Mercedes Benz 203 Chassis 01 02 03 04 Fog Light Rh on 2040-parts.com

Carmel kicks off concours craziness

Consider the Monterey car week begun! The Carmel-by-the-Sea Concours-on-the-Avenue launched with its best-ever crowd and what many were calling the best-ever show for the free-to-the-public event held every Tuesday before the Pebble Beach Concours on Ocean Avenue in Carmel. Eighteen blocks total were shut to traffic and jammed with collector cars, everything from classic 911s celebrating that car's 50th anniversary to Ferraris, Trans Am racers and a whole block of Shelby Cobras.

2015 Mercedes CLS and CLS Shooting Brake (minor) facelift revealed

The 2015 Mercedes CLS and CLS Shooting Brake (pictured) get a small facelift The Mercedes tease for the 2015 facelift of the CLS and CLS Shooting Brake focused firmly on the new Multibeam LED headlights. But that’s because they’re about the most significant changes Mercedes has wrought to its four-door swoopy coupe. Frankly, there’s not a huge number of cosmetic changes to mark out the 2015 CLS from the 2014 model save for a mildly re-worked front bumper and grill and those new Multibeam LED headlights – standard across the new CLS range.

Smart car inventor Nicolas Hayek dies

Nicolas Hayek, the engineer and industrialist who founded the Swiss watch company Swatch and brought the world the Smart car, died on June 28 of heart failure at his office in Switzerland. He was 82. Hayek saved the Swiss watch industry from lower-priced Asian competition in the early 1980s by offering colorful, inexpensive Swatch timepieces that he backed with equally colorful marketing.