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Hamilton Spectator
24-04-2025
- Automotive
- Hamilton Spectator
‘Nobody's sleeping': Canada's auto industry is at a crossroads, says Flavio Volpe
One of Flavio Volpe's clearest childhood memories is sitting in the driver's seat of a rosso corsa – racing red – Ferrari Testarossa at the 1986 Canadian auto show in Toronto. The 10-year-old boy who grew into a self-confessed 'car guy' now holds the top job at the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association (APMA), among the most influential industrial lobby groups in Canada. 'I had never seen anything like it. My father convinced the guy to let me sit in the car… blew my mind,' Volpe, 49, told Canada's National Observer. 'I was terribly inspired – still am.' But Volpe's lifelong romanticism for cars is today matched by a steely-eyed realism about the cross-roads that Canada's 120-year-old auto industry finds itself at. Desperately trying to safeguard thousands of assembly line jobs in a sector sideswiped by US tariffs on one hand, while at the same time labouring to get gears meshing on a national EV industrial ecosystem, these are difficult days — and nights. Just ask any of the 200-plus APMA companies that are supplying global automakers, including Ford, General Motors, Stellantis, Honda and Toyota, with parts, tooling, automation, AI software, advanced materials, critical minerals and EV battery technology. 'Nobody's sleeping,' Volpe said of his members' reaction to the 25 per cent tariffs imposed this month by the US to strong-arm automakers into moving their production lines south. The Trump-initiated levies have already forced 10,000-12,000 'temporary' layoffs among APMA members, Volpe said, as the seismic shock of the tariffs resonates throughout the wider industry. Stellantis sent home 3,000 workers after closing its Windsor, Ont. assembly plant where it manufactures Chrysler Pacifica minivans and electric Dodge Charger pony cars — and also temporarily laid off 900 employees at its US facilities. General Motors, meanwhile, shuttered its CAMI plant in Ingersoll, Ont., home to its Brightdrop Zevo electric delivery van, leaving 500 employees out of work. 'There are slowdowns and shutdowns for manufacturers on both sides of the border. That's not good,' Volpe said, noting that about half of Canadian-made auto parts are delivered to US plants. It could get worse still on May 3 as more US tariffs are levied on $20 billion worth of auto parts from Canada annually, and $80 billion from Mexico. 'That's a $5 billion surtax on the [Canadian] auto parts that American manufacturers need for just-in-time assembly. All it will take is 48 hours and nobody has a car,' he said of a potential supply chain shutdown. 'What is keeping the Canadian auto parts business alive right now is that we are still shipping 49 per cent of what we make south of the border — even with the US tariffs,' Volpe said. 'May 3 might change that.' 'It's been hectic' Many Canadians will recognize the bearded Toronto native as a frank and staunch defender of the country's auto industry. During the tariff turmoil, Volpe has been particularly high-profile, averaging 30 requests a week for media interviews. 'It's been hectic,' he said. Volpe — who has a degree in international relations from the University of Toronto and an MBA from the Schulich School of Business — also moves smoothly through federal and provincial political circles. During a parliamentary committee hearing last year where he was introduced as 'a regular,' Volpe reinforced his reputation for colourful oratory when he compared China's trade actions to major league baseball player Barry Bonds' use of performance-enhancing drugs. Three years after taking over the APMA, he played a key role in Canada's effort to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with the first Trump administration in 2017. And after Trump was reelected in 2024 and threatened to impose crippling tariffs and annex its northern neighbour, Volpe was named by Justin Trudeau to the Prime Minister's Canada-US Relations Council . 'Everybody says, well, Washington's not your friend. It's true. I'm one of the first people to say we'll never trust them again,' Volpe said. 'But we will do business with them again. We will negotiate market access again.' The Canadian auto industry's wheels have been wobbling since Trump returned to the White House, with Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiling a $2 billion strategic response fund last month to develop an 'all-in-Canada' sector supply chain to lessen dependence on the country's southern trading partner. However, major doubts still hang over the long-term future of Canada's auto manufacturing heartland in Ontario. EV future on low charge Talk of protecting the automotive supply chain and its 125,000-plus workers, though important — not least in a federal election campaign — distracts from the wider damage being done by the trade war to the sector's fast-approaching future — EVs. Honda is ostensibly sticking to its pledge to invest $15 billion in building an EV supply chain in Ontario, and Volkswagen-owned PowerCo is inching ahead with a planned battery plant, but both appear to be in wait-and-see mode as they assess the impacts from US levies on the auto sector . Canada's $100 billion EV industrial strategy was already facing setbacks as automakers idled projects due to slumping domestic demand and battery firms struggling with ever-tighter margins in a global market dominated by Chinese rivals. There's no ignoring the headwinds buffeting Canada's nascent EV sector, Volpe said, but the current slowdown is 'not changing anything in the long run.' 'Regardless of Trump, the global fleet will be electrified within 20 years — or at least EV and plug-in hybrids,' he said. Automakers are revisiting their EV development plans not because gas-powered vehicles are 'better,' said Volpe, but because the financial pressures today make staying with familiar internal combustion engine technology less risky. 'If I launched a car today, it wouldn't combust anything. It would be electric,' he said. 'The rest of the world is going there — except, it seems, for the US, which is creating a market island for itself in which there will be full-sized pickups burning gas for 40 years.' When Volpe says 'if' he launched a car, it's not armchair industrial analysis. As CEO of APMA, he spearheaded the development of Project Arrow , a potentially revolutionary EV designed in Canada and built entirely of parts sourced from Canadian suppliers. 'All-Canadian car' The $20 million pilot in development since 2020, as Volpe stressed, is 'not about prototyping a design for mass production.' Rather, the car — named after the pioneering but controversial Canadian-built Avro Arrow supersonic fighter jet cancelled in 1959 — is meant to function as a 'platform and showcase' for 25 home-grown EV technologies, including an innovative electric drive-train, 3D-printed chassis, and state-of-the-art navigation system. 'Through Project Arrow we will prove that [in auto sector terms] we can land on the moon. But it is not for APMA to colonize it,' said Volpe, noting he has had many requests to launch a car company off the back of the prototype. 'We have five years of design and engineering work for anyone who wants to take a shot at [commercial manufacturing] it,' he said. This would likely include a role for the soon-to-be-elected federal government. Both Liberal and Conservative parties approached Volpe to ask 'what they could promise' about the Arrow's commercial future, but he declined to take sides in the federal election campaign. 'We say: 'You have our notes, our industry network, the prototype, all our ideas. After April 28 it's up to you to action it.'' 'With Project Arrow, Canada shows it has the technology and the people to do an 'all-Canadian' car,' Volpe said. He added that the prototype was earning its keep on the global trade show circuit, with the industrial publicity translating into international contracts worth $500 million for the Arrow's Canadian parts suppliers. Volpe underlines that Project Arrow, which has just landed federal and provincial funding to build its first 11 cars, could help shift Canada's current EV strategy away from its historical reliance on 'dynamics created by Washington' by prompting a fresh look at Canada's strengths in the auto sector. He lists off Canada's existing world-class automotive industrial manufacturing clusters, advanced software and AI technologies, raw materials including steel and aluminum as well as the critical minerals and rare earths that are core to EV batteries. 'Things are changing very rapidly. This is an occasion for a big rethink of the auto sector canon. We can't continue to think conventionally,' Volpe said of the transition to EVs. He reckons a compact SUV based on the latest model Arrow could roll off a Canadian assembly line by 2029 with a sticker price of $35,000, ready to be one of the two million cars sold each year in Canada. More competitively priced EVs could help car dealers lure the next generation of EV buyers who may have been deterred by expired federal incentives and waning provincial subsidies. Statista, a data provider, expects Canada's EV market to reach over $11.5 billion in 2025 and grow almost 10 per cent a year to $17 billion by 2029, by which time almost 250,000 EVs will be on Canadian roads. 'By then, we will have an entirely different relationship with our cars,' said Volpe. 'Transportation pods' The automotive industry has transformed society over the past 120 years and driven the construction of modern highways and infrastructure to allow people to commute and connect easily from suburbs to cities and beyond. 'Cars no longer have the role of connecting people in the same way they did. When we were younger you needed a car often to see your friends. Now my kids can see their friends on this,' Volpe said, pointing to his cell phone. Though he believes in the future there will be no shortage of car enthusiasts who still desire to drive iconic gas-powered vehicles such as the Testarossa, this won't be how car companies turn a profit. 'They will make money by developing transportation 'pods' that carry human beings where they want to as easily as cell phones connect us to the stuff we want,' said Volpe. 'We once romanticized manual transmissions — you were a 'real man' if you drove a stick. Now the greatest supercars in the world are electric; no-one shifts anything.' In Volpe's vision of the future, it will be more about 'how 'cool' a transportation pod is, how accessible, affordable, reusable … is it fully autonomous?' 'At the 60th Canadian auto show [in 2034], we could be looking at many more Canadian cars and they will all be EVs.' Darius Snieckus / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada's National Observer
National Observer
24-04-2025
- Automotive
- National Observer
'Nobody's sleeping': Canada's auto industry is at a crossroads, says Flavio Volpe
One of Flavio Volpe's clearest childhood memories is sitting in the driver's seat of a rosso corsa – racing red – Ferrari Testarossa at the 1986 Canadian auto show in Toronto. The 10-year-old boy who grew into a self-confessed 'car guy' now holds the top job at the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association (APMA), among the most influential industrial lobby groups in Canada. 'I had never seen anything like it. My father convinced the guy to let me sit in the car… blew my mind,' Volpe, 49, told Canada's National Observer. 'I was terribly inspired – still am.' But Volpe's lifelong romanticism for cars is today matched by a steely-eyed realism about the cross-roads that Canada's 120-year-old auto industry finds itself at. Desperately trying to safeguard thousands of assembly line jobs in a sector sideswiped by US tariffs on one hand, while at the same time labouring to get gears meshing on a national EV industrial ecosystem, these are difficult days — and nights. Just ask any of the 200-plus APMA companies that are supplying global automakers, including Ford, General Motors, Stellantis, Honda and Toyota, with parts, tooling, automation, AI software, advanced materials, critical minerals and EV battery technology. 'Nobody's sleeping,' Volpe said of his members' reaction to the 25 per cent tariffs imposed this month by the US to strong-arm automakers into moving their production lines south. The Trump-initiated levies have already forced 10,000-12,000 'temporary' layoffs among APMA members, Volpe said, as the seismic shock of the tariffs resonates throughout the wider industry. Stellantis sent home 3,000 workers after closing its Windsor, Ont. assembly plant where it manufactures Chrysler Pacifica minivans and electric Dodge Charger pony cars — and also temporarily laid off 900 employees at its US facilities. General Motors, meanwhile, shuttered its CAMI plant in Ingersoll, Ont., home to its Brightdrop Zevo electric delivery van, leaving 500 employees out of work. 'There are slowdowns and shutdowns for manufacturers on both sides of the border. That's not good,' Volpe said, noting that about half of Canadian-made auto parts are delivered to US plants. It could get worse still on May 3 as more US tariffs are levied on $20 billion worth of auto parts from Canada annually, and $80 billion from Mexico. 'That's a $5 billion surtax on the [Canadian] auto parts that American manufacturers need for just-in-time assembly. All it will take is 48 hours and nobody has a car,' he said of a potential supply chain shutdown. "Regardless of Trump, the global fleet will be electrified within 20 years — or at least EV and plug-in hybrids." 'What is keeping the Canadian auto parts business alive right now is that we are still shipping 49 per cent of what we make south of the border — even with the US tariffs,' Volpe said. 'May 3 might change that.' 'It's been hectic' Many Canadians will recognize the bearded Toronto native as a frank and staunch defender of the country's auto industry. During the tariff turmoil, Volpe has been particularly high-profile, averaging 30 requests a week for media interviews. 'It's been hectic,' he said. Volpe — who has a degree in international relations from the University of Toronto and an MBA from the Schulich School of Business — also moves smoothly through federal and provincial political circles. During a parliamentary committee hearing last year where he was introduced as 'a regular,' Volpe reinforced his reputation for colourful oratory when he compared China's trade actions to major league baseball player Barry Bonds' use of performance-enhancing drugs. Three years after taking over the APMA, he played a key role in Canada's effort to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with the first Trump administration in 2017. And after Trump was reelected in 2024 and threatened to impose crippling tariffs and annex its northern neighbour, Volpe was named by Justin Trudeau to the Prime Minister's Canada-US Relations Council. "Everybody says, well, Washington's not your friend. It's true. I'm one of the first people to say we'll never trust them again," Volpe said. "But we will do business with them again. We will negotiate market access again." The Canadian auto industry's wheels have been wobbling since Trump returned to the White House, with Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiling a $2 billion strategic response fund last month to develop an 'all-in-Canada' sector supply chain to lessen dependence on the country's southern trading partner. However, major doubts still hang over the long-term future of Canada's auto manufacturing heartland in Ontario. EV future on low charge Talk of protecting the automotive supply chain and its 125,000-plus workers, though important — not least in a federal election campaign — distracts from the wider damage being done by the trade war to the sector's fast-approaching future — EVs. Honda is ostensibly sticking to its pledge to invest $15 billion in building an EV supply chain in Ontario, and Volkswagen-owned PowerCo is inching ahead with a planned battery plant, but both appear to be in wait-and-see mode as they assess the impacts from US levies on the auto sector. Canada's $100 billion EV industrial strategy was already facing setbacks as automakers idled projects due to slumping domestic demand and battery firms struggling with ever-tighter margins in a global market dominated by Chinese rivals. There's no ignoring the headwinds buffeting Canada's nascent EV sector, Volpe said, but the current slowdown is 'not changing anything in the long run.' 'Regardless of Trump, the global fleet will be electrified within 20 years — or at least EV and plug-in hybrids,' he said. Automakers are revisiting their EV development plans not because gas-powered vehicles are 'better,' said Volpe, but because the financial pressures today make staying with familiar internal combustion engine technology less risky. 'If I launched a car today, it wouldn't combust anything. It would be electric,' he said. 'The rest of the world is going there — except, it seems, for the US, which is creating a market island for itself in which there will be full-sized pickups burning gas for 40 years.' When Volpe says 'if' he launched a car, it's not armchair industrial analysis. As CEO of APMA, he spearheaded the development of Project Arrow, a potentially revolutionary EV designed in Canada and built entirely of parts sourced from Canadian suppliers. 'All-Canadian car' The $20 million pilot in development since 2020, as Volpe stressed, is 'not about prototyping a design for mass production.' 'With Project Arrow, Canada shows it has the technology and the people to do an 'all-Canadian' car.' Rather, the car — named after the pioneering but controversial Canadian-built Avro Arrow supersonic fighter jet cancelled in 1959 — is meant to function as a 'platform and showcase' for 25 home-grown EV technologies, including an innovative electric drive-train, 3D-printed chassis, and state-of-the-art navigation system. 'Through Project Arrow we will prove that [in auto sector terms] we can land on the moon. But it is not for APMA to colonize it,' said Volpe, noting he has had many requests to launch a car company off the back of the prototype. 'We have five years of design and engineering work for anyone who wants to take a shot at [commercial manufacturing] it,' he said. This would likely include a role for the soon-to-be-elected federal government. Both Liberal and Conservative parties approached Volpe to ask 'what they could promise' about the Arrow's commercial future, but he declined to take sides in the federal election campaign. 'We say: 'You have our notes, our industry network, the prototype, all our ideas. After April 28 it's up to you to action it.'' 'With Project Arrow, Canada shows it has the technology and the people to do an 'all-Canadian' car,' Volpe said. He added that the prototype was earning its keep on the global trade show circuit, with the industrial publicity translating into international contracts worth $500 million for the Arrow's Canadian parts suppliers. Volpe underlines that Project Arrow, which has just landed federal and provincial funding to build its first 11 cars, could help shift Canada's current EV strategy away from its historical reliance on 'dynamics created by Washington' by prompting a fresh look at Canada's strengths in the auto sector. He lists off Canada's existing world-class automotive industrial manufacturing clusters, advanced software and AI technologies, raw materials including steel and aluminum as well as the critical minerals and rare earths that are core to EV batteries. 'Things are changing very rapidly. This is an occasion for a big rethink of the auto sector canon. We can't continue to think conventionally,' Volpe said of the transition to EVs. He reckons a compact SUV based on the latest model Arrow could roll off a Canadian assembly line by 2029 with a sticker price of $35,000, ready to be one of the two million cars sold each year in Canada. "This is an occasion for a big rethink of the auto sector canon. We can't continue to think conventionally." More competitively priced EVs could help car dealers lure the next generation of EV buyers who may have been deterred by expired federal incentives and waning provincial subsidies. Statista, a data provider, expects Canada's EV market to reach over $11.5 billion in 2025 and grow almost 10 per cent a year to $17 billion by 2029, by which time almost 250,000 EVs will be on Canadian roads. 'By then, we will have an entirely different relationship with our cars,' said Volpe. 'Transportation pods' The automotive industry has transformed society over the past 120 years and driven the construction of modern highways and infrastructure to allow people to commute and connect easily from suburbs to cities and beyond. 'Cars no longer have the role of connecting people in the same way they did. When we were younger you needed a car often to see your friends. Now my kids can see their friends on this,' Volpe said, pointing to his cell phone. Though he believes in the future there will be no shortage of car enthusiasts who still desire to drive iconic gas-powered vehicles such as the Testarossa, this won't be how car companies turn a profit. 'They will make money by developing transportation 'pods' that carry human beings where they want to as easily as cell phones connect us to the stuff we want,' said Volpe. 'We once romanticized manual transmissions — you were a 'real man' if you drove a stick. Now the greatest supercars in the world are electric; no-one shifts anything.' In Volpe's vision of the future, it will be more about 'how 'cool' a transportation pod is, how accessible, affordable, reusable … is it fully autonomous?' 'At the 60th Canadian auto show [in 2034], we could be looking at many more Canadian cars and they will all be EVs.'
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Michael Bay and Sydney Sweeney are adapting the Sega driving sim Out Run
On the heels of A Minecraft Movie and, perhaps, more importantly, Gran Turismo, Universal is putting Michael Bay and Sydney Sweeney behind the wheel of OutRun, an adaptation of Sega's 3D driving simulator. For those uninitiated with OutRun—and we have no idea why they would be, considering the last entry in the series, the now-defunct OutRun Online Arcade, only came out in 2009—the game is a race against time, not other drivers. However, as for the original 1986 game, players drive their lovingly recreated Ferrari Testarossa across various courses, including Coconut Beach, the Alps, Death Valley, and the Autobahn, hoping to cross the finish line before time's up. Though not as relevant to today's gamers, what with their streaming and dabbing, the game was an incredibly popular and inventive one for its time. Streamers could probably get minutes of content out of it. Hence, Michael Bay isn't a terrible pick to shoot a real-life, oversaturated Coconut Beach, with Sweeney doing her best to avoid pedestrians in a cut-to-ribbons race sequence. The game is plotless, but if it took 28 writers to get A Minecraft Movie together, surely Bay can get this done with only 25 or 26 writers—27 tops. [via The Hollywood Reporter] More from A.V. Club The Ugly Stepsister director Emilie Blichfeldt on body horror, fairy tales, and David Cronenberg '90s sitcom Martin finally spins off a show, and it's somehow not about Sheneneh Michael Bay and Sydney Sweeney are adapting the Sega driving sim Out Run
Yahoo
17-03-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Car of the Week: This 1,000 HP Vector Prototype Coupe Was the Only One Built. Now It's up for Grabs.
Back in the 1990s, if you coveted the ultimate American supercar, you bought yourself a Vector W8 from Jerry Weigart's California-based Vector Aeromotive. The model features fighter-jet styling and construction comprising carbon fiber, honeycomb-configured aluminum, and Kevlar. It's also fit with a 625 hp, mid-mounted twin-turbo V-8 engine. With a zero-to-60 mph time of around 4.0 seconds and a 12-second quarter-mile time, it outpaces any Ferrari Testarossa, Lamborghini Countach, or Jaguar XJ220 of the day. Only 17 examples of the Vector W8 were built, each priced at $450,000. More from Robb Report Bugatti Had Bolide Owners Warm up in a Porsche 911 Before Hitting the Track-Here's Why First Drive: The Ferrari 12Cilindri Spider Blends Modern Tech With Old-School Grunt Gordon Murray Is Now Making Bespoke Supercars After His T.50 Sold Out In 1992, Weigart showed up at that year's Geneva Salon in Switzerland to unveil a more dramatic, more potent successor to the W8, the upgraded Vector Avtech WX-3 Prototype. While the car on display was a highly detailed, non-running model, Weigart was back the following year with the car fully developed and powered by a new twin-turbocharged 7.0-liter V-8 delivering 1,000 hp. Its suggested price was $765,000. Sadly, the WX-3 never made it into production. A hostile takeover attempt by main investor Megatech—backed by the Indonesian government—locked Weigart in legal battles, which he ultimately lost. The only consolation was that he retained ownership of the WX-3 design and the two prototypes—the coupe and an undeveloped roadster version, also shown at Geneva in 1993. Weigart kept both prototypes in his collection for over 25 years, though rarely showed them. Then, in 2019, two years before his death, he decided to sell, entrusting RM Sotheby's to find a buyer. The two cars were acquired by well-known Miami supercar collector and prolific Instagrammer Kris Singh. After spending more than $300,000 with Connecticut-based restorer Miller Motorsports for a full mechanical and interior makeover of the coupe, Singh also spent a reported $116,000 upgrading the roadster. Singh subsequently sold them to a mystery buyer in Europe for an undisclosed sum. Last summer, the new buyer entered the two cars in RM Sotheby's Monterey auction, with an estimate for each vehicle set between $1.3 million and $1.5 million. Both failed to sell. The latest chapter in the story of the two Vector WX-3 Prototypes is that Canepa—a purveyor of exotic and classic automobiles—has just added the cars to its burgeoning inventory in Scotts Valley, Calif., and is looking for buyers. 'Either Vector would be the star of any car show the world over, especially at one of the hugely popular Radwood events,' Bruce Canepa tells Robb Report. 'Both cars are one-of-one, and head-turning examples of 'the Original American Supercar.' They're just remarkable.' The standout of the two is the fully developed, fully sorted WX-3 Coupe, painted metallic aquamarine and with just 2,625 miles on the odometer. Unlike the droptop, which carried over the original 6.0-liter, 625 hp V-8 from the W8, the WX-3 Coupe is equipped with an uprated 7.0-liter twin-turbo V-8 from John Rodeck, a motorsport-engine builder based in Paso Robles, Calif. The mill is mated to a heavily modified GM Turbo-Hydramatic 425 three-speed automatic transmission. The WX-3 Coupe also includes TRW forged pistons, Carillo stainless-steel con rods, a dry-sump oiling system, and a pair of huge Garrett turbos. With its estimated output of more than 1,000 hp, it could be easily uprated to over 1,200 hp. As for performance, Weigart claimed the car could cover zero to 60 mph in 3.3 seconds and reach a top speed of 248 mph. Weigart liked to describe the car as 'a fighter jet on four wheels,' and just looking at it you can see why. Razor-sharp lines, a raked-back windshield, scissor-style doors, and a towering rear wing give it true supercar looks. And he backed all that style with real substance, with the car featuring an I-beam-stiff, monocoque chassis made of honeycombed aluminum and strengthened by over 5,000 aerospace-grade rivets. The body itself was made of carbon fiber reinforced by Kevlar. The interior of the WX-3 Coupe is equally fighter-jet inspired, with billet-machined switches and a computer screen instead of traditional instruments. One oddity that remains is the strange, and uncomfortable-looking, three-across bench seat that seems more vintage Buick than supercar. In Kris Singh's renovation, the interior was retrimmed in black leather with aquamarine accents. 'Being the singular example of Vector's WX-3 Coupe, this prototype will definitely add significant cache for any discerning collector looking to bring some American supercar DNA to their collection,' says Canepa. While the company doesn't officially list a price for either Vector, Canepa suggests the previous RM Sotheby's estimate of $1.3 million to $1.5 million would be a good place to start a conversation. . Best of Robb Report The 2024 Chevy C8 Corvette: Everything We Know About the Powerful Mid-Engine Beast The World's Best Superyacht Shipyards The ABCs of Chartering a Yacht Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Man Takes Ferrari Testarossa On A 2K-Mile Road Trip
⚡️ Read the full article on Motorious Normal people like to pick the most reliable, comfortable, and practical vehicle possible for going on a long-distance road trip. Car enthusiasts aren't exactly normal people. We value performance, the cool factor, and novelty in our road trip rides. Those things and others are behind this epic 2,000-mile trek to the French Riviera in a Ferrari Testarossa. Watch the latest Motorious Podcast here. There's another wrinkle in this trip: the guy did it in the winter. Yes, that's right, he decided to road trip in a rear-wheel-drive sports car on potentially slippery roads. Oh, plus the roads could be salted. That might not sound like the greatest idea, however Harry, the owner of the Testarossa, takes some preventative measures but they don't include winter tires. This fun little jaunt through France and Britain was documented on the YouTube channel Harry's Garage. It's run by Harry Metcalfe who is certainly no stranger to the automotive scene, considering he was one of the founders of Evo magazine and done many other impressive things, including working as a consultant for Jaguar Land Rover. In other words, the man knows his cars. He also likes to take classics on long trips, so he's also a little bit crazy, but in the good sort of way. Before you think this ends poorly, here's a little spoiler alert: the Ferrari doesn't break down and it doesn't catch on fire. In fact, the engine runs a little cold during the trip, which means the heater isn't working properly. That might be shocking to some, but the Testarossa is actually a fairly reliable car, at least when it comes to Ferraris. To be fair, the Testarossa is far more practical of a car than many other Ferraris. As Harry Metcalfe rightly notes, the cargo area is more spacious than in most other Ferraris out there, at least until the Purasangre SUV launches. He even fits two folding bicycles in the car and that's amazing.
