Retrospectives - list - Sympatico.ca Autos

Blaze of glory: long-gone makes' last models

Sometimes the last models a failing car brand turns out are some of its best. To show you what we mean, we've compiled a gallery of too-cool cars from some cold-in-the-ground marques' final days.

R.I.P. Suzuki - We hardly knew ye

Suzuki, throughout its years in North America, haven’t really had the warmest reception when it came to their cars. Only a few months ago, the company packed up and ceased vehicle sales in the United States, and now, they’re doing the same in Canada. We look back and the company's hits and misses.

100 Years of Aston Martin

Known worldwide as a purveyor of some of the most beautiful performance vehicles money can buy, Aston Martin have built a reputation on delivering a compelling mix of style, speed and comfort.

Car stereos through the decades

Looking back at Lincoln

After years of slumping sales, the Lincoln marquee seems to no longer carry the prestige it once did. In an effort to combat this, Lincoln was recently re-introduced as the Lincoln Motor Company.

The star cars of Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth

Heralded as one of the greatest kar kustomizers of all time, Ed "Big Daddy" Roth was, at the very least, profilic. He turned out dozens of fibreglass-bodied customs through the early '60s; a good many were immortalized as Revell model cars.

50 years of Porsche 911

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Porsche seems to hold true to the old adage when it comes to their most famous car: the 911.

Funeral coaches: from gorgeous to ghoulish

Motorized funeral coaches, more commonly called "hearses," have come a long way from their start at the turn of the 20th century

The essence of Corvette

Where the 2014 Corvette Stingray's styling cues and innovations came from

Automotive gambles that paid off

Cars that rolled the dice and won

They still sell those?

When an automobile manufacturer cancels a vehicle, its production comes to an end, but inventory doesn’t disappear into thin air. Consumers know there are newer, fresher products on the way, if not already in showrooms. Thus, old models tend to hang about for a bit.

Canada's car collection

We got an exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at Canada's car collection inside the Museum of Science and Technology in Ottawa, where they preserve the cars. The vehicles are kept in a drab warehouse, until they're needed for an exhibit. Currently, that exhibit is called "In Search of the Canadian Car."

The day car ads changed forever

And it all happened somewhere west of Laramie ...

Taillights: A look at what's back there

75 years of Toyota Motor Co.

In three quarters of a century, Toyota went from Japanese start-up, to being the one of the most ubiquitous automotive brands on Canadian roads. Today Toyota is seen as utilitarian, a practical choice, but it wasn't always so. Here then are the cars that define Toyota in its first 75 years -- according to Toyota, with some additions by us.

110 years of Cadillac

Hard to believe that it's 110 years old, but you don't get to be such an iconic, storied brand without having a bit of history behind you. And few have more history than Cadillac. This is how it all began:

Hershey Auto Flea Market: Cool stuff for old cars

15 cars that shouldn't have been cancelled

We can think of plenty of reasons why these automobiles shouldn’t have recently been extinguished.

Henry Ford: The good, the bad, and the just plain weird

A look at the man, the legend—and the strange quirks that Henry Ford brought through life

Cool cars heat up international museums

Headlights: Some bright and not-so-bright designs

Horsepower and weight gains between 1992, 2002 and 2012

Typically, vehicles are heavier than they used to be. They’re also wildly more powerful. This sampling, in which we show a variety of vehicle types, shows the gains over the last two decades.

Names you know ... on vehicles you don't

Cars and trucks you didn't think they made

Makes that didn't make it

Legendary European sports car marques De Tomaso and TVR met their end this past month, reminding us even well-liked automakers with decades of success behind them can suddenly disappear for any of a variety of reasons. To show you what we mean, we've put together a list of 30 once-big car brands that bit the dust.

The automakers' darkest hours

Recalls and issues they'd rather forget

Sergio Pininfarina: Great designer dies at 85

His father founded the now-legendary design firm, but it was Sergio, with his eye for marketing as well as good design, who grew the business. The younger Pininfarina is responsible - perhaps more so than any of his peers - for shaping our idea of what a sports car looks like.

45 years of AMG: a history of horsepower

From two guys in a tiny garage, to the official tuning and motorsport arm of Mercedes-Benz. AMG was fully taken over and integrated into Benz in 2005, but the really interesting bit of the story takes place back in the '60 and '70s when the two engineers were letting their imaginations run wild.

What's in a name?

CALTY: Toyota's California dream studio

In 1973, Toyota became the first major automaker to open a design studio in California. In an unassuming, well-hidden building in Newport Beach, some of the world's top designer shaped a brand. Here are their most notable contributions:

The wonderful, wacky world of J.C. Whitney

In business for more than 95 years, and still around today, J.C. Whitney & Company sells a large number of very useful aftermarket accessories – as well as a few that leave many of us shaking our heads. That was certainly the case when this catalogue was published in 1960. Let’s see what gearheads could buy back then. (Please forgive the odd blurry bits, as the book is very fragile.)

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