Dorman C660244 Parking Brake Cable on 2040-parts.com

Grab a ‘VAT Free’ Skoda Octavia

In yet another ‘Sign of the times’ Skoda has announced that they are now offering ‘VAT Free Octavias’ until the end of the year. No, this is not a tie-up between Alistair Darling and VW, it’s just Skoda’s way of offering a headline price decrease of a bit over 13% (less expensive to Skoda than last week for the same headline, to be fair, and there is a new model due in January!). Grab a VAT free Skoda Octavia I’m pretty sure that there will be a raft of these ‘VAT Free’ offers floating around on everything from cars to washing machines, capitalising on the fact the VAT is in the headlines.

Cadillac XTS Platinum at Detroit motor show 2010

This big beast is the Cadillac XTS Platinum Concept, unveiled at the 2010 Detroit motor show. It’s still a show car for now, but it will inspire a luxury Caddy limo that will go on sale in 2012. Yes.

Jaguar XJ 3.0 TDV6 Long Term Test (2010): The Intro

Our long-term XJ joins last week's review car - the XF S We moaned about the tease that was the introduction to the new Jaguar XJ, but we dutifully went off to the press launch at the Saatchi Gallery in July 2009 and declared the design a triumph. We looked forward to the promised press cars by Christmas 2009, but they never happened as Jaguar worked to make the new XJ as bullet-proof as a car can be. But by the end of May 2010 the first press cars started to arrive and the first customer cars escaped in to the wild.