Daihatsu Mira 2003 Heather Blow Motor [0367900] on 2040-parts.com

Insurance interest costs motorists millions

BRITISH drivers are paying £682 million more than they should be for their car insurance by paying monthly. Most insurers charge a high rate of interest for the privilege of spreading payments out over the year, with the average pay-monthly customer hit by an additional £88. Almost a third of people (31%) pay their car insurance by monthly direct debit, market research from Consumer Intelligence has discovered.

Concept Car of the Week: Alfa Romeo Giulia 1600 Sport (1965)

Autodelta produced 112 Alfa Romeo TZs between 1963 and 1965. The TZ abbreviation – for Tubulare Zagato – refers to the innovative lightweight spaceframe chassis that kept the weight at an impressive 660kg and assured great performance both on the road and on the track. Out of those desirable TZs, Zagato bodied the vast majority but two of the chassis were also handed to rival carrozzerias Bertone and Pininfarina.

Volvo V40 Cross Country arrives

Volvo has revealed the 2013 V40 Cross Country, a new variant on the new V40, offering a more rugged option for the V40 range. We thought it was going to be the Volvo XC40 – denoting an SUV come crossover version of the new V40 – but Volvo has decided that their more rugged version of the V40 will take the Cross Country name - first used on the V70 in 1997 – and so we get the new Volvo V40 Cross Country. Following on from the new V40 R-Design, revealed last week, Volvo now offers a V40 they say is for ‘those who want a sense of adventure in their everyday life‘ – in other words, this is a slightly more rufty-tufty V40.