The Crank: Does Porsche still need to go racing to sell cars?

By John LeBlanc OTTAWA, Ont. – After 20-odd years, Porsche Canada is jumping back into racing in Canada. The first of its inaugural Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada races was held this past weekend at Calabogie Motorsports Park, about an hour’s drive west of Ottawa. Then, on the weekend before this year’s Montreal Grand Prix, […]

The Crank: Will Honda follow Toyota with its own annus horribilis?

By John LeBlanc While the manufacturing crisis in Japan has affected almost every automaker on the planet to some degree, the disaster seems to have particularly hit hard for Honda. And, seemingly, the crisis couldn’t have come at a worse time for the struggling Japanese automaker. Just as rival Toyota was measurably hurt last year as it […]

The Crank: Would Steve McQueen still drive a Porsche today?

By John LeBlanc Blenheim, Ontario’s RM Auctions has a Porsche you might be interested. It’s the above illustrated  1970 911S actor/car guy Steve McQueen’s character, race driver Michael Delaney, drove in the opening sequences of his iconic flick LeMans.

The Crank: Which are “dumber”?: Newly Americanized VWs, or the people buying them…

By John LeBlanc Recently, over at Automotive News, my colleague Diana T. Kurylko, asked the question that fans of inexpensive German wheels have been pondering for some time now: Is Volkswagen of America cheapening its cars to boost volume at the cost of its German engineering image? Based on the evidence, the answer is a […]

The Crank: Saab becomes a little less Swedish

By John LeBlanc With the recent resignation of now former CEO Jan Ake Jonsson—Saab’s so-called “last Swede”—the automaker becomes just a little less Swedish—jah, fer shoor. But what does Jonsson’s exit say of the potential survival (or lack thereof) of the Swedish brand?

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