 8,000 in April and over 42,000 so far in 2013, and the rise of superminis has also seen an increase in sales of petrol-engined cars thanks to the wave of small capacity, frugal petrol options.

Flavio Briatore legal challenge to FIA ban

Flavio Briatore is launching legal action to get his lifetime ban overturned Flavio Briatore will start legal proceedings in the Paris Tribunal de Grande tomorrow in an attempt to overturn the lifetime ban he received from the FIA for his part in the ‘Singapore-Gate’ race fixing episode, which saw Nelson Piquet Jnr intentionally crashing his car to allow team mate Fernando Alonso to take victory in the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix. Briatore is claiming the life time ban from involvement in any FIA sanctioned Motor Sport – including driver management – is a legal absurdity. And he probably has a point.

General Motors to offer talking cars by 2016

GENERAL MOTORS has said that in two years it will offer cars that talk to each other and can almost drive themselves at highway speeds. The company said the semi-autonomous freeway system called Super Cruise will be an option on a new Cadillac that goes on sale in the summer of 2016. The company also plans to put vehicle-to-vehicle transmitters and receivers on all Cadillac CTS models during the same time-frame.