1953, 1954, 1955 Corvette Head Light Bezel on 2040-parts.com

Meadow Brook concours crowns 1939 Delahaye and 1934 Packard best of show

Two long-gone luxury liners, a 1939 Delahaye and a 1934 Packard, won best-of-show honors Sunday at the 30th Meadow Brook Concours d'Elegance, standing out in a field of 250 pristine cars from bygone eras on a sun-drenched afternoon of nostalgia in suburban Detroit. The Delahaye 165 Cabriolet by Figoni & Falaschi won in the European category, while the Packard V-12 Sport Sedan by Dietrich, a ghost of Detroit's luxury car-making past, returned to grab top honors among the American products. The Delahaye, a drop-dead gorgeous maroon showpiece dripping in chrome and set off with yellow headlights, also won the People's Choice award.

Driven: BMW 6 Series convertible

Every large BMW coupe – from the E9 3.0 CS, through the shark-nosed E24 6 Series, Claus Luthe's beautiful E31 8 Series, right up to the outgoing, Bangle-era E63 6er – has had an exoticism beyond every other car in the brand's range. We drove the latest from the most southern point of Europe back to our London office to find out if it too is a truly Grand Tourer. Stepping off the 'plane in Gibraltar, greeted by a Deep Sea Blue 650i with Ivory White leather, 19-inch rims and Shadow Line exterior trim under the early summer Mediterranean sun, it's clear that the right colorway and a more appropriate setting certainly help the F12's cause after our disappointment with the car at its debut in Detroit earlier in the year.

Insurance group lists its Top Safety Picks

After increasing its standards for 2011 models, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says that 66 vehicles--more than double the 2010 total--rate as best in the industry at protecting passengers from front, side, rollover and rear crashes. Only 27 vehicles qualified last year after the group, funded by the insurance industry, required that vehicles pass a roof-strength test to earn a good rating, claiming that stronger roofs would reduce the risk of serious or fatal injury by 50 percent in a rollover accident. The most mentioned carmakers on the 2011 list are Hyundai/Kia and Volkswagen/Audi, both with nine vehicles to get the Top Safety Pick designation.