PS- I forgot to mention that the qualifying fuel in the eighties used to give us nose bleeds and sore throats for a week after every race.nice!

I wouldn't panic too much about it - lots of plastics are coated in toxic chemicals and benzene is just a ring chain hydrocarbon. Don't lick your dashboard ;-P

I agree; you can't smell stuff after a while! (Having worked with some nasties including acetone, toluene, various cryogens and some manky varnish used to make solenoids)

Fuel is far more toxic.

I'm afraid I was too little in the 80s to have got anywhere near an F1 track, so I'll have to take your word for it.

I've got some burns from nitric acid. Boy does it make your eyes water!

In WWI the pilots used castor oil for lubricant in their planes. The vapours from that gave them the runs!

I can't see there being between 2 and 4 grams of benzene vapour in a car parked in sunshine. This amount is probably getting close to being an explosive mixture.

Figures for benzene would be in the region of 50 parts per million as quoted above - Xylene which is similar had an exposure limit of 100ppm, but at levels much lower than that the smell was very strong indeed, I have never come across any solvent levels like than in a parked car.

EH40 says that the benzene limit is 1ppm for 8 hour reference period (3.25mg m^-3). I reckon it's close to explosion limits too but it's hard to find it out.

The explosive concentration limits for acetylene in air are 2.6% to 80% . Benzene is polymerised acetylene - I'd think it unlikely that any concentration in air less than 2 % ( 20,000ppm) would be explosive.