America Route 66 Metal Hood Front Grille Grill Badge Emblem Decal on 2040-parts.com

First Sight: Mercedes-Benz Concept Style Coupe

The third installment of Mercedes-Benz's ‘small' car family will receive its global preview with a close-to-production concept set to debut at the Beijing motor show next week, but Car Design News has gained an early peek of the official images and details. The Concept Style Coupe heralds the much-vaunted ‘mini-CLS' compact four-door coupe production car (rumored to be dubbed BLS or CLA) that's slated to go on sale in the second half of 2013. It's based on the same new platform – called MFA for ‘Mercedes Front-wheel drive Architecture' – that has already spawned the new A- and B-Class cars.

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.

Button wins in Monaco – another Brawn 1-2

Button wins the Monaco Grand Prix 2009 [ad#ad-1] This year’s Formula One season is starting to turn in to a cross between a Roy of the Rovers special and a Disney Fairytale. Not content with simply getting the Brawn GP team up and running just in time for the start of the season, and then going on to win four of the first five Grand Prix of the year, Button and Barichello have crowned all those achievements for Brawn GP by winning in spectacular one-two style at the F1 ‘Jewel in the Crown’ event in Monaco. Button got off to a great start in qualifying by grabbing pole in the closing minutes of Q3 qualifying to join Raikkonen on the front row of the grid, with Barrichello riding shotgun for Button on the second row.