One Lap of the Web: 'Blower' Bentleys, Abarth history and a Checker taxi-camper

We spend a lot of time on the Internet -- pretty much whenever we're not driving, writing about or working on cars. Since there's more out there than we'd ever be able to cover, here's our daily digest of car stuff on the Web you may not otherwise have heard about.

-- When it comes to high-dollar collector cars, provenance is everything. Trouble is, collector cars weren't always collectible -- they were often modified and rebuilt with no regard for future value, something especially true of performance cars. Take this 1931 4.5-liter supercharged “Blower” Bentley, which will undoubtedly sell for millions at an upcoming Bonhams auction. The car has worn several bodies over its lifetime and was raced until the 1960s; no one really knows how much of the car is original. That means no one really knows how much it's worth (is it a seven-figure car or an eight-figure car?), but that's what the magical price-finding mechanism called the auction is for. We'll watch the bidding with great interest.

-- If there's one site we could count on to write a piece on Abarth with nary a mention of Catrinel Menghia, it's Petrolicious. Read on to find out how the tuning company came to be so closely associated with Italian automaker Fiat and discover why the heck its emblem features a giant scorpion.

-- Syd Mead's work covered far more than the automobile -- we can't forget the crazy Spinners the futurist/designer created for “Blade Runner” or the bullet-like vehicles that filled his design studies. Mead, who once worked at Ford's Advanced Styling Center, just turned 80 -- and he still seems to be going strong. Not a bad run so far.

-- “How About a 1965 Checker Marathon Camper now on eBay!” Hooniverse asks, overwhelming excitement making the use of correct punctuation all but impossible. Shockingly, the frame on this thing doesn't appear to be sagging too much in the middle. The yellow stripe on the side is also a nice touch. The auction ended with the final bid -- $8,077 -- failing to meet reserve. Does that mean the custom camper will be relisted, perhaps with a more realistic reserve price? We'll have to wait and see.

By Graham Kozak