Kawasaki 1981 Klt200a 3 Wheeler Intake on 2040-parts.com

New car sales see record growth period

ANOTHER rise last month has taken UK car sales to their longest-ever period of growth. A total of 194,032 new cars were registered in May – a 7.7% rise on the May 2013 figure, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said. The increase last month was the 27th consecutive monthly rise – beating the previous record of 26 months of growth between May 1987 and June 1989.

Spy Shots: Chevy SS caught testing, rendered

Way back in June, Autoweek published a speculative rendering of the forthcoming Chevrolet SS. The Zeta-platform, rear-wheel-drive, V8-powered follow-up to the late Pontiac G8 was recently spotted testing by the spy photographers at Chris Doane Automotive. Doane was so inspired by General Motors' nascent performance sedan that he commissioned his own Chevy SS rendering.

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.