Forget Christmas presents – buy a car instead

Chevrolet According to a recent survey by Scotland Debt Solutions, we will spend between £472 and £611 on Christmas presents this year. Excuse us, but how much?! Back in the day, we'd have been happy with a small clementine, a pack of playing cards and a modest toy.

Court order BANS publication of VW’s Luxury car security codes

Bentley is just one of VW’s marques whose security has been compromised There have been plenty of stories around in recent years of car makers’ security systems being easily hacked by spotty boys with a laptop, and now a scientist at Birmingham University has cracked VW’s Megamos Crypto system that protects cars like Bentley and Porsche. Flavia Garcia has cracked the code that transmits between VW’s luxury cars – like Bentleys and Porsches – and the key fob, which potentially fatally compromises VW’s security. Garcia had planned to publish his paper on the fatal flaws in the Megamos Crypto system at the Usenix Security Symposium in Washington next month, but a judge has put the kybosh on that.

Spada, The long story of a long tail is Waft's latest book

Spada, The long story of a short tail is the new book from Waft publishing. As the title suggests, this latest project from the creators of Masters of Modern Car Design charts the remarkably prolific career of Italian car designer Ercole Spada. From the legendary Zagato-era Aston Martin DB4 and Alfa Romeo TZ1 that established his trademark cropped tail, to the 2008 Codatronca supercar that bore his name, via the 1980s BMW 5 and 7 Series, this 304-page hardback covers them all in fine detail.