Car FYI

1956 Ford Thunderbird at the 2009 Canadian International AutoShow (Photo taken by Chris Nagy) Recognized as being one of the most prolific auto brands, Ford Motor Company has produced well over 400 million automobiles entering 2025. Among one of their much-revered models celebrating 70 years since its debut, Ford’s Thunderbird launched as a near-perfect counter to the Chevrolet Corvette. With standard V8 power and added luxuries inside its two-seat 1950s interior, the Thunderbird enjoyed greater sales than its Chevrolet rival with 16,155 cars sold in 1955 making it an instant classic .  Produced between 1955 and 1957, the first generation Ford Thunderbird remains admired for how simply it combines elegance and performance. An attentive fan of the early T-birds will be further captivated by the year-to-year differences of the car. The glorious debut in 1955 was followed by improvements in 1956 and a significant exterior and interior update for 1957. By observing a few key details of...

2024 Ford Mustang Convertible at 2024 Canadian International AutoShow (Photo Credit: Chris Nagy/Car FYI Canada) Sometimes in life it’s best to open up. For automobiles, an opportunity to reveal an inner personality is realized with convertibles. Despite the prevalence of air conditioning on almost every modern vehicle, convertibles remain special for delivering occupants the feeling of being one with the world with the rushing breeze when in motion and the warmth of a summer sun. This sensation continues to impress up to this day with cars such as the Mazda MX-5, Ford Mustang convertible, BMW 4 Series Cabriolet and the Mercedes-Benz SL Roadster, it may be disturbing to know how the excitement of open top motoring almost rendered extinct to North American audiences roughly 50 years ago. A perfect storm of circumstances contributed to a near death for the convertible. The Top Goes Up For Safety The first half century of the automobile was propelled by unbridled innovation and imaginati...

On December 14th 1947, a meeting inside Daytona Beach’s Streamline Hotel would formally establish the basis of what we know as NASCAR was formally established as a motorsport sanctioning body. It would be absurd to believe that Bill France Sr. and the other members of the gathering would fully fathom the greatness their creation would achieve over the period of over 75 years. As the technology, the athleticism of drivers and crews and finances were difficult to predict from the beginning, the journey to what NASCAR is in 2023 involved in a number of interesting tangents.  Originally assembled with a Modified division and later the Strictly Stock series (evolving into what now is the current Cup Series), NASCAR rapidly expanded their reach with a slew of stock car series for regional as well as national racing. The opening decades of NASCAR also involved experiments into many unusual forms of auto racing competition; Some of those featured stock car auto racing.  In honour of t...

Photo Credit: Chris Nagy The 2023 Chevrolet Corvette is one of the finest-tuned and most recognized performance machines made. Featuring a meticulously sculpted shape combining elements of race cars and jet aircraft, the Corvette’s recent evolution to a rear mid-engined layout for its eighth generation has been a lengthy pursuit for perfection . The 2020 Corvette Stingray with its 495-horsepower Small Block V8 engine contributed to the fastest stock acceleration from 0 to 60 miles per hour while the Z06 edition of the sports car rose the vehicle to the peak of automotive athleticism with a 670-horsepower LT6 powerplant. The book of 70 years of history has been written by eight major revisions that progressed from a modest performer. On this day (June 30th), the first chapter for the Chevrolet Corvette’s story began to be written inside a Flint, Michigan factory where the first car was assembled with less precision and polish than the modern icon. Starting life as Project Ope...

Buick has been working hard to prove it is no longer a brand associated solely with 50-plus drivers and golf tours. Targeting to entice a younger crowd to buy into the premium car division, Buick has been running a series of commercials resembling a modern version of the "Not Your Father's Oldsmobile" campaign. While Oldsmobile is no longer a staple of the automobile business, the original campaign did drastically revitalize the division. In reinventing its image as a hipper kind of luxury, Buick found some traction in 2013 with the premium compact crossover Encore . In time for the 2015 North American International Auto Show, the 2016 Buick Cascada opens a new sense of class for the General Motors division. The 2016 Cascada becomes the first Buick convertible since the soft-top version of the 1991 Reatta. The Buick Cascada will also be the first two-door vehicle for the brand since the discontinuation of the Riviera...

To say the 2014 Formula 1 season ended well for the Mercedes AMG team would be a grand understatement. With Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg driving the W05 Hybrid race car, the team captured victory in 16 of season’s 19 events. In qualifying, one of the Mercedes AMG drivers prevailed with the pole position in all but one race (Williams’ Felipe Massa propelled by a customer Mercedes-Benz power unit won the Austrian Grand Prix’s pole). As Lewis Hamilton overcame a mid-season gap to triumph over teammate Rosberg for his second World Drivers’ Championship , Mercedes-Benz captured the honour of proclaiming themselves the toast of the paddock among teams. After five seasons for the Mercedes AMG organization gave glimpses of potential, quick adjustment to new rules for the 2014 Formula 1 vehicles netted the factory-based team the manufacturers’ championship. Since the manufacturers’ trophy in the series was not established until 1958 (three years after Mercedes-Benz pulled out of competi...