Smittybilt Windbreaker 90035 on 2040-parts.com

Mini Crossover at the Paris motor show 2008

By Ben Barry Motor Shows 02 October 2008 15:46 We’ve already seen it in the November 2008 issue of CAR, but Paris marked the motor show debut of the Mini Crossover Concept – a pumped-up four-wheel drive Mini that goes on sale in 2009. As journalists crammed together in what looked like a trendy nightclub, a video of two Chemical Brother-style hipsters driving the Crossover through a warehouse played behind the covered over concept before – ta-da! – some heavily tattooed type swung down from the rafters to remove the covers and reveal the actual pair inside the actual car.

Saab facing bankruptcy – again

Saab are facing bankruptcy once more. Saab has not had a happy history, certainly since it was swallowed up by GM and pushed in to building Saabs with GM underpinnings. Then, in the midst of the bankruptcy of GM, Saab went through a circus of possible owners before GM sold Saab out to Spyker, but Spyker couldn’t make a go of things and they too went bankrupt.

AA warns of automated penalties

DRIVERS are still suffering a year on from the time most wheelclampers were banned from operating in private car parks, according to the AA. Twelve months on, parking enforcement firms are reaping large sums from issuing automated "penalty" tickets. The AA said that while Communities Minister Eric Pickles is reining in local authorities who over-zealously use CCTV, private parking operators now rely heavily on this technology and automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) to watch drivers and issue tickets through the post when they put a foot wrong in parking areas.