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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.

XFR Jag the fastest ever

They took with them the usual holiday toys, but they remembered to pack a nice new Jaguar XFR, with a few mods necessary to run at Bonneville (roll cage, fire extinguishers, etc). They had a little fiddle with the ECU to derestrict it (and yield 600bhp) but, it is claimed, made no further mods apart from adding a spoiler at the back to stop the XFR taking off on the Salt Flats’ wide open spaces. Jaguar XFR breaks 225mph at Bonneville So what happened?

New Porsche Macan Revealed: Los Angeles Auto Show (video)

The Porsche Macan (pictured) has been revealed in LA The Porsche Macan has been revealed at the Los Angeles Auto Show, although Porsche’s endless teases for the baby Cayenne mean we already know much of what’s on offer in the Cayenne. The styling is very much ‘Baby Cayenne’, and no one is going to think the Macan is anything other than a smaller Porsche SUV with its very familiar looks. The Macan is smaller than the Cayenne – 146mm shorter and 16mm narrower – but it is bigger than the Audi Q5 on which it’s based (70mm longer and 24mm wider – lower too by 30mm).