Typical. You wait ages for a new taxi to turn up and then two appear at almost the same time.
Yesterday we reported that Nissan is to enter the London taxi market. Today Mercedes has replied with an announcement about the sales figures for its new-ish Vito taxi. Mercedes claims it now has 40% of the market for London taxis and implies it is going to become the number one choice.
Spyker, who owned Saab until it went bust last year, is suing General Motors, saying that it effectively sabotaged a sale of the Swedish company to Chinese buyers.
We all know that litigation is the national sport of the United States, but this looks like a long shot to us. The basic argument is that GM would not licence its technology used by Saab to the putative Chinese buyer, so the deal fell through.
The auction group, BCA, says that used car values are going up. It says that the reduction in new car sales over the last few years has meant fewer cars coming to auction, and therefore rising prices. It might seem a paradox that used car values rise in a recession, but it is all a question of supply and demand – the fewer the number of new cars sold, the more they are worth when they are two or three years old.
Toyota has unveiled two new Yaris special editions. Yaris Edition and Yaris Trend both are now available to order in three and five-door bodystyles, and come with extra styling features. Prices start from £11,695 for the Yaris Edition and £13,795 for the Yaris Trend.
Yaris Edition is available with the 68bhp 1.0 litre VVT-i petrol engine mated to five-speed manual. The Trend uses 98bhp 1.33 litre petrol engine with five-speed manual or the optional Multidrive S CVT on the five-door.
Those of us who neurotically watch the speedometer when driving through average speed checks may be surprised to hear that five people were caught last year doing more than twice the motorway speed limit.
Insurance company LV made Freedom of Information requests to police forces across the country to reveal the highest speeds they had recorded.
