1999 Dodge Ram Passenger Air Bag Switch on 2040-parts.com

Alfa Romeo 4C Launch Edition: Geneva Motor Show 2013

Alfa Romeo has revealed the Alfa 4C at the Geneva Motor Show and the Alfa 4C Launch Edition which will cost €60,000. The Alfa Romeo 4C Launch Edition – just 1,000 are being built with only 400 staying in Europe – will cost a fairly strong €60k (around £52,000) and comes in either Carrara White of Alfa Red with a carbon fibre bodykit that adds carbon fibre for the spoiler at the back, to the door mirrors and round the headlights with dark alloys and front air intakes. The suspension also gets a tweak.

UK pays £30 million a month in parking fines

British motorists are paying out a massive £30 million in parking fines every month, according to Freedom Of Information data obtained by LV= car insurance. So far in 2013, councils have handed out over 890,000 tickets a month – an increase of 4% on 2012 figures. The huge £30 million total is based on the UK average parking fine of £42.

Watch the sad, final moments of a crusher-bound heap

Automotive wrecking yards are good places to reflect on the real-world values of heavily depreciated vehicles versus global current scrap-metal prices, and to see which cars have suddenly had the fix-it-versus-total-it line moved by insurance companies (the early-21st-century Subaru Legacy Outback, for example, appeared in large numbers in high-turnover wrecking yards just during the last year, as fairly minor collision damage on these cars is no longer worth fixing). You'll see the things that a car's last owner does in a desperate attempt to sell (or at least live with) an increasingly decrepit heap (as we learned in "Repo Man," you really will find a Little Tree in every car). During a recent trip to a San Jose, Calif., yard, I encountered this sad yet strangely compelling scene.