The Crank: More than recalls cause of Toyota’s sales woes

By John LeBlanc Newsflash: Toyota Canada isn’t going to sell as many cars this year as they did last. To be specific, sales last month for the combined Toyota/Lexus brands were down 17.1 per cent from September 2009, in a Canadian new car market that’s up 7 per cent. At this rate—and there’s no reason […]

First Drive: 2012 Mercedes-Benz CLS 550 4MATIC

[svgallery name=”2012_Mercedes_CLS_hirez”] Four-door fashion Second gen of world’s first “four-door coupé” nips at BMW’s ride-and-handling heels By John LeBlanc FLORENCE, Italy – It was no coincidence Mercedes-Benz’s new CLS was publicly unveiled during the clothing industry’s twice-a-year Paris Fashion Week. Although the new SLS AMG super sports car has garnered plenty of attention for its […]

The Crank: The General’s naming games

By John LeBlanc As part of Chevrolet’s recent small car religion— that includes the 2011 compact Cruze, next year’s Orlando compact tall wagon and a future Spark city car—an all-new subcompact  2011 Aveo, left and below, is on the way as well. We saw the production version last month in Paris, initially, next spring it […]

The Crank: Is adventurous car design dead?

By John LeBlanc We waited for this? was my thought bubble when spy shots of what is speculated to be the next-gen Honda Civic in hot weather testing showed up in a video (above) this week. But then, I had the same light bulb go off when I first saw der neu BMW 6 Series […]

The Crank: 2011 CAJ Best of the Best nominees released

By John LeBlanc Here’s the deal. If you’re reading my blog, it’s safe to assume that you’re one of the wisest, sharpest, most knowledgeable car enthusiasts on the planet. So it goes without reason that if yours truly is to put his name behind an annual new car award, it’s going to be the “best” […]

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