New 300d Polyester American Flag Logo Boat Motor Engine Cover Up To 25hp Gray on 2040-parts.com

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.

Jag designers light up London’s Clerkenwell Design Week

Clerkenwell Design Week might not mean much to car designers more used to motor shows like Tokyo or Geneva. But the five-year-old event is fast becoming a fixture in the broader design calendar, and has been sponsored by Jaguar for the past four years for good reason. In simple terms, Jaguar wants to be seen (and respected) beyond the automotive realm: "We want to connect with other designers and have our designers learn from designers in other fields," advanced design director Julian Thomson told Car Design News.

New Honda CR-V: First new CR-V photos appear on Honda’s Japan site

Firts photo of the 2012 Honda CR-V We first got a proper look at the new Honda CR-V (the 2012 model) in concept form back in  July, and at the time Honda told us that they were planning a US release by the end of 2011, but no European release until Autumn of 2012. So the seemingly unheralded reveal of the new CR-V on Honda’s website in Japan is a bit of a surprise. The photo has suddenly appeared in a gallery of teaser photos of the new CR-V on Honda’s website and as far as we can see Honda has done nothing to trail it.