One of the things that irks me the most about writing is the neat stuff that gets left on the cutting room floor.

Well, I’ve finally found a use for the hundred-odd photos of “Don’t Touch My Car” plaques I’ve shot at various car shows over the past 10 years, and it’s this, a veritable art piece depicting the warnings in order of least to most aggressive.

It was a year-and-a-half ago that I drove my 1971 Plymouth Valiant Scamp to the factory where it was built. Not coincidentally – I planned it – the car crossed the 100,000-mile mark on the odo as I rolled into the parking lot.

I know I typically use this space to give you a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like running one of Canada’s biggest car blogs. But today I felt compelled to interrupt that regularly scheduled programming to answer a very pressing question: where do you put things in a C3 Corvette?

As I may or may not have mentioned before on these pages, I’m a car enthusiast. What I mean by that is, I am not a driving enthusiast. I’m really all about cars as cultural objects in and of themselves; the feel-behind-the-wheel is secondary for me.

I know I typically use this space to give you a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like running one of Canada’s biggest car blogs. But today I felt compelled to interrupt that regularly scheduled programming to mull over some maybe-true trivia: that the rumble seat was named after its inventor.

The story of the MCV CH4 is straight-up one of my favourite sorts to write—an in-depth exploration of an obscure piece of Canadian car culture that deserves more attention? That’s pure Autofocus.

Sometimes it’s easy to get bogged down in the monotony of car reviews, first drives and automotive industry news. But sometimes it’s just as easy to be busted out of that monotony.

Like many of my colleagues did, I could’ve spent the past week in Los Angeles covering the auto show and the unending stream of new car unveils that seem to go on there. I didn’t.

Sometimes, inspiration comes from the weirdest places. Let me give you, for example, the hitherto-hidden back story behind our latest video, in which we compare a BMW i8 to a 1954 Messerschmitt three-wheeler to see which turns more heads.

In my ongoing Oppo series, I look behind the scenes of modern automotive journalism and show you how the sausage gets made, so to speak—or how it does at Autofocus.ca anyway. This post is guest-authored by one of my writers, Nauman Farooq, a veritable expert on obscure and rare supercars.

Nauman just wrapped up a…

Several months ago, my brother Matt, a.k.a. The Blacktop Experiment, was searching for his first real car, and of course turned to me and fellow Oppo Clayton, a.k.a. Cletus44, for advice on what to get.

One of the things I didn’t expect when I took on the role of editor for a major Canadian automotive website was that I’d be tempted to go on all of the manufacturer’s drive events myself.

The automotive writing profession is, near as I can figure, almost as good as it gets, career-wise, if you’re a gearhead. You get to see and do all sort of car enthusiast-y things, and then write about them for other car enthusiast-y types to enjoy.

It started simply enough: an invitation via email from a PR person at a nearby college, subject line “Can you assist me?”

I’m not exactly sure of the origins of the phrase “data journalism,” but I can tell you its use, and the popularity of data journalism itself, has skyrocketed in the past five years.

The first time I sat down with Mopar expert Todd Savage to talk about “Rolled-tona” – a ‘69 Charger Daytona once-rolled-into-a-ditch, now undergoing restoration at Jeff Cabot’s shop near Hamilton, Ontario – I had to double-check when he said the owner walked away from the accident.

Paul Treppa’s official job title is “Senior Prototype Location Technician” but our contact at Chrysler Canada referred to him as “the Viper handler.”

Treppa – he was the big, bespectacled guy you saw standing next to the 2013 SRT Viper display at the Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto this year – is the guy…

Jeff Gardner of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is, to make an understatement, an interesting guy.

He rocks an awesome heated garage man-cave; knows – or at the very least has rubbed shoulders with – several Hollywood celebrities; and owns some 25 cars, including eight Corvettes.