2011 Chevrolet Camaro S...

A few years back, when General Motors launched the Chevy Camaro, it was in the middle of the biggest crisis in its history. In a very poor overall economy, one may have been surprised to see the company rollout such a niche product. The car, which does not exactly fit into the current...

2010 Cadillac CTS Sport...

General Motors is clearly positioning the Cadillac CTS line against the luxury sedans from Europe’s top auto makers, who have all long embraced the station wagon as the best solution to the need for extra space without getting into larger, less efficient vehicles. Ironically, in the...

2010 Kia Sorento SUV

The recipe for a compact crossover SUV has been pretty much cast in stone now. It needs to be car-based, available in front- or all-wheel drive, with four- or six-cylinder power, and suitable for soft-road use. The first-generation Kia Sorento, a tough body-on-frame truck design with real...

2010 Volkswagen Golf GT...

Way back in the mid-’70s, shortly after the introduction of the new Rabbit which would eventually become the Golf, someone at Volkswagen in Germany had the brilliant idea of making a sporty performance car out of the compact sedan, and the “hot hatchback” was born. The GTI took...

2008 Smart Fortwo

Not that long ago – late 2004 – the smart car arrived in Canada as a sort of experiment on the part of its builder, Mercedes-Benz. The subsidiary set up to market the small urban vehicles had surprisingly not done so well, despite European cities being full of the things. So, it was...

2008 Honda Accord

When Honda set out to redesign the Accord, which was one of the largest-selling cars in North America, it needed to not only build on its strengths and appeal to loyal customers, but also keep up with the technological progress made in the industry and try to entice new buyers into the...

2008 Ford Focus

The Ford Focus has been the oldest design in the compact car segment for some time now. When Ford decided a few years ago not to bring over the then-new European Focus that had met with wide acclaim, there were some questions raised. But of course, the world knew about the company’s...

Volkswagen VW City Golf...

The City Golf and Jetta came on the scene a year ago, when Volkswagen determined that it needed cars in Canada with which to compete at entry-level prices. VW sub-compacts existed in Europe, but couldn’t be certified to be sold here. And VW in the United States had no particular...