Car and Van News

This year’s Silverstone Classic is promising to live up to its claim to be the world’s biggest classic motor racing festival by breaking all records.

Launching the July festival to the media, event director Nick Wigley has revealed that entries, advanced ticket sales and trade stands are all running well ahead of last year.

The UK’s new van market jumped by almost half in April, compensating for declining truck registrations to boost the CV sector.

The 43 per cent rise in van registrations, to 20,751 units, represented year-to-date growth of 17.6 per cent.

Registrations of new cars surged by almost 15 per cent in April – the strongest climb in 14 months of solid growth.

The result, up 14.8 per cent to 163,357 units and the best April performance since 2008, brought the figures for the first four months of 2013 to 768,555 units – up 8.9 per cent.

Mazda expects its UK market to grow by a remarkable 20 per cent by the end of the year.

According to the brand’s UK boss Jeremy Thomson the sales target is bold, but entirely realistic.

UK car manufacturing slid 6.3 per cent in March as British plants felt the effect of slumping sales in mainland Europe.

The total of 126,909 units contributed to 393,416 over the first quarter of 2013, down two per cent.

A British company may have found the answer to technology issues holding back the introduction of clean fuel-cell vehicles.

The breakthrough could see hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles – seen by many as the answer to all-electric mobility without the range restrictions of battery-electric cars – on the roads sooner, and a lot cheaper.

Japan’s top four car manufacturers are to recall 3.4 million cars to fix a potential problem with their airbags.

The airbags, all supplied by parts manufacturer Takata Corporation, could potentially be too powerful, causing the inflator to break when the bag is activated.