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Has the collector-car bubble finally burst?
According to numbers gathered by industry insurer and valuation Web site www.hagerty.com, for the first time since 2009, the auctions during the Monterey-Pebble Beach classic car week in mid-August did not show an overall sales increase. In fact, the 2015 auctions showed a decline of 8.9 percent compared with 2014.
But it’s not cause to panic. Far from it.

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Back in the day, the original Land Rovers were designed as the ultimate off-road warriors, sport-utility vehicles that were relentlessly tough and able to go just about anywhere in the world, regardless of roads or weather conditions. When you absolutely, positively had to get somewhere remote, the Land Rover was the desired vehicle of choice.
Even the original Range Rover, which debuted in 1970, was pretty basic, with interiors that could be washed out with a hose, thanks to plastic dashboards and vinyl seats designed to cope with moisture.

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When you think Ferrari, what do you see? Red, of course. The very name of one of the most iconic Ferrari models of all time, the Testa Rossa, means “redhead” in Italian. And this August at the Pebble Beach golf course in California, literally tens of millions of dollars worth of vintage Ferraris – most of which are Ferrari’s trademark Rosso Corsa (racing red) – will be sold.
So it was more than a little surprising in July when Ferrari took the wraps of the 488 Spider, and it was . . . blue.

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Description

Each August, the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance features the very best of the best in terms of vintage and collectible automobiles, all displayed on the famous 18th hole of the Pebble Beach Golf Links. But even by the lofty Pebble Beach standards, Mercedes-Benz has something special cooked up for this year’s gathering, which takes place Aug. 13-16. In honor of the 60th anniversary of Sir Stirling Moss’s record-setting performance in the Mille Miglia, Mercedes is bringing out two of its most fabled race cars from 1955, accompanied by Moss himself.

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With August approaching, the collector-car industry is poised for another round of mega-auctions. The action will come to a climax on Northern California’s tony Monterey Peninsula, where last year the sales of vintage and collectible vehicles hit a staggering $430 million, a whopping 38 percent increase over the $312 million record set in 2013. We’ll have plenty of coverage of the Monterey madness in the weeks ahead, but the first big party of the month will kick off about 320 miles to the north and east in Reno, Nev.

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The new 7 Series will be 190 pounds lighter than the outgoing model, thanks to the extensive use of carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) in the passenger cell and lightweight design techniques that both reduce weight and increase the overall strength and stiffness. Lighter, stronger, tougher construction lowers the center of gravity and improves handling.
BMW says this is the first time CFRP, steel and aluminum have been used together in a production automobile. The doors and trunk lid are aluminum and the weight balance of the new chassis is 50:50 front and back, again optimizing handling.

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Could the red-hot market for vintage Ferraris finally be leveling off? Maybe, just maybe.
www.hagerty.com, which tracks vintage and collector-car prices, reported recently that its Hagerty Ferrari Index gained just one percent in value over the four-month period ending in May.
Writing for www.hagerty.com, collector-car expert Dave Kinney noted, “This is the lowest upward move since our 2006 inception date, and is in stark contrast to the 10-20 percent changes we recorded through much of 2013 and 2014 . . .

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The coolest part of video games involving cars is the fact that game designers can make up their own utterly unique – and totally outrageous – vehicles for use in the games. There are no limits in the virtual world.
Last year, Chevrolet unleashed one of the wildest concept cars ever built – the Chaparral 2X Vision Gran Turismo – which was a life-sized rendition of a car made for the PlayStation 3 racing game, Gran Turismo 6.

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After months of teasing, Chevrolet has taken the wraps off of its sixth-generation Camaro, and at first blush, the Bowtie Brigade appears to have a winner on its hands.
While we can’t give a final verdict until we get behind the wheel, the new Camaro addresses several of the obvious weaknesses of the current fifth-generation model that has been in production for the last half dozen years:

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Description

In case you’re wondering when the superheated market for vintage and collectible cars is going to cool down, the short answer remains, “not anytime soon.”
That much was evident during the May 2 RM Sotheby’s event in Fort Worth, Tex., where cars were auctioned off from the stables of Paul and Chris Andrews, a father-and-son team who are well-respected veterans of the collector-car world.