Something pretty rare popped up for auction on Bring a Trailer this week: a factory-built Chevrolet ZZ4 crate engine that reportedly sat unopened in a West Coast warehouse for more than two decades.

Crate motors. We're sure as readers you've noticed those two words cropping up more frequently in magazine car features over the past few years. I know those of us writing the features have seen it.

These days, recycling is all the rage. Airplanes get ground up and turned into beer cans, which eventually get melted down and formed into some other widget we just can't live without. In a way, hot ...