Vintage Automobile Ashtray Qty 2 on 2040-parts.com

Buy John Cleese’s Bentley & he’ll take you to lunch

John Cleese is selling his Bentley Eight and throwing in some memorabilia and a lunch on him to the winning bidder. It probably won’t make much of a dent in the reported $1 million a year he has to pay his ex-wife number three, but for John Cleese, every little helps. So with wife number four now signed up for a duration yet to be known, John is flogging off his Bentley Eight to try and raise a few bob.

Mercedes-Benz sells 1000,000 cars in a year in the UK for the first time

Mercedes Bristol hands over the 100,000th Mercedes old in the UK in 2013 It looks like Mercedes move in to a more convincing compact car with the new A-Class is already paying dividends, with Mercedes announcing it has already broken the 100,000 car sales in the UK for this year with a full month still to go. The 100,000th car is, appropriately, a white Mercedes  A 180 CDI Sport – perhaps the best-selling A-Class – which has been collected by its new owner from Mercedes-Benz of Bristol. This is the first full year the new A-Class has been on sale (although the first customer cars didn’t start arriving until well in to the new year) and augers well for sales numbers in 2014.

Cash for clunkers: Is it ready for prime time in America?

One proposed solution to prop up new-car sales in the United States involves paying bonuses to owners of older vehicles who send their cars to the scrapyard and buy new ones. Proponents say that not only does the auto industry benefit, but so does the environment, as emissions decrease and fuel economy typically improves in newer models. Critics, however, say that scrapping older vehicles hurts collectors by reducing the number of older models available and also hurts those least able to afford to buy newer vehicles by driving up the price of used cars.