Automotive News Canada - March 2020 - 27

FINAL ASSEMBLY

2703.20

* MARCH 2020

LETTING LOOSE A BIT ON THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF AUTOMOTIVE

Silverados
to the silver
screen?
Idled GM workers
could be recast
for film and
TV-production work

IT COULD BE A HOLLYWOOD
ending of sorts for up to 1,000
General Motors employees who
lost their jobs when the automaker shuttered its assembly
plant in Oshawa, Ont.
According to Postmedia,
former GM workers are being
offered retraining to transfer
their skills to a production set.
The news organization reports
that an advisory panel of industry experts from film and TV is
assisting the laid-off workers.
Jayson Mosek, the business agent with NABET 700-M
Unifor, said in a tweet that
his union "could easily utilize
these skilled workers to add to
our roster of technicians servicing production in Ontario."
GM ceased production at
the Oshawa plant in December.
About 2,000 workers who
used to assemble Chevrolet
Silverados, GMC Sierras and
more lost their jobs.
Jim Mirkopoulos, vice-president of Cinespace Toronto, told
Postmedia that "content creation is the new manufacturing."
Lisa MacLeod, Ontario's
minister of heritage, sport,
tourism and culture, said that
the province's film and TV
industry is booming and it
needs more crews to keep up
with demand.
MacLeod told a group
of TV and film-industry
employees that Ontario had a
record-breaking year in 2019.
Productions brought $2.16 billion into provincial coffers and
supported close to 45,000 jobs.
That's a 15-per-cent increase in
production and about 7,500 new
jobs for Ontarians. - ANC

SAY WHAT?

There are barbarians
at the gate. Elon
[Musk] is climbing up the
mountain, and it's time
to push him down. And
we'll do it together.

Hyundai Canada CEO Don
Romano on Tesla's potential
to disrupt the traditional dealer
model, from a story
at automotivenews.ca

Wells Auto Milton sells
"a few" DeLorean DMC-12
cars per year.
PHOTO: PERRY LEFKO

Nav Bhatia, right, with Basketball Hall of Fame
Chairman Jerry Colangelo, is getting a spot in
the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame,
although not as an inductee. He's nonetheless
enRaptored - or, enraptured.

He's one hall
of
a
dealer
'Back to the Future'
PHOTO: PUSH MARKETING GROUP

in the present

A Canadian dealership
that's devoted to the
love of just one car

HE DOESN'T HAVE A LARGE
marquee sign advertising his business, or a big showroom filled with
cars, but Justin Sookraj's dealership
- the only one in Canada that specifically restores and sells the stainless-steel-bodied DeLorean DMC-12
- has a devoted clientele.
Sookraj owns Wells Auto Milton,
west of downtown Toronto, which
he began five years ago because of
his love for DMC-12, produced from
1981 to 1983 and popularized through
the Back to the Future movies.

400
THIS NUMBER

About 200 such cars are registered
across Canada, and Sookraj sells a
handful a year.
He moved into a bigger space
two years ago to accommodate the
inventory and his interest in buying and restoring the vehicles. The
starting purchase price is about
$55,000.
The volume is obviously low.
"We sell a few and service a few
cars each year," Sookraj said. "We
keep people on the road and try to
keep them happy because at the end
of the day, this is a toy and not basic
transportation. These are not cars
that anybody should be relying on to
get anywhere other than recreation
and enjoying them as a collectible."
- ANC

The variety of new
electric vehicles
that consulting firm
McKinsey & Co.
expects to reach
the global market
by 2025, according
to a story at
automotivenews.ca

Raptors
superfan
Nav Bhatia
honoured for
his devotion

CHALK UP ANOTHER
accomplishment for
the man - through
his love of basketball
- who is perhaps the
most famous car dealer
in the world.
Nav Bhatia, the
owner of Mississauga
Hyundai and Rexdale
Hyundai, is being honoured by the Naismith
Memorial Basketball
Hall of Fame in
Springfield, Mass., in
a new wing devoted to
National Basketball
Association (NBA)
superfans.
The native of New
Delhi, India, has owned
multiple season tickets
for the Raptors since
the team's inception
in 1995 and has never
missed a home game.
Bhatia incorporates his link to the
Raptors into his dealership marketing and
has the motto, "I don't
smoke, I don't drink,
I don't womanize, I

Raptorize."
Bhatia was stunned
when Basketball Hall
of Fame Chairman
Jerry Colangelo told
him about the honour.
"This is something
you don't dream of.
You keep pinching
yourself - I couldn't
sleep the whole
night" after receiving the news, he told
Automotive News
Canada.
"This is not what
a fan dreams of. A fan
dreams that when the
team wins the championship, they can take a
picture with the NBA
trophy and kiss the trophy if they allow you.
Only the basketball
players when they are
15 or 16 dream of playing in the NBA, and
once they do that they
want to win the championship, get that nice
ring and be part of the
championship parade."
Only players, coaches and basketball executives can be inducted
into the Hall of Fame,
so Bhatia is being honoured in the superfans
wing along with the
late actress and director Penny Marshall.
- ANC

Shrimp under the hood, not on the barbie
Having a tailgate
party at the front
of the new Mach-E

NOT EVEN FORREST
Gump's Army pal Bubba could
have come up with "frunk
shrimp," but Ford Motor Co.
insists that chilled seafood is
a perfect snack to enjoy from
the front trunk of a Mustang
Mach-E.
The EV includes a small
underhood storage compartment - called a frunk - that

Ford says can function as a
160-litre cooler. So, the automaker offered four suggestions
for using it at pregame party
or trip to the beach:
"Just fill the front trunk
with ice and beverages and
cruise right up to your tailgate. When you're done, open
the drain cap at the bottom of
the front trunk and let gravity
do the rest.
"Sign up to bring a gameday spread best served chilled?
Top off the frunk with some
shaved ice to keep veggies,
dips and even shrimp cold and

ready to eat.
"Feed an entire team by
loading the front trunk with
hot wings: You can hold more
than 1,000 regular-sized wings
with the extra storage space.
And don't worry about the
sauce - you can open the
drain cap and hose down the
front trunk when you get
home.
"Play a game of long-distance cornhole or show off
your passing skills by challenging friends to a 'closest to
the front trunk' contest."
- ANC

Ford says go ahead and
fill up the front trunk of the
Mach-E EV with shrimp
on ice, or more than 1,000
chicken wings, for a roadside
party. P H O T O : F O R D

http://www.automotivenews.ca http://www.automotivenews.ca

Automotive News Canada - March 2020

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