• Father and son build 1,200-hp worth of Chevy Camaros

    Father and son build 1,200-hp worth of Chevy Camaros
    When Ryan Capri was little, he used to giggle with glee as his father, Sam Capri, gunned the engine of his modified 1979 Chevrolet Camaro under overpasses and through tunnels. Ryan was barely tall enough to see over the dashboard then but he can still remember those evening drives well. Now 23 and a petroleum engineering student, he can’t resist cracking a smile when he opens up all four barrels of Holley carb as his 500-horsepower Camaro obliterates an on-ramp. Like father, like son. 
  • Toyota will unveil the production Supra next week at Goodwood

    Toyota may finally be unveiling a production version of its new Supra sports car at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in the U.K. mid-July.
    The closest we’ve come to glimpsing the street car’s final form so far has been a race car concept unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show, but a tweet from Toyota Europe suggests the covers will be pulled off some time during the July 12 thru 15 event.
    The tweet featured an image of the car – designated the “A90” within the company &nda
  • You can now buy classic Mustangs using cryptocurrency

    Oklahoma’s Classic Restorations will become one of the first custom-car builders to accept payment in cryptocurrency, letting customers fork over fees in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other digital monies in exchange for one of the company’s modified Mustangs.
    “Cryptocurrencies have come a long way and continue to solidify themselves as a legitimate currency on the global market,” Jason Engel, the owner of CR, was quoted in Digital Trends.
    “The true beauty of accepting cry
  • Porsche 959 rally car set to cross auction block late October

    A Porsche 959 rally car that competed in the 1985 Paris-Dakar off-road endurance race is crossing the auction block late October with an estimated $4.34 million price tag attached to it.
    The 959 was engineered in the early ’80s to race in the famed Group B rally series, which had unfortunately been shuttered by the time development was complete.
    Porsche decided to make the best of the investments it’d already sunk in a 959 homologation road car and enter its race-car in the 9,600-km
  • Advertisement

  • Want a Volvo XC40? Don’t forget about these alternatives

    You want a Volvo XC40: It’s hard not to blame you, so alluringly attractive is Volvo’s smallest SUV. Not quite as provocative perhaps as Range Rover’s Evoque nor as overtly sporty as Porsche’s Macan, the XC40 is cuter than both and is one of the baby sport brutes that looks good all in white. A solid nine from the Russian judge on exterior looks, then.
    He’d find it hard to deduct any more points in the powertrain department. Like so many in this segment, the XC40 is
  • That time Mercedes almost built an 18-cylinder engine

    Doing more with less has become an art form. Turbochargers and direct fuel-injection systems have helped squeeze more power from smaller engines, but it wasn’t always that way. In the late 1980s and the early 1990s, well before the term “downsizing” entered industry jargon, automakers sought ways of doing more with more. Mercedes notably considered one-upping rival BMW’s experimental V16 by building an 18-cylinder engine for a line of flagship cars that would have jettiso
  • How to stop water leaks from draining your wallet

    With labour rates approaching $200 per hour in some areas, any type of repair involving diagnostics can send shockwaves into the sturdiest budgets. One of the biggest time-clock culprits is a job not all shops want to tackle in the first place — water leaks.
    In fact, this task is so universally hated, a whole host of companies have sprung up that only deal with water leaks. Mainstream shops have moved away from this due to complaints from technicians working in tight quarters — no on
  • The VW Beetle could come back as a four-door EV

    Volkswagen executives are reportedly mulling over a new version of the Beetle based on their MEB electric vehicle platform, according to rumours from Autocar.
    That would turn the Beetle into a rear-wheel-drive car again, like the original, but also a battery-powered vehicle, which it’s never been before. The new car would also move to a four-door layout as opposed to a two-door, the rumours suggest.
    Fueling the rumours are statements from VW chief Herbert Diess saying he wants the automake
  • Advertisement

  • Volvo establishes new ‘M’ car-sharing brand

    Volvo launched its all-new M brand on July 4, an app-based car-sharing service providing “dependable, on-demand access to cars” in lieu of traditional car ownership or leasing.
    It’s not clear exactly how M will provide that access or fulfill Volvo’s new mission of offering its customers “Freedom to Move” other than that it will use “proprietary learning technology” to better understand users’ specific needs.
    What is clear is that Volvo will l
  • McLaren tuner building super-high-performance P1 Longtail GT

    McLaren specialists Lanzante may be building three special-edition P1 Longtail GTs as a throwback to the trio of F1 GT homologation cars McLaren itself built back in 1997, reports Road & Track.
    The British tuning company teased two images of the upcoming car – a sketch of the long-tailed car’s silhouette and a peek at the nose of a car painted Silverstone Green like the F1 GT prototype – ahead of its reveal at the Goodwood Festival of Speed on July 13, but otherwise details
  • There is absolutely no excuse to leave pets to die in a hot car

    It’s July 1st. Canada’s birthday. It’s sweltering, with the temperatures soaring into record setting territory, the humidity chasing all but the youngest, fittest, and perhaps most inebriated, indoors. It’s hot outside. I’m melting. I think back to being a kid in a house with no air conditioning, and remember that thing about being the youngest. My father fought against central air, no doubt because he was the most inebriated.
    The day before in identical temperature
  • SUV Review: 2018 Mazda CX-9

    Mid-sized crossovers are the workhorses of the greater SUV segment — not as flashy as the luxury-oriented units, yet also not the personal transportation that compact models have popularly become. They are the family haulers, a function that was once the purview of station wagons and, later, minivans. Nor are they particularly sexy, their strengths are size, cargo capacity and (often) third-row seating.
    Want to see a cross-section of them? Just drive by any elementary school during morning
  • Rearview Mirror: The meteoric rise and dramatic fall of John DeLorean

    Of all the auto ventures that might have been, few measure up to John DeLorean’s stainless-steel sports car. The story seems more fiction than fact: a “bad-boy” exec with no use for rules; an unusual car that couldn’t find its footing; and a narcotics sting some believe was a last grasp at success.
    John Zachary DeLorean was born in Detroit in 1925 to factory workers, and earned degrees in mechanical and automotive engineering. He began his career with a short stint at lux
  • Reader Review: 2019 VW Jetta Execline

    CALGARY, Alberta — Volkswagen’s 2019 Jetta should appeal to all demographics. At least, that’s what VW’s latest TV commercial would have you believe – that’s the one where Dad sneaks out in Junior’s car and takes his senior friends for a midnight joy ride.
    “With the BeatsAudio sound system and the custom ambient lighting, it seems the car would suit a younger generation of drivers,” says Richard Phillips. “But if you prefer a smaller se
  • Ontario’s new government kills EV rebates, lowers gas prices

    Ontario’s new government officially ended the province’s cap-and-trade “carbon tax” program June 2, killing off by proxy the electric vehicle rebate program funded by it and lifting a 4.3-percent tax on gasoline.
    “Every cent spent from the cap-and-trade slush fund is money that has been taken out of the pockets of Ontario families and businesses,” Automotive News Canada quoted Doug Ford, the province’s new premier, from a news release.
    “We believe
  • Tesla hits 5,000-a-week Model 3 production goal

    Silicon Valley automaker Tesla said Monday that it has built 5,000 of its Model 3 electric sedans in a single week, a long-delayed goal and major milestone for a company pushing to prove it can mass-produce electric cars.
    Tesla chief executive Elon Musk had originally set the 5,000-a-week benchmark for production of its battery-powered car for the end of last year, but later postponed it until the end of June following a series of manufacturing problems during what Musk called “production
  • Your Corner Wrench: Don’t let washer troubles wash out your wallet

    Fortunately, low-tech windshield washer systems seldom give us drivers headaches. But when they do, it always seems a waste to pay a licenced tech to fix a simple problem. Truth be told, most washer woes are an easy DIY repair.
    Nozzles are the most common failure on just about any type of vehicle. These little plastic squirters spend their lives basking in the sun and that’s the key to their downfall. Over time, the resins in the plastic will ‘dry’ out, leaving the nozzle extre
  • On the Road: 1999 Honda Accord SiR wagon

    AIRDRIE, Albert — There’s a children’s camp song about a little wagon – where ‘the front seat’s broken and the axle’s draggin’. Fortunately, that’s not the case with Paul Tait’s 1999 Honda Accord SiR wagon.
    Although it’s been customized and slammed to the ground, the Airdrie-based builder says his daily driver rides like a champ.
    “I drive it to work and I drive it to shows,” Tait explains. “And with two kids in t
  • Silly season of summer isn’t so jovial for cyclists on our streets

    Ah, the summer silly season is upon us. It will be the best of times, it will be the worst of times, but it will always be interesting.
    My son’s friend was an hour late leaving work the other day, as he desperately tried to get a groundhog out of his engine compartment. The creature had taken up residence sometime in the day, and no amount of banging on the hood or blasting the horn was convincing him to go find a different Critterbnb. As friends helpfully texted suggestions (“if he
  • Nicholas Latifi: Canada’s ‘next big thing’ in Formula 1?

    The Toronto-native has spent most of motor racing career competing in Europe, and now stands on the threshold of both F1 and, potentially, championship glory in Formula 2. It’s not been the easiest of climbs to the top, however.
    Behind the helmet specifically painted pink for this free practice outing, there’s an enormous smile plastered on Nicholas Latifi’s face. He’s rolling down the pit lane at his home Grand Prix in Montreal in only his third official test session for
  • First Drive: 2019 BMW X4 M40i

    SPARTANBURG, South Carolina – BMW introduced the mid-sized X4 in mid 2014 and has since sold more than 200,000 units worldwide. Since its introduction it has been selling at a steady pace in Canada, with more than 1,100 units sold here each full year since its arrival, totalling almost 4,400 units to date. The 2019 BMW X4 marks the second generation of the popular crossover, and as with all generational upgrades, the German ‘sport activity coupe’ has grown in size and gets a fr
  • Nissan celebrates GT-R’s 50th with 720-hp Italdesign-built one-off

    Nissan’s GT-R turns 50 this year, as does Italdesign, the styling firmed founded by the legendary Giorgetto Giugiaro (and now owned by Audi).
    To celebrate, the two companies decided to collaborate on a one-off Nismo-based sports car, the GTR-50, with a tuned 720-horsepower engine underhood.
    The radically styled super-sports car was penned in-house by Nissan European and North American design teams, with Italdesign instead handling development, engineering and production.
    A million minor tw
  • 2019 Chevrolet Volt cuts charging times almost in half

    The new 2019 Chevrolet Volt electric vehicle has nearly halved the time it takes to charge its batteries, with a full recharge good for 85 km now requiring just 2.3 hours, or about two hours and twenty minutes, when using a 240-volt outlet and the proper supporting hardware.
    That’s thanks to a 7.2-kW charging system, standard in the Volt Premier trim and optional on the base LT (a 3.6-kW charger is standard on that spec.)
    The Volt returns the equivalent of 2.22 L/100 km, Chevrolet says, bu
  • Porsche breaks fastest Nürburgring lap record with 919 Hybrid Evo

    Timo Bernhard set a new record for the fastest lap ever of the Nürburgring Nordschleife on June 29, completing the well-known 20.8-km circuit in just 5 minutes and 19.55 seconds in a Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo race car.
    The numbers work out to an average speed of 233.8 km/h, and saw Bernhard break the old record, set by Stefan Bellof 35 years ago, by almost a full minute.
    (Bellof had also set the record in a Porsche race car, though on a slightly shorter version of the circuit, and during compe
17 Apr 2024