2001 Mercedes Benz W210 E55 Amg Instrument Cluster on 2040-parts.com

'Crash for cash' scams soar by 51%

THE NUMBER of "crash for cash" car insurance scams uncovered by a major insurer surged by 51% annually last year. Aviva said it had detected around 820 staged accidents in 2013, leading to some 2,200 fraudulent personal injury claims. It is pressing for tougher penalties and said that often, rather than being locked up, fraudsters end up being sentenced to community orders, which "do little" to deter them from re-offending.

One Lap of the Web: Let's visit Amelia Island in a short bus camper

-- Ken Kesey and friends spent most of the countercultural 1960s driving across the country in a 1939 International Harvester school bus painted in psychedelic colors. Portland, Maine architect Will Winkelman might do less drugs (we don't know), but the 1959 Chevrolet Viking short bus he designed might fit Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, especially if you stacked them head-to-toe. For his client, Winkelman designed a Moroccan theme of colorful patterns and textures across the curtains and twin beds, beaded light fixtures and wood paneling everywhere, approaching the project as one might approach boat-building or a particularly run-down Detroit "fixer-upper." The result has plumbing, power, an olive-drab paint scheme that blends into the New England woods, and the overall sense of a guest bedroom that you can escape in whenever you tire of your host's company.

Mercedes touts future safety with research vehicle

In 1980, when several automakers began to use airbags, there were people who thought that cars couldn't possibly get any safer. Karl-Heinz Baumann, a safety researcher at Mercedes-Benz AG in Stuttgart, was not one of them. "We said, 'No, it cannot be all,' and we kept doing more research." The results of that research are presented on the company's most recent Experimental Safety Vehicle (ESV), on display now in the Mercedes Museum in Stuttgart.