Aircraft Cargo Barrier Cs-b17 913010 Cargo Systems Co. Dallas on 2040-parts.com

OnStar to be sold separately

Not sure what to do with those extra Best Buy gift cards left over from the holidays? Consider picking up OnStar as a stocking stuffer for next year. General Motors will sell its safety and communications technology in mirror units available at Best Buy starting in the spring.

Build your Mini Cooper Hardtop

We suspect that your initial inclination upon the discovery of a new model's configurator is to throw gobs and gobs of equipment at a car to see just how high the price will go. After all, that's what we tend to do. It's especially satisfying with German automakers — notably Porsche and BMW — who seem to have turned option pricing into something bordering on absurdist theatre.

Microsoft demos Apple CarPlay rival

The battle between Microsoft and Apple is being fought on the desktop, on the smartphone and now in the car. At its Build 2014 developer conference, held earlier this month in San Francisco, Microsoft demoed an early version of Windows In The Car, its response to Apple's CarPlay system we saw at the Geneva Show back in March. As you'd expect, In The Car's design follows the look of Microsoft's latest Windows and Window Phone operating system pretty closely.