95 Nissan 200sx Rear View Mirror on 2040-parts.com

May 2009: UK new car sales and trends analysis

By Peter Adams Motor Industry 04 June 2009 12:00 The scrappage scheme was supposed to give the UK car market a massive boost, but latest figures out today show new car registrations are still down by more than a quarter. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) reports that new car registrations fell 24.8% in May 2009 to 134,858 units. However, this fall marks an improvement on earlier months of the year.

Philip Hammond is Secretary of State for Transport

Philip Hammond - Secretary of State for Transport The Tories claimed in their election campaigning that motorists have had a raw deal under Labour. Do you know, we’d not noticed. We’d not noticed the inexorable rise in fuel duty even when the country was crying in pain; hadn’t seen the proliferation of speed cameras as revenue gathering tools; not noticed Ken’s cynical manipulation of London’s traffic prior to introducing congestion charging; failed to see that under Labour coppers had disappeared from our roads to be replaced by brainless machines.

BMW Z4 M Sport Package released

BMW is to debut the M Sport Package for the Z4 at the Detroit Auto Show Back in September we brought you some pictures of what at first glance appeared to be a BMW Z4M, despite BMW making it clear that they are not going to build an M car this time round. But it actually turned out to be a Z4 with M Sport Package zapping round the Nurburgring looking, to all intents and purposes, like a new hot Z4. Almost three months on BMW has finally got round to revealing the M Sport Package for the Z4 which will – just like the BMW Z4 sDrive35is we reported on yesterday – debut at the Detroit Motor Show in  January 2010.