OCEAN CITY -- One of the area's premier automotive events is once again teaming up with national touring show this weekend at the Roland E. Powell Convention Center.

The OC Custom Car and Bike Show welcomes the Funkmaster Flex Car Show Tour to show off the best in exotics, classics, muscle and costume cars Saturday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

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Mars Volta : Glasgow Barrowland : Wednesday November 19

The final frontier. The tie-dyed last taboo. The sound of the joke that's been taken too far. Yes, prog has spent nigh-on thirty years languishing in (rightful) ridicule, sneered at by the snotty punkers of '77 and incomprehensible to the intellectually-challenged class of '03. Yet somehow, prog's back: Jane's Addiction are suddenly cool again, while new boys like Oceansize and Cave In are playing extended guitar solos with a straight face. None of them, however, can even touch Mars Volta. Their album pitch alone was ridiculous. Imagine the scenes at the record company when they explained their debut was to be a seventy-minute opus dealing with the life, death and comatose mind-battles of their dead mate, told via the medium of spellchecker-crippling song titles and a plot loosely resembling The Matrix Regurgitated.

2004 Citroen Picasso Standard review from Botswana

I bought my first new car in August 2003. After much pondering, many visits to different dealerships, and a lot of new cars examined, I happened upon the Citroen dealership. Granted it wasn't the most flashy of dealerships, but the cars had an interesting look, which we weren't familiar with in Botswana, since at the time French cars were making their come-back to southern Africa. I liked the design, the space, the safety features and other features the car came with, and after all the cars and prices I'd seen, the Picasso seemed like the most practical choice.

Over the first few months I was pretty pleased with the car and enjoyed driving it. On December 31st 2003, I noticed an odd smell in the car, and after driving for a bit, tried to park in a tight space and noticed smoke from under the bonnet.

Mercedes Launches E300 Bluetec in Europe

STUTTGART, Germany — Mercedes-Benz has launched the E300 Bluetec, the first of its passenger cars to employ the clean-diesel technology in Europe. The automaker, which has been selling Bluetec-equipped models in North America for the past year, said the E300 Bluetec meets future Euro 5 emissions standards. The car is equipped with a 3.0-liter V6 common-rail turbodiesel that develops 211 horsepower and 398 pound-feet of torque. The car accelerates from zero to 60 mph in less than 7.2 seconds, with a top speed of 152 mph, yet returns 32 mpg in combined city/highway driving. The Bluetec system employs advanced technology, including a multistage exhaust-gas treatment system and a diesel particulate filter, to cut emissions without compromising performance or fuel economy. Mercedes plans to apply the system to nearly all its passenger-car diesels over the next two years.

London Covers Launch Range of Custom Made Car Covers

London Covers, the UK specialist in fabric coverings for vehicles, launch their range of custom made car covers for outdoor and indoor use.

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Rally Nirvana - 2005 Bullrun

Automobile rallies have been with us almost from the day Carl Benz and Gottleib Daimler created the 'modern' car. Rallies brought together like-minded individuals who enjoyed the sport of driving, congregating and generally messing with all things mechanical and automotive. Amateur rallying spawned organized racing and, then, the great street races like the Carrera Pan America, Mille Millia and Targa Florio in times less-policed, politically scorned upon and generally interfered with. Now, these classic rallies occur under different, restricted, conditions - more ceremonial gatherings for serious collectors and their multi-million dollar rolling historic art works than seriously-challenging competitions.

Organizing garage yields more than parking space

HAVE you spent any quality time in your garage lately? Or is yours just a cluttered, sort-of-smelly place that you shove through on your way to the driveway — where your cars are always parked for want of room inside?

All that clutter is the sign of a problem waiting to be fixed.

Home builders, remodelers and specialized garage-organization companies see that problem as an opportunity to sell you a solution. They have plenty, including more square footage and garage-themed cabinetry.

You can even find a fridge specially built for the garage, so you can always have a cold drink at hand when you're working on your wheels.

Around some homes these days, the amount of space devoted to the garage is big, indeed. Three-car garages were included in 20 percent of new homes built in 2005, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

Passion for customizing dream cars is a costly affair

The sum of its parts can easily be more than the cost of a classic car.

Customizing cars is big business, and it's growing at a rapid pace.