Car News

Jeep’s car-sharing subscription service potentially called My Freedom

It’s a Jeep thing, at least that’s what they say. In 2019, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles trialed a few different car-sharing subscription services. Those trials must have gone well because the automaker appears to be putting the pieces in place to launch such a service on a larger scale. First spotted by CarBuzz, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles filed for a trademark on the term “My Freedom” with the United States Patent...

Looking Ahead: The EVs we’re longing to drive in 2020

Is 2020 the year electric vehicles make the sales breakthrough industry watchers have been predicting over the last decade or so? Unlikely. However, with a half-dozen all new EVs charging into Canadian showrooms over the course of the next 12 months, it is more than likely this year will set a new record for electric vehicles sales in this country. A more relevant, and in many ways much more...

This Porsche 918 may be the only non-sale at Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale 2020

Barrett-Jackson’s Scottsdale auction this year was a real barn-burner. With Hollywood star cars packed fender-to-fender with rare classics, there was actually something for everybody — as long as you had the money. Underscoring just how incredible the 2020 event was is the sheer number of records it broke. To start, it was the highest-grossing auction in the company’s 49 years, at US$141 million in sales (including auction fees). On...

Canadian cars clean up at Barrett-Jackson’s Scottsdale 2020 sale

The biggest single consigner at the 2020 Scottsdale Barrett-Jackson auction was Vancouver General Motors dealer Moray Keith. The second biggest consigner was Vancouver classic car dealer Wayne Darby. Together with Victoria dealer Tim Quocksister, the trio auctioned well over 100 classic vehicles — about five per cent of the approximately 2,000 that crossed the auction block in the six-day event. Canadian sellers are attracted by a world stage on...

Toyota looks to the skies with $349M investment in Joby Aviation VTOL aircraft

Toyota has been looking to the skies for awhile now. Not with an airplane like rival Honda, but with flying cars as a means of mobility. Last week, Toyota announced it had invested $394 million in the Group C round of funding for Joby Aviation’s electric vertical take off and landing (VTOL) aircraft. In addition, Toyota will share its manufacturing, quality, and cost controls expertise to help Joby develop...

Here’s how much 7 of the wildest cars at Arizona Car Week 2020 sold for

This past week saw the sale of some very important vehicles at eight different auctions in Scottsdale, in what’s come to be known as Arizona Car Week, in January. While the highlight of the month may have been Mecum’s $4.85-million sale of the original hero Mustang from Bullitt down in Florida, Barrett-Jackson, Bonhams and others were moving a lot more famous movie car metal out in the desert. A...

Race-ready 1970 Nissan Z brings nearly $804,000 at Tokyo auction

If you had any doubt about the desirability of Japanese Domestic Market vehicles in the current collector car marketplace, those doubts should evaporate when you learn that a 1970 Nissan Fairlady (aka Datsun 240Z) sold for a record $803,857 (88.55 million yen) on January 12 at the BH Auction in Tokyo.The Z432R was one of only around 30 such vehicles built for racing with lighter body panels that were...

Hennessey Venom F5 carbon-fiber chassis debuts, hp up to 1,817 and price up to $1.8M

On Sunday, Texas-based Hennessey Performance Engineering (HPE) unveiled the carbon-fiber chassis for its forthcoming Venom F5 hypercar. Photos of the carbon-fiber monocoque show a coupe-like structure for a mid-engine car. It’s a bespoke carbon-fiber chassis that took two years to develop. To handle the car’s anticipated power and speed, the chassis has a torsional rigidity of 38,353 lb-ft of torque per degree. Weight? A slim 190 pounds. HPE also...

Canada’s small luxury cars were big sellers for premium brands in 2019

“Luxury car,” at least in the modern automotive lexicon, is a phrase hardly limited to the likes of Rolls-Royce and Aston Martin. In fact, so broad has the so-called premium automotive sector become that Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin, Bentley and their cohorts often require prefixes such as “ultra-“, “super-“, and “über-” ahead of their “luxury” in order to distinguish them from, well, the commoner’s “luxury” car. Premium brands have seen...

Is it a good idea to buy a used Kia?

“Should I buy a used Kia?” A family friend was looking for a second-hand crossover, and had his eyes on several few-year-old Kia models he figured were very well-equipped for the money. “Sure, why not?” I replied. Friend-guy had his concerns, though. His cousin’s newer Optima had suffered in-warranty engine failure due to a manufacturing defect a few years ago. Another relative had an older Sportage with some transmission...