1964-66 Ford Mustang Automatic Trans Shifter Bezel on 2040-parts.com

German new car sales drop 11 per cent – pre-reg accounts for 33.5 per cent

New car sales in Germany dropped by 11 per cent in September with pre-reg cars accounting for over a third of all sales. That drop of 11 per cent in Germany is despite deep discount offers – an average of 12.2 per cent in September – with even the previously invincible Mercedes and VW having to offer discounts of up to €3k, despite which VW’s sales fell by 20 per cent in Germany and Mercedes by 12 per cent. What’s perhaps most interesting about the decline in car sales in Germany is the number of pre-reg cars sold (pre reg cars are cars registered by dealers to hit sales targets and then sold at a discount of up to 25 per cent).

The UK’s best-selling car is… a toy car

Forget the Ford Fiesta. With 2012 sales of a ‘mere’ 109,625, it has to relinquish its best-selling status to this young gun – the Cozy Coupe. The ever-popular children's toy, littering many a hallway across the land, sold around 143,000 in 2012.

Lincoln MKC Revealed. It’s NOT a titivated Ford Kuga/Escape, say Ford

The production version of the Lincoln MKC Compact SUV (pictured) has been revealed When Ford divested itself of its premier marques – Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover – it left it with little wriggle room to compete in anything but the mainstream car market. Ford in Europe is trying to address that by launching ‘Vignale’ badged cars which promise to offer more ‘Premium quality’ than its mainstream models, and Ford in the US is doing the same thing by trying to reinvent the Lincoln badge as the answer to German premium models. Step forward the new Lincoln MKC, the production version of the Lincoln MKC Concept we saw at the Detroit Auto Show in January..