Mercedes W107 Right Exterior Door Trim And Weather Seal Rod 450sl on 2040-parts.com

Antique Automobile Club of America displays car collecting and its finest in Hershey

Searching for vintage car parts, literature, gas station collectables, or even a nice old car? The best place to look is the annual Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) Fall National Meet, better known as “Hershey.” Now in its 55th year, it's the world's largest old car gathering, with an 1,800-car concours, more than 1,000 cars for sale in the “car corral,” and, best of all, an astounding 9,000 flea market spaces, chock full of more automotive artifacts than you can imagine, all scattered in no particular order on 85-plus acres--that's nearly 90 football fields--or “22 miles of aisles,” as Hershey devotees say. It takes a lot of walking, but walk we did for four days, for a close-up of this fascinating offshoot of the old-car hobby.

Chris Bangle resigns as BMW Group Design Director

BMW today announced that Chris Bangle is resigning from his position as Head of Design for the BMW Group. Bangle will be handing over his post to current Head of BMW Automobile Design, Adrian van Hooydonk, when he leaves the company to pursue his own design-related endeavors outside the auto industry. Bangle has worked closely with van Hooydonk at BMW Group Design Development for nearly 17 years.

BMW set to go front-wheel drive

BMW chairman Norbert Reithofer has confirmed that the German carmaker will introduce a new front-wheel-drive entry-level model positioned and priced below the existing 1-series as part of plans to help increase part sharing and to bolster the potential for production savings between the BMW and Mini brands, thus bringing an end to the era of rear- and four-wheel-drive-only BMW models. Speaking to AutoWeek at the Geneva motor show, Reithofer said internal BMW studies revealed that despite the downturn in the world's economy, there was continued demand for what he described as "premium vehicles" in the small-car class, before officially acknowledging plans that will see BMW produce a rival to the recently unveiled Audi A1 and a new Smart Forfour presently under development at Mercedes-Benz. "We will be extending the BMW and Mini brands into the small-car segment with new models and variants," he said.