Amidst preparations for its upcoming birthday party in March of next year, Acura’s Canadian division has something else to celebrate. Yesterday on September 27th, its 500,000th vehicle was sold in Canada.…

Acura Canada sells 500,000th vehicle

Amidst preparations for its upcoming birthday party in March of next year, Acura's Canadian division has something else to celebrate. Yesterday on September 27th, its 500,000th vehicle was sold in Canada.

Fittingly this milestone Acura was its bestselling 2017 RDX, delivered to Baharak Ayenesima in Toronto, who also received a commemorative gift.

"We're extremely proud of what we've accomplished since our early days and selling half-a-million Acuras to Canadians is testament to our luxury products and continued growth," said Gary Gill, Senior Manager of Acura Sales and Marketing. "As we close-in on 30 years in Canada, we have 51 dealers across the country and an unparalleled line-up including the new NSX super car, the restyled MDX, the first in Acura's lineup to sport the new Precision Concept design direction and the award-winning RDX luxury SUV."

Acura, a division of Honda, became the first Japanese luxury automotive brand in 1986 when it entered the U.S. Read Full Story
Volvo is back in a big way. Its XC90 has already taken the luxury utility sector by storm, and now the new S90 four-door will compete with premium midsize sedans. The S90 comes standard with a direct…

2017 Volvo S90 T6 AWD Road Test Review

Most everyone is familiar with Volvo cars. Affectionately known as "bricks on wheels," these sturdy Nordic trackers were high on safety and reliability in the past, but lacking in style and luxury. No one ever placed Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Cadillac in the same circle. The once-befallen Cadillac has steamrolled its way back into the mix with the impressive CT6 sedan, and Volvo has kicked the door in with the hard-to-believe-it's-a-Volvo S90.

There's nothing carried over from earlier Volvo sedans like the S80. This is a clean sheet attempt to right what was a sinking Volvo ship.

For decades, Volvo had been a niche automobile for drivers and families who wanted the ultimate in safety and convenience. Indeed, my daughter came home from her birth hospital in a 740 wagon. Yes, it was built like a tank. I can recall a Volvo advertisement with several Volvo wagons stacked on top of each other to show roof strength. Another showed a Volvo driving off a cliff, landing Read Full Story
Range Rover’s Evoque gets a mild update for 2016, which should help it maintain position as the ritziest subcompact SUV. Subtle styling details aside, it carries forward with a 240-hp 2.0L turbo four,…

2016 Range Rover Evoque HSE Si4 Road Test Review

The Evoque remains the most ideally proportioned and arguably best looking subcompact SUV on the market, and this despite being the oldest design in its class. In fact, there was no subcompact luxury SUV segment in Canada the year before it was introduced in 2011 as a 2012 model, although BMW and its Mini line brought their X1 and Countryman to market earlier that same year.

Four years is a bit long to go without any visual updates, and to many the subtle changes made to this mildly refreshed 2016 Evoque won't be enough to lure them back, a possible reason for the model's declining sales. It was never going to match the X1's numbers, however, this made clear in their first full year of sales when BMW found 4,776 X1 buyers and Land Rover just 1,254 for the Evoque, while even Mini managed to find 1,731 Countryman buyers that year.

Mini, which hasn't changed the Countryman's design one iota since inception, is now lagging the entire segment with just 531 deliveries over Read Full Story
Jaguar gave its XJ flagship sedan a refresh for 2016, including tweaked front end styling, new LED headlights, oval tailpipes, a much improved infotainment system and more. The 340-hp base and 550-hp…

2016 Jaguar XJL 3.0 AWD Portfolio Road Test Review

Popularity wouldn't be my initial reason for considering a particular luxury car, exclusivity higher on my list of desirable attributes. Still, the object of one's eye needs to have achieved a certain level of marketplace acceptance in order to drive demand amongst pre-owned buyers or its resale value will plummet as soon as you drive it off the lot. That's just one reason why the Jaguar XJ makes sense.

It's no S-Class when it comes to Canada's full-size luxury sedan sales chart, the Mercedes almost doubling BMW 7 Series deliveries so far this year and the big Bimmer selling more than twice as well as Audi's A8. No, the XJ is much less common than the first two F-segment sales leaders, but over the first eight months of 2016 it was a mere two cars shy of matching the four-ringed model's total at 159 units compared to 161. If you think that sounds small, consider for a moment that Lexus only sold 60 examples of its LS over the same period, whereas premium wannabes Kia and Hyundai Read Full Story
Today on CarCostCanada we’re reviewing a much more accommodating passenger vehicle than usual, Mercedes’ massive Sprinter. You may have already taken a spin in one on your way to the airport, from…

2016 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 2500 Passenger Van Road Test Review

When choosing a vehicle for transporting services, you might not think all that much about styling or prestige, but if you were to ask your customers which brand they'd like to be picked up in, most would opt for a Mercedes-Benz over something more common.

Fortunately the Sprinter line of full-size vans backs up its three-pointed star and arguably attractive styling with impressive medium- and heavy-duty capability, comfortable well-equipped cabins, powerful efficient engines, and numerous size, body style, window, and seating configurations, so the job at hand can be managed in the most effective, efficient way possible.

The Sprinter, which received a mid-cycle freshening in 2013 for the 2014 model year, not only benefited from a stylish new grille, revised headlights, a reshaped bumper, redesigned lower fascia, modified body panels, reworked taillights, and trim revisions front to rear, but at least as importantly it arrived with a new base engine.

The two-stage Read Full Story
Smart’s Fortwo is all-new for 2016, with a bolder design, stronger power, sportier handling, a wider stance, a bigger cabin, greater refinement, etc. We review it in base Pure trim including a 3.5-inch…

2016 Smart Fortwo Coupe Pure Road Test Review

Smart's "big" news for 2016 is a totally redesigned Fortwo, and it's been worth the wait. Along with a tougher more assertive pug puppy look, a new and improved interior, plus better driving dynamics it's also larger, which will certainly be a welcome change for those that found themselves rubbing shoulders with their passenger, although possibly disappointing for young and young-at-heart lovers who won't be so close and personal anymore.

It gains 100 mm (3.9 inches) from side-to-side yet it's still Canada's smallest four-wheel car at a mere 2.69 metres (105.9 inches) long, which is identical to its forebear. It remains a two-seater that's surprisingly capable of accommodating very large adults comfortably plus a sizeable cargo haul of 190 litres (6.7 cubic feet) in back when both seats are in use, or alternatively a maximum of 350 litres (12.3 cubic feet) when the front passenger's seat is laid flat. Smart also retains the Fortwo's handy split cargo door that combines a pop-up Read Full Story
You know you’ve arrived when you arrive in a Bentley. Even the “base” Flying Spur is more impressive than most people will ever experience from a four-door luxury sedan, with a 500-hp twin-turbo…

2016 Bentley Flying Spur V8 Road Test Review

Zero to 100 km/h in 5.2 seconds; a top speed of 295 km/h; 500 horsepower and 487 lb-ft of torque; and this is the slouch of the Flying Spur line.

Bentley just made news for producing the world's fastest luxury sedan, the new Flying Spur W12 S managing 100 km/h in just 4.5 seconds and a top speed of 325 km/h from a twin-turbocharged 6.0-litre 12-cylinder capable of 626 horsepower and 605 lb-ft of torque. That would be the quick one, inching out the previous world's fastest and still available non-S Flying Spur W12 by just 0.1 second to 100 km/h while nipping a whole 5 km/h off of its claimed top speed. That's astounding performance, but let's not forget the entry-level Flying Spur V8 is still faster than most of the luxury cars it's up against. Then again, after taking in its perfectly understated outward lines and soaking up its inner opulence I could hardly care how quick it was.

I'm not much for stoplight bragging rights, or at least I eventually outgrew such youthful Read Full Story
Ford has long been ahead of the electric curve, providing corporate and government fleets with battery-powered versions of its old Ranger pickup truck and other models more than a decade ago and even…

2016 Ford Focus Electric Long-term Test

"When someone purchases a product, any product, there will always be something that motivates and drives the action."

I'm sure somewhere a marketing guru has said those exact words. So when a person chooses to purchase a Ford Focus, they might be driven (no pun intended) by a desire to own or lease an economical, well-built, fun to drive, reliable compact car.

The Focus is a world car, built in assembly plants across the globe. It was originally introduced in Europe during 1998, and arrived here in late 1999 as a 2000 model. The current version is the third-generation, launched in 2010 for 2011 model year. To say the Focus is a successful car line would be an understatement. Since 1999 over 3.4 million units have been sold in the US alone. This doesn't take into account Europe, Canada or any of the other global markets it's sold in.

With such a high level of retail success, as well as extensive use in fuel cell development, it only made sense for the Focus Read Full Story