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German new car sales drop 11 per cent – pre-reg accounts for 33.5 per cent

New car sales in Germany dropped by 11 per cent in September with pre-reg cars accounting for over a third of all sales. That drop of 11 per cent in Germany is despite deep discount offers – an average of 12.2 per cent in September – with even the previously invincible Mercedes and VW having to offer discounts of up to €3k, despite which VW’s sales fell by 20 per cent in Germany and Mercedes by 12 per cent. What’s perhaps most interesting about the decline in car sales in Germany is the number of pre-reg cars sold (pre reg cars are cars registered by dealers to hit sales targets and then sold at a discount of up to 25 per cent).

Mercedes-AMG GT shows off its interior in New York

We're getting our first official look at elements of the upcoming Mercedes-AMG GT sports car ahead of an expected September debut. The new two-seater, originally rumored to be called the Mercedes-Benz SLC, indirectly replaces the SLS AMG, becoming the second stand-alone model to be conceived, engineered and produced by Mercedes' AMG performance car offshoot at its headquarters in Affalterbach on the outskirts of Stuttgart, Germany. Mercedes has controversially eschewed any traditional reference to one of its founders, Karl Benz, in the name of its new 500-hp-plus twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V8-powered machine.

News watch July 2012: today's auto industry news

Welcome to CAR Magazine's news aggregator as we round up the daily stories in the auto industry. Top tip: news summaries are added from the top hour-by-hour Tuesday 31 July 2012•Porsche SE recorded a first half profit of €1.15bn, in comparison with €149m for the same period in 2011. The enormous jump has come not from directly selling cars, but from the group's investments in Porsche Zwischenholding GmbH and Volkswagen AG (Porsche SE)•Reuters suggests Germany's car market is in recession, but few outside the industry would know it, thanks to a controversial sales practice that inflates official statistics and paints a flattering picture of demand.