Sympatico Autos team

Here at Sympatico.ca Autos, we like to show the car from all angles; from photo galleries and slide shows to in-depth features and news items. It's difficult to say why we're different without showing you, so below you'll find links to our profiles. Some of us have sold cars, a few have worked in automotive dealerships—and one has written best-selling books. To say I'm proud of this website and its writers is an understatement. When browsing the list below you'll see our email addresses and social media links (if applicable.) Drop us a line, we'd love to hear from you. —Michael Banovsky; Editor, Sympatico.ca Autos

Michael Banovsky

According to my parents, the first word I spoke was "car." Not sure if that's a good thing—or a spectacular failure on their part—but there you go. I grew up in Sarnia, Ontario, and have held a variety of jobs in the automotive industry, including as both detailing staff and after-school...

Jil McIntosh

Unlike many auto writers, I didn’t grow up interested in cars, despite the fact that my older brother owned a dealership, and no one in my family understood what the words “public transit” meant. Automobiles were just how we got around. But one day the switch just flipped. I...

Mike Lynett

For me, growing up in a family with race car drivers and mechanics meant a childhood spent at tracks and under hoods. Hearing a Ford GT40 thunder down a straight at Watkins Glen for the first time pretty much sealed the deal for my future. Around the same time, Ferrari and Porsche were battling...

Matt Bubbers

You don’t want to know about me: you want to know how a young car nut like me got this job – and more importantly how you can get a job driving cars around Napa Valley, California and spending weekends being a menace in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo press car. Unlike most petrolheads, though, I...

Nicholas Maronese

I got the car bug early – Hot Wheels and model cars (still build ’em) – and never grew out of it. I picked up on muscle cars and hot rods quickly, and fell in love with the Plymouth Duster and Mopar at 16. I moved to Toronto to study at York University, and in 2010...

Timothy Cain

As a fifth child, my inheritance was automotive training manipulated as a tool to impress family friends and foes. By the time I could combine words, journeys were designed to be a treat for other passengers as my parents instructed me to precisely name every approaching vehicle. I liked it....

Howard Elmer

Ask any auto writer how they came to be in the business and the only similarity between stories will be the ending. I’m no different. I knew by the age of ten that I wanted to write, however I was born into a family of automotive engineers; a right brain thinker with a left brained father...

Kathy Buckworth

I’ve been writing humour and parenting books and articles for years, and some of my best “material” comes out of the situations which arise in long, ill-advised road trips with my four children. It’s sort of a melting pot for story ideas on conflict resolution, negotiations skills, and how...

Michael Goetz

While I have a degree in economics, I consider the time I spent after graduation as a service advisor at a GM dealership as the more valuable educational experience. This was in the early 1980s, not one of GM’s finest eras, so we were busy: we re-machined Vega aluminum cylinder heads;...

David Redinger

Dave Redinger is a mechanic extraordinaire. His award-winning Toronto-based shop Doctor H Honda Specialists / NAPA AutoPro has been in business for 28 years, and has even picked up a prestigious J.D. Power Customer Satisfaction Survey award. Dave is a class “A”...