We would like to start this post by thanking you, the reader, for visiting this site in search of news about the automotive industry, when seeking answers to questions about vehicles, and whilst gathering research in a bid to make wise purchasing decisions. We wouldn’t be here without our readers, and are grateful for every email, comment, and click.
A small analog ticker resides in the basement of Driving, right next to our Managing Editor’s grog ration of Ketel One vodka, quietly counting each visit to each page on the site. Okay, maybe it’s more of a line in the site’s programming code which keeps track of those things, but you get the point. We’ve been logging which stories you clicked on the most, and now that the old year is out, we have the tally totals.
These ten feature stories stood out most to you this year, apparently, bringing you and readers like yourself back for a variety of reasons — all of which have to do with cars and our appreciation of them. Here are the 10 feature-story posts that saw the most web traffic this year.
2024’s 10 most and least reliable vehicles, per Consumer Reports
Having an unreliable vehicle ranks up there with getting root canals performed with a set of rusty MotoMaster pliers. Our list of the 10 most and 10 least reliable vehicles, based on data per the nerds at Consumer Reports, landed firmly at our number one spot in terms of web traffic for the past year. This isn’t a surprise, since we know our readership is an informed bunch who always seek to make informed decisions before they pull the trigger on a new vehicle.
‘Rust Bros’ ’68 Chevy cross-country winter trip ends in irony
Mike Hall of Rust Valley Restorers fame, along with buddy Avery Shoaf, decided this year to drive a 1968 Chevrolet Chevelle clear across the country in order to take part in the annual Toronto Motorama, a soirée sponsored in part by eBay Motors in which over 400 classic and collector vehicles are set on display inside a Missassauga venue during the dead of winter. It’s the last detail, the timing being the dead of winter which is important, since Hall and company endured biblically bad winter weather to reach their destination.
Canada’s 10 worst-selling vehicles in 2024’s first half
Morbid curiosity is a hallmark of human behaviour, explaining the existence of so-called “escape rooms” and perhaps the entire Toronto Maple Leafs fan base. Our own numbers expert, Tim Cain, when not busy building shrines to potatoes at his home on Prince Edward Island, trawls what he has (rightly) described as the ‘free and frequent’ troves of sales numbers on offer from car companies doing business in this country. This year that included a round-up of the cars at the bottom of those charts at the year’s half-way point.
It is important to note that statistics can be represented in many different ways, and these lists are populated by vehicles with the lowest actual sales volume during a certain time frame in Canada.
Troubleshooter: Think before flashing your high-beams
The adoption of modern lighting technology into today’s vehicles has been a boon for safety; anyone crossing Newfoundland island at night is now far more likely to spot a moose before it is sitting in one’s lap, a reality which was not the case just a few short years ago. Our own Brian Turner ably penned a popular piece about the types of lights on the front of modern cars, when to use them, and how to have an ounce of sympathy for the eyesight of other drivers on the road.
Lorraine Explains: Is a solution to car theft right in front of our eyes?
The scourge of vehicle theft has reached a zenith in Canada of late, with machines regularly vanishing from people’s driveways and generally loaded into shipping containers for parts unknown. Our security expert Lorraine Sommerfeld (and expert in many other subjects, it must be said) mused about familiar solutions which may be staring us right in the face when it comes to solving – or at least tempering – car theft.
Would you take an extra five seconds to punch in a simple PIN in order to start your vehicle in the morning if it meant cutting the chances of theft by a significant amount? Most would.
Canada’s 9 most fuel-efficient cars of 2024
In addition to looking for the best financial deal, many Canadians are rightly hyper-fixated on fuel economy when selecting a new car. Beyond insurance, the price and usage level of fuel is one of the major considerations customers should be plugging into their Excel spreadsheet when shopping for a vehicle. This list highlighted some of the year’s most frugal fuel-sippers.
Driving Worst Picks: 10 Cars that let us down most in 2023
Building on the morbid curiosity of the year’s worst-selling vehicles, as mentioned above, it seems our readers were keen to learn which cars and trucks we didn’t like in 2023. While it is accurate to say the days of truly bad cars are long behind us, there are plenty of puzzling details and infuriating characteristics which can cause a vehicle to land on a list such as this one.
Halifax entrepreneur grows fortunes with Ford EV pickup
It’s always a neat story when a local entrepreneur incorporates a vehicle into their business model. That’s exactly what Max Rastelli has done with a Ford Lightning and his successful e-scooter business out on the east coast of Canada. Using the charging opportunities built into his EV pickup truck, Rastelli has been able to completely revamp the way he operates, charging e-scooters on the fly so he can rapidly get them back on the street where they make money.
Best minivans in Canada and everything you need to know about minivans
Sure, all the so-called “cool kids” would rather be seen in going to school wearing a brin bag than ride in a minivan. But everyone else recognizes the venerable box-on-wheels offers some of the best space-to-footprint ratio on sale today, providing busy families with the type of versatility – and storage solutions – they need on the daily. As a result, we served up a comprehensive guide to everything you’d want to know about these people-movers.
Man tries selling rare Hemi-powered Plymouth to fund health care bills
It’s never a good feeling to know there are people in the world who need to sell a prized possession in order to fund a critical life-saving procedure, but that’s exactly the situation in which an American family found themselves earlier this year. The owner of a rare Hemi-powered 1966 Plymouth Belvedere HPII took to Facebook in a bid to sell the car to raise funds so they could pay for a medical treatment. The story has gone cold since its publication in March, and we hope the owner is well.
Ridiculous Vehicle: 6 of the Most outrageous motorhomes
If you think that custom-painted Winnebago parked across the road from your house is wild, then go ahead and try pulling up to the campsite in one of these out-of-this-world RVs. From a brutish Earthroamer to a machine made out of an old airplane once belonging to Elvis Presley, this list truly runs the gamut.
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