Junkyard Find: Gray-Market 1981 Mercedes-Benz 380 SEL

Of all the European-market new cars that flooded into the United States during the wild gray-market years of the early and middle 1980s, the Mercedes-Benz W126 S-Class appears to have been the most popular. Today's Junkyard Find is one of those cars, found in a self-service boneyard near Denver, Colorado.

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Cocaine Cowboys: Texas UPS Workers Charged With Running Drugs

Five people in Texas, two of whom work for UPS, have been charged with trafficking cocaine via shipping packages.

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Junkyard Find: 1986 BMW 735i

The very first BMW 7 Series cars were sold in North America for the 1978 model year, and production of the E23 continued through the middle of 1986. With a build date of March of that year, today's Junkyard Find (in a Colorado yard between Denver and Cheyenne) is one of the last E23s ever made.

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Junkyard Find: 1983 Porsche 944

The Porsche 944 is an excellent example of the kind of car that’s worth pretty decent money when in great condition … and worth scrap value beyond a fairly strict threshold of perceived thrashedness. I see plenty of 944s at the fixed price, high-inventory turnover, self-service yards (not to mention many more blowing up in 24 Hours of LeMons races), but I don’t feel inspired to document these cars in their final parking spaces most of the time.

This beat-to-crap early 944 in a San Jose yard, however, caught my attention for some reason.

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Why Is There A Hidden Drug Reference In CNet's Review Of The Chrysler 300 SRT8?
Late last night, a friend of mine posted the above video on my wall. At 2:15, CNet CarTech’s Brian Cooley demonstrates how the big Chrysler can read one’s text messages aloud. The example used may fly under the radar of most people, but anybody who has ever listened to rap music, or dealt massive quantities of cocaine, will pick up on it immediately.
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  • Slavuta "Nissan folks told me that the brand is aiming the Kicks at the Hyundai Kona, Chevrolet Trax, and Kia Soul. The Kicks is also squarely aimed at younger buyers...." ...........we've heard this "younger buyer" claim from Soul (especially). And I see mostly old folks driving it
  • SilverHawk During the time of the annual model year changes, Motor Trend would do a Preview edition that included actual pencil drawings of new grills and taillights, along with whatever spy photos they had. Those pencil drawings were supplied by the manufacturers. At the time, I had friends at AMC and Ford who made these drawings available to MT.
  • Todd Reasland "For the SV, the FWD starts at $23,680 and AWD adds $25,330. " Yikes...25K more to get AWD? :)
  • 1995 SC I think it's different now and the manufacturers just sort of leak them to the desired automotive "influencers" but it is still interesting with some cars. The C8 was a good example because it was such a radical change.
  • ECurmudgeon One wonders why they didn't just go with a fleet of RHD Ford Transits, but the answer is, of course, "money."