Automotive News Canada - June 2017 - v2 - 30

FINAL ASSEMBLY

30
30

* JUNE 2017

06.17

LETTING LOOSE A BIT ON THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF AUTOMOTIVE

SAY WHAT?

EVERYTHING IS LIKE
A BIG WARNING [SIGN]:
WE'RE GOING TO EVS."
JULIAN SALE

Owner, Motorize Your EV Store,
Sidney, B.C., discussing his decision to sell only electric vehicles.

WILMA!
Cartoon characters
have lien on car,
owner doesn't see
the humour

HERE'S ONE FOR THE
ages. The stone ages.
A 75-year-old Ontario
woman couldn't trade in
her 2006 Chevy Uplander
because Fred Flintstone and
his daughter Pebbles, both
residents of Yellow Brick
Road, had liens against the
vehicle.
When the woman
received her used vehicle information package
from ServiceOntario, it
showed no liens on the
van. However, the car dealer wouldn't pay her for
the vehicle because the
Ministry of Government
and Consumer Services had
registered a lien against her
valid VIN number in the
names of the cartoon characters.
Government and
Consumer Services
Minister Tracy MacCharles
told the Canadian Press
that ServiceOntario staff
were, at some point before
the attempted trade,
doing testing and a
technician used the

Flintstones as test names.
The woman contacted
the Ministry of Government
and Consumer Services
in March and the liens
were discharged then. But
Randy Hillier, a Progressive
Conservative member of
the Ontario parliament who
represents her provincial
riding, raised her case at
Queen's Park in May when
he first heard of the woman's ordeal.
"How many more
Mystery Machines have
had liens placed on them
in the names of ScoobyDoo and the gang and other
Saturday morning cartoon
personalities?" Hillier asked
in the Legislature May 10.
"I'm glad that the minister has worked on this and
guaranteed to expunge this
false and animated lien ...
but will she guarantee that
others affected by these
Looney-Tune shenanigans
won't take nine months to
get fixed?" - ANC
A 75-year-old woman
couldn't trade in her
2006 Chevrolet Uplander
because it was registered
to Barney and Pebbles
Flintstone of Yellow Brick
Road.

( I L L U S T R AT I O N : W A R N E R B R O S . )

'Something drove' dealer to donate van
A WHITEHORSE AUTO DEALER SAID HE WAS
just doing his part when he donated a new 2016 Dodge
Grand Caravan to a resident born with spina bifida.
According to the CBC, the family of Wayne Thomas
had been using a 2002 minivan to drive him around
town. But when Travor Willier, the general sales manager at Whitehorse Metro Chrysler in Whitehorse, Yukon,
learned of the Thomas's plight, he wanted to help.
"Something drove me to it," Willier told the CBC.
"We figured we'd give him a van. It seemed like a good
cause." Willier said the dealership was "just trying to be
part of a community."
The Grand Caravan typically sells for about $30,000.
An additional $25,000 was raised in the community
to make the new vehicle wheelchair accessible, the CBC
reported. - ANC
A dealer-donated Dodge Grand Caravan gives
new mobility to a Whitehorse boy, Wayne Thomas,
and his family. ( P H O T O : W H I T E H O R S E M E T R O C H R Y S L E R ) )

$270,000
THIS NUMBER

That's the price tag that luxury
dealer Pfaff Motors Inc. will put on
the imported Briggs Automotive
Company (BAC) Mono track-day
special when it goes on sale
in Toronto.

( P H O T O : P FA F F M O T O R S )

When Windsor was king
Reliving the glory days
with a new book about
Canada's former
auto-manufacturing
powerhouse

A NEW BOOK ON SALE IN
June takes a close look at
Windsor, Ont., and its rise to
becoming - at one time, at least
- the automotive capital of
Canada.
Among other things,
Patrick Brode's "Border Cities
Powerhouse: The Rise of
Windsor 1901-1945" examines
what are arguably two of the
most important events in the
country's automotive history.
First, it was Gordon
McGregor who in 1904 convinced Henry Ford to start
assembling vehicles there. That
helped grow a town of 12,000
into Canada's fourth largest
industrial hub and eighth largest city by about 1930.

"Beginning in
event in the history
1904 we take off like
of Canada,"
a rocket," Brode told
Brode told
Mary Caton of the
the Star. "All
Windsor Star daily
of Canada
newspaper. "Before
was watching
that there was
to see what
nothing different
happens next."
about Windsor.
Despite
It was a really
striking
bland border vilthrough the
lage." After 1904,
winter, and
"Windsor realpolice intervenly takes off in a
tion at one point,
very different
the union predirection."
vailed on Dec. 19,
Brode's book
1945.
ends with the
The strike
99-day strike by
established the
Ford employees
legitimacy of
Gordon McGregor
when, on Sept.
unions in Canada
convinced Henry Ford
12, 1945, 11,000
and gave the
to begin assembling
Canadian Ford
Canadian labour
workers went on vehicles in Windsor
movement the conin 1904. ( P H O T O : B I B L I O A S I S ) fidence to fight
strike to pressure the company
for gains after the
to agree the Windsor plant was
Second World War.
a union shop and get the autoThe book is published by
maker to collect dues on behalf
Windsor's Biblioasis and
of the union.
is available online through
"The Ford strike was a major Amazon. - ANC

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive News Canada - June 2017 - v2