It used to be pretty easy to find the boss’s car in the parking lot. Just look for the Caddy, Lincoln or maybe a 5th Avenue. Over the last few years though, the parking lot picture seems to have changed a bit. What do we expect to see now? A big Benz, or maybe a 7 series BMW? That’s not the real deal, according to a recent survey by cars.com where they found that Chevy owners outnumber Mercedes owners. In fact, the average purchase price of CEO’s primary vehicle is about 25 grand. The story also has some interesting thoughts on colour.
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In today’s world, it seems there are more and more people who don’t seem capable of accepting responsibility for their own actions. Usually, I blame poor parenting for this. Today’s story however shows that maybe our legal system is also to blame.

Back in July 2004, a 20 year old driver made an illegal left turn that took him into the path of a Calgary motorcycle cop and knocked him from his steed. Yesterday a judge aquitted the kid of the hit & run charge, saying that “I find that he never intended to avoid responsibility”. Yeah right! That’s why he and his buddy went to a neighbouring pub for a cold pop while the officer lay on the street being treated by EMS.

Not surprisingly, the officer chose not to accept the accused’s appology, asking why it took him two years.

source Calgary Sun via Joe Duarte

It seems those British media bullies just don’t want to share Top Gear with us poor North Americans. Leftlane News is reporting that the BBC has forced video file sharing services like Youtube to stop hosting Top Gear footage. Citing copywrite infringement, I think they just don’t want to share.

Maybe Speed might anti up the budget to broadcast the series and then we can all be happy.

The power of the universe wasn’t enough to help Hayden Christensen survive the Bullrun. The Star Wars star’s race was run, when the fuel pump let go in his 1999 Ferrari. He has apparently been towed back to out area, presumably to a Toronto area Ferrari shop.

Fox News via Jalopnik

South beach seniors rejoice! Hovair brings you the answer to those pesky parking problems. No more backing up to get in and out of the driveway. The sales of replacement side mirrors are going to drop drastically near seniors settlements all over.

The in ground turntable can be used for residential, industrial or car show purposes. On the residential front, just think of it as a lazy susan for your driveway.

source jalopnik via gizmodo

While there isn’t many details about the car yet, the first images of the new CL 63 AMG have arrived. Different rims and a few small detail changes are the subtle differences between this and the “regular” CL AMG.

source emercedesbenz via eurocarblog

Yesterday, Nissan announced that they have now produced 100 million vehicles. Since it’s beginnings in 1933, the Japanese manufacturer has built 76,640,000 cars at home and 23,500,000 abroad.

Nissan press release after the break

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We’ve been working on a few new features to make The Garage an event better place and it seems some of the new features don’t want to play nice with some of the old features. We are working away on solving some of these issues and all of the functions you are used to will start working again soon.

I guess I should be reading more instead of playing with Porsches. One of the topics with Messers Ruf & Ranta yesterday was the upcoming Bullrun. Little did we know that the Bullrun was in the Greater Toronto Area as we spoke. If I had known, I might have made a run downtown to look for some photo ops.

Thanks to Jalopnik for the great ongoing coverage.

As regular readers of The Garage will know that I spent much of my teenage years in the Ranta household, soaking up not only friendship, but a bit of automotive history. What some of you may not know is that one of the air cooled gems in the family collection is a very early Porsche 911. In fact, so early that the car is actually a 901, not a 911. It is number 27 of a production run of around 82 cars. Many people believe that 1964 was the first year for the 911, this car is a ‘63. This car has been in the Ranta family since 1963. 43 years. It may soon take a long trip back to Germany to begin a restoration to it’s original condition.

Porschephiles will be more than familiar with the Ruf name. Ruf is a premier tuning company that works closely with the Porsche factory. Company leader Alois Ruf visited the Ranta house today and spent the afternoon inspecting number 27 and swapping stories.

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