96 Yamaha V Max 600 Left Lower Fairing S26 on 2040-parts.com

The bestselling new cars in Britain

September is the biggest month of the year for new car sales in Britain: car manufacturers say it’s the most important month to get right and a good September performance is thus something of a bellwether test. The UK trade body the SMMT has just released new car registration data for September 2013, which enables us to get a picture of the state of the nation’s new car sales. And the news remains glowing.

Chicago tuner breaks 9-second mark with Nissan GT-R

AMS Performance of Chicago, holder of the fastest quarter-mile time in a Nissan GT-R, has set the bar higher with an 8.97-second run at 169 mph. According to AMS, the run also grabbed the fastest 60-to-130-mph time, at 3.34 seconds. The Alpha 12, the shop's flagship performance package, cranks up the GT-R's output to 1,500 hp.

New Skoda Octavia Scout price and spec – costs from £25,315

New Skoda Octavia Scout costs from £25,315 The new Skoda Octavia Scout arrived at the Geneva Motor Show in the Spring, bringing an ‘Allroad’ version of the latest Skoda Octavia Combi (Estate) to the market. As with all estate cars with offroad pretensions, the Octavia Scout comes with a more butch set of bumpers and a more purposeful nose, black cladding for the door sills and wheel arches, a new set of alloys, a raised ride height and a few tweaks for the interior so it all looks more than capable of taking on a muddy boot sale car park. The Scout comes with a choice of two 2.0 litre TDI engines at launch, with a lower powered, 148bhp with a six-speed manual and a more powerful, 182bhp version, getting a six-speed DSG gearbox, both of which return official economy of 55.4mpg (although, oddly, the lower-powered gets emissions of 129g/km and the more powerful 134g/km).