Service Manual Yamaha on 2040-parts.com

1964 Mercury Comet with half a million miles is retired—what next?

By now you've probably heard about Rachel Veitch's 1964 Mercury Comet Caliente. She purchased the car new and has cared for it meticulously since. As of last week, the odometer tallied more than 576,000 miles.

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.

Lexus takes top spot in Kelley Blue Book's 2014 Best Resale Value Awards

We've always known that used Lexus vehicles keep their values well, and this fact has been recently reconfirmed for a third year in a row by Kelley Blue Book. Lexus took the top spot in the Luxury Brand category in the 2014 Best Resale Value awards, which was actually the fourth time overall that Lexus reached that spot, 2011 being the only year when Lexus didn't place first since the award's inception in 2009. Back In 2011 it was Subaru took took the award for Best Brand for resale values, while BMW took the Best Luxury Brand award for that year.