Vtg Davis Instruments Hand Bearing Compass on 2040-parts.com

West Hollywood hires a robo-valet

West Hollywood, Calif.--where the valet guy can be just as much of a power broker as some big-shot producer--is going high-tech with its new parking garage. The Southern California city has enlisted Israeli company Unitronics to build a 200-car garage on Santa Monica Boulevard that will automatically park and retrieve cars. Think RoboValet.

Baby Rolls revealed as boss leaves

By Tim Pollard Motor Industry 14 March 2008 07:33 CAR today reveals the look of the new 'baby' Rolls-Royce - just as it is announced that boss Ian Robertson will head back to BMW as Munich's new sales and marketing boss. The new model due in 2010 will nudge the most famous of luxury brands downmarket nearer upper-echelon Merc S-classes, but the 49-year-old chief exec won't be around to see the launch of the landmark model.The baby Rolls-RoyceThe Phantom family has now grown to three models, after the Coupe was unveiled at this month's Geneva Motor Show to join the Drophead Coupe. And in 2010 Rolls-Royce will launch RR4 - the new £170,000 baby Rolls to stretch the brand 'downmarket' and plug the gap between cheaper Bentley Continentals and the super-luxury models from Rolls and Maybach costing nearer a quarter of a million pounds.It will be longer than the next-generation LWB BMW 7-series, upon whose mechanicals RR4 is based.

Acura's bargain birth introduced Japanese luxury to the U.S. 25 years ago

The idea seemed almost ludicrous to Tom Elliott back in 1982, but there it was, in black and white, on Honda Motor Co.'s strategic product plan. Elliott's bosses in Japan had decided to sell a car priced at more than $20,000 in the United States, taking the Japanese brand dramatically upscale. And Elliott, Honda's U.S.