1970 Challenger Cuda Instrument Cluster Light Panel on 2040-parts.com

Car dealers are buying again

Used car sales in the UK (and just about everywhere else, for that matter) have been in the doldrums, to say the least, for many months. The inexorable decline in car values has left many dealers nursing painful losses on stock cars, and has led to the strange situation where, however desperate a dealer was to sell you a new car, he wouldn’t (or couldn’t) offer you a part-ex price. Car dealers are buying stock again But according to the used car value Gurus at Glasses Guide, things are starting to look up – a little.

McLaren F1 sells for $8.47 million at Gooding & Co’s Pebble Beach Auction

McLaren F1 chassis #66 (pictured) has sold for $8.47 million There’s been an inexorable rise in the price of classic cars in recent years as rich men realise that certain classic cars not only have huge appeal, but appear to be going only one way in price. Add to that – certainly in the UK – that any profits made on the sale of a classic car you’ve bought for your own enjoyment are tax free, and it’s no shock that values keep rising, and the rarer the car the more they rise. So with only 64 road cars made, the McLaren F1 can be considered a sound investment, with values rising since it first sold in the 1990s for around £640,000 to a new world record auction price set last night of £8.47 million (around £5.42m).

One Lap of the Web: Wax that woody; Bentley gets high-tech

-- Bentley comes striding into the 21st century with a Mulsanne souped up with no fewer than two keyboard-equipped iPads in the backseat, hidden behind veneered wood inlays. In a short film titled "Intelligent Details" -- one must assume Bentley marketers had to resist the urge to call it "Intelligent Design" -- Luc Donckerwolke, director of design, and Sang Yup Lee, head of exterior design, go for a ride in black-and-white Manhattan. Naturally, they are not driving.