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Saab production starts – 2010 Saab 9-5 first off the line

The 2010 Saab 9-5 is first off the restarted Saab production Line It’s been a long and sometimes fraught road back to production for Saab. Almost sinking in to oblivion after GM decided to wind it down after failing to secure a buyer who would jump through the required hoops, Spyker is now in control and production has restarted at Trollhatten. It is true that we did report Saab 9-4x production had started back in January, but that was just a limited number of cars for evaluation and crash testing and was prior to the Spyker deal completing.

New car sales in UK still growing – up 14.8% April 2013. Driven by PPI Claims?

It is quite hard to fathom just how UK new car sales (well, registrations) continue to rise inexorably against a backdrop of otherwise stagnant economic activity, but they do. April 2013 has seen a total of 163,357 new car registrations, up a huge 14.8 per cent on April 2012 and the best figure since 2008, and these sales figures are not being driven by fleet buyers but by private motorists – private sector registrations grew by 32.3 per cent in April and are up by 15.2 per cent year to date. Not surprisingly, it’s the Superminis that are performing strongly – although all sectors are showing a rise – and it’s the Ford Fiesta that continues to be the best seller in the UK with sales of over 8,000 in April and over 42,000 so far in 2013, and the rise of superminis has also seen an increase in sales of petrol-engined cars thanks to the wave of small capacity, frugal petrol options.

Cars, Culture and the City

When you think of American cities associated with the car it is Los Angeles of course that leaps first to mind, thanks mostly to Hollywood, and Detroit second. But New York turns out to have been vital in the history of car design, as I found researching an exhibition Cars, Culture and the City at the Museum of the City of New York as guest curator over the last few months, working with the museums curator architecture and design, Donald Albrecht. The show has just opened, on March 25.