Car FYI

Winner of the 2025 Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto Pato O'Ward celebrates (Photo Credit: Joe Skibinski/Penske Entertainment) IndyCar’s only visit outside of the states, the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto has been a classic attraction where some of the greatest open wheel racers tested their talents on a tricky, tight temporary street course nestled within Exhibition Place. The 2025 edition of the event headlined by the NTT IndyCar Series drew a consistently large crowd of Canadian race fans throughout the weekend who were rewarded with plenty of off-track and on-track excitement.  By virtue of a magnificent defence of pole position for a third consecutive year, Colton Herta and his Gainbridge #26 Andretti Global team earned the honours of leading the field to the green flag for Sunday’s main event. Whether or not he would be able to defend his 2024 victory would depend on the outcome of 90 laps on the 11-turn, 2.874-kilometer (1.786-miles) race track. Following time trials, ...

Close-up of Scott Dixon's Honda-branded Engine Cover (Chris Nagy/Car FYI Canada)   A company maintaining an uninterrupted 30-year association with motorsports is a commitment involving a great deal of mutual appreciation and respect. Back in 1994, the Honda name’s appearance on Indy cars was a new sight for many racing fans. While the auto marker had gained a reputation for winning in Formula 1 through the 1980s and early 1990s, the North American open wheel racing scene presented a much different challenge. Honda Racing’s endeavour into IndyCar immediately demonstrated that some first steps may be uneasy but the capacity to endure these early struggles can amount to greatness.   Honda had explored involvement with Indy car racing during the early 1980s partnering with Engine Development Limited (a company jointly founded by Jack Brabham and John Judd) to create a competition powerplant. While Honda opted not to officially enter the CART Indy car racing, work on t...

Photo Credit: Honda Canada Inc. Product Lineup: Accord, Civic, CR-V, HR-V, Odyssey, Passport, Pilot, Prologue, Ridgeline Overall Brand Impression:  Recognized for its sturdy reputation, Honda demonstrates itself as being exceptionally careful to deliver the vehicles customers want today while insuring they also provide products demanded for tomorrow. Having officially employed Canadians for 55 years, last year marked the company’s 10 millionth vehicle produced in the country with upcoming plans for expansion imminent. For 2024, Honda’s automobile lineup features backbone models such as the Civic and CR-V while the completely-new, all-electric Prologue.  What’s New for 2024:  Welcomed into the Honda lineup for 2024 is the first-ever Prologue. A fully-electric crossover vehicle with a predicted driving range of 450 kilometers thanks to a General Motors-supplied Ultium battery technology, the 2024 Honda Prologue is created as an attractive, practical design. Being delive...

Photo Credit: American Honda Motor Co., Inc. untitled In August, Honda’s luxury car brand Acura shared an intriguing teaser image accompanied by the revelation that a classic sport compact name would return. Included in a rather familiar close-up promotional shot capturing a headlamp and part of the Diamond Pentagon grille, the key focus was a nameplate reading “Integra”. A rear image of a five-door hatchback shape dropped in late September while a picture of a six-speed manual shifter released in mid-October clearly as a means to tantalize a modern premium sport compact crowd. After a 20-year hiatus, the Integra is once again part of the Acura lineup. A five-door hatchback touting a coupe-like shape, the 2023 Acura Integra will give entry-level luxury car buyers a strong taste of performance attitude. As was the case with the previous Integra models, the Honda Civic platform serves as the basis for this latest premium compact. While the new Civic hatchba...

Photo Credit: Chris Nagy/Car FYI Canada   Theme of the Show: The Vision- Explore New Directions. Experience Innovation. Though the effects of the great global recession were nearing an end with the arrival of 2010, Canadian auto sales from the recently concluded year of 2009 made it clear that the auto industry had a hole to climb out of. Only 1,484,000 new cars and trucks sold in Canada represented a 11.36 percent drop over the 2008 calendar year as instability with money caused many to temporarily forego many expensive purchase and expenditures.   Although this was only the second year I attended the event, I could tell there was truly a lower key tone to the 2010 Canadian International AutoShow compared to the previous year. The show’s footprint decreased as the floors of the Skydome (Rogers Centre) was no longer part of the display space. Since 2009, none of the subsequent auto shows in Toronto would use the popular retractable roof sports and entertainment buil...

Photo Credit: Chris Nagy/Car FYI Canada   Theme of the Show: The New Era The first Canadian International AutoShow I attended, the 2009 Toronto exhibition was an event that operated in an uncertain economic time for the industry.  The great recession ended the decade causing considerable reassessments on many fronts. With roughly 1,674,100 vehicles sold in Canadian during 2008 equating to a roughly 1 percent drop compared to the previous year, the data actually showed a radical increase in passenger car sales while truck sales fell to its deepest level in seven years. Smaller, economical cars were favoured among new vehicle buyers while traditional truck-like struggled as a hangover of high gas prices and over-saturation of the marketplace. The fickleness of the 2009 buyer would be highlighted when auto sales took a deeper plummet in Canada with 1,484,900 new vehicles sold. Besides the attitude of car buyers, the biggest change that would appear over the course of 2...

Photo Credit: Joe Skibinski   The Indianapolis 500 ran for its 104th time in history under less than traditional circumstances for 2020. Held on a date in late August without any fans in the stands, the open wheel race on the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval operated in a less than traditional way. However, the combination of the national anthem and “Back Home Again in Indiana” being sung, track owner Roger Penske gave the command to start engines and the 2020 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray Pace Car took a 33-car field off pit lane towards the green flag provided an illusion close to the typical Memorial weekend 200-lap contest. Becoming the first Japanese driver to win the Indianapolis 500 in 2017, Takuma Sato is now in the illustrious company of multiple winners of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing”. Taking the lead of the 500-mile race on lap 185, Sato fended off charges from New Zealand native Scott Dixon through the late laps until a caution on lap 196 solidified his pl...