Turning 40 is a major milestone, one that your author celebrated a couple of weeks ago. It seems like only yesterday that I turned 30, and my twentieth birthday doesn’t even seem like it was that long ago, but my tenth birthday feels like a distant memory at this point. Yes, it’s only a number, and I personally can’t see why there is such a big fuss about it. Looking ahead, I know there will be more things to celebrate, but this isn’t really the point I’m trying to make. A lot of things have changed in...

“When you have a dream, don’t let it slip away from you. Just go and chase your dream and make it become reality.” Jeremy Cassidy May 2, 2018. Part of a school project. When Jeremy was about 12 he found his dream vehicle. He would see it every time he had a trip for treatments. Jeremy shared his dream with his Dad, Tim, who made many attempts to contact the owner and endeavour to buy it. Finally they connected. Tim explained the situation to Roger the owner and made a deal. Jeremy fronted the cash...

This year marks a milestone in Canadian automotive history. A century ago, Sam McLaughlin, who’d founded his car company by building his version of a Buick in Ontario, was nearing the end of his contract with that brand. The American automaker already owned half of his firm, and with no sons to carry it on, McLaughlin sold the remainder. In 1918, the McLaughlin Motor Company became General Motors of Canada. Old-car fans well know the story of why McLaughlin went with Buick: his plans to build a uniquely...

The Playboy Motor Car Company of Buffalo, N.Y. should have been a success. It wasn’t, but not for lack of effort on behalf of company founder Lou Horwitz and his partners, engineer Charlie Thomas and car builder Norm Richardson. Horwitz, a Packard dealer, saw the need for cheaper transportation after World War II and pegged the Playboy’s price at $985. The company finished the first of its 97 hand-built cars – all considered prototypes – in 1947 and showed it off in the lobby of Buffalo’s...

Agassiz school custodian Stephanie Eckstein went into a deep depression after her husband of 34 years died from cancer. “I didn’t think I had a reason to live apart from my two daughters,” she says candidly of her life two years ago. She often drove by a farm where an old red car rested beside a barn. It was a sad looking car that looked abandoned. She could relate to that. She grew up on farm in the South Okanagan community of Keremeos. “You learn to be self-sufficient and fix everything – with...