Cars, Security and a Peek into my Life
Canadians dominate the auto industry – but we’re pretty quiet about it – which is why this week I’d like to do some bragging, politely.
I’m singling out Nissan, BMW, GM, Chrysler, Ford and Toyota, then the auto journalists too.
Read it online at Autonet.
The ending – last 3 paragraphs:
And then there’s the Canadian auto journalists – and I think this is indicative of our culture – we are consistently booked into one of two waves…
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Back to ‘Keri on Driving’ – Index
One morning last week, a couple newspapers and my blog were invited to Google.
So flattered and excited; above.
Bright colours, open-concept-fun-atmosphere, the pool table room is where’d I’d be, then oh, let’s have our meeting in this tent.
It was a presentation about their auto division, which is growing fast.
Remember my column about ‘Uber Car Service’? Google just bought them for $250 million.
Learned about how people search and behave while shopping for cars. That’ll be it’s own post, or potentially a ‘Keri on Driving‘ column, still deciding.
See top right? That’s a camera recording our meeting. It was not mentioned, I just happened to notice. Maybe at Google it’s just expected that you’re on camera always.
Best Foursquare checkin ever.
Ford invited me to an event a few weeks back, Ken Block was in Toronto, and they’d set him up a course.
Non-car nerds: Ken Block, world-class precision driver and drifter. Sponsored by Ford, GoPro, Monster. Co-founded DC Shoes.
Watch him drift all of San Francisco:
He drives a 2013 Ford Fiesta ST RX43, outputting 650-hp and 650 lb-ft of torque, 0-100 km/h in 1.8 seconds.
Then, total luck, this happened:
We went around the course, it was about 90 seconds that felt like 2.
For such a maniacal sport, it was so calm in the cabin, surprised me; there’s less movement required than you may think.
We flew around, I let myself get tossed around in the Gs, the entire cabin filled with smoke, and Ken drove so hard the car broke, making ours the final run of the day.
And then…
Above is the file list, no Ken footage, just poof: missing. No explanation, that’s hard on a stomach. Imagine writing that email to Ford… then one to Motoring TV… omg of all the footage to lose, in all the lands…
Adding to the disappointment: the footage of me driving the auto-cross course was also gone, and I’d driven so well that day.
Ken released his latest video, Gymkhana SIX. Wrote about it on Autonet yesterday, here. It’s ridiculous, go watch.
See – I’ve got the heat cranked, but the air conditioning is on at the same time?
Seems counter-productive, but the cabin heats up, while the dampness is removed from the air.
