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UK car sales up 11% in May (2013)

The Ford Fiesta (pictured) was again the best selling car in the UK The rise and rise of new car registrations in the UK continues to defy the rest of the economy, with figures up in May 2013 by 11 per cent year on year, and private sales up a massive 20.9 per cent to levels last seen in 2007. It’s the fifteenth month in succession new car registration have risen in the UK, with sales for May at 180,111 and total sales to date in 2013 hitting almost 1 million units, at 948,666. The SMMT think the big jump in private registrations is down to a number of factors, including cars bought under the scrappage scheme now being traded in for a new car, strong incentives from car makers and the promise of new cars offering lower running costs, and they’re probably right, although there are other factors in play too.

New Volvo V40 & Volvo V60 Plug-in Hybrid Goodwood Festival of Speed debut

The new Volvo V40 and the Volvo V60 Plug-in Hybrid will get their UK debut at the Moving Motor Show at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Volvo have been on something of a roll since the Chinese took the reins, and are starting to look like they’re capable of moving from the no man’s land between mainstream and premium in to proper premium car territory. The new Volvo that jumps out as capable of taking on BMW and Mercedes is the new Volvo V40, a very stylish and appealing package that looks like it will be able to hold its own against the new A Class and 1 Series.

One lap of the Web: The birth of the supercar, an #EpicFail and Ferrari 250 GT eye candy

We spend a lot of time on the Internet -- pretty much whenever we're not driving, writing about or working on cars. Since there's more out there than we'd ever be able to cover, here's our daily digest of car stuff on the Web you may not otherwise have heard about. -- The 1970s: An era of hippies, disco, space exploration and, most notably to us, the supercar.