Volkswagen boosted sales 13% year on year to 4.7m vehicles in the first eight months of 2010 and said it would post record sales for the first three quarters of the year.

VW, which wants to overtake Toyota as the world’s biggest carmaker by 2018, was well on the way to breaking through the nine month, 5m vehicle mark for the first time, CEO Martin Winterkorn told Financial Times Deutschland at the Paris show.