#Quebec

On Monday, the Canadian province of Quebec announced it would be joining California and numerous European locales in the banning of gasoline-powered automobiles. Announced during a meeting regarding the region’s green economy plan, the French-speaking province said all new vehicles sold after 2035 would have to be entirely electric. Then there was a slight derailment as Premier François Legault used the occasion to publicly decry that it was “totally unacceptable” that some shop owners in Montreal are failing to greet customers in French and that the situation needed to be remedied immediately. Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante agreed, saying “clients must be able to get served in French. Period.”

One battle at a time, heroes. Justice will be served (and in glorious French) to those English-speaking heathens and their foul-smelling cars soon enough.

The Canadian province of Quebec has a history of churning out offbeat, low-production speed machines. Blame the six months of winter or the intoxicating effects of pure maple syrup; whatever the reason, enterprising gearheads living in New England’s tuque have a habit of building their own cars.

From the Dubuc Tomahawk, an all-electric 2+2 promising 0-60 miles per hour in three seconds, to the sheep’s-head ugly (but fast) HTT Pléthore, there’s no shortage of cars being designed and built in La Belle Province. Now, another Quebec-based company, Girfalco, intends to increase that number with its new three-wheeled EV — the Azkarra.

When the Nissan Micra Cup series was announced in late 2014, there was one main goal: be the most affordable, semi-professional racing series in Canada.

In order to achieve that goal, everything about the series needed to be cost-effective. All races were scheduled in Quebec, where the majority of competitors reside, and tires and brakes had to wear in a predictable manner so as not to “fall off” during race weekends. However, the difficult part was building a racing car to a price — $20,000 CAD, or $15,225 USD at today’s exchange rates, to be exact — so that racers could either pony up the personal funds to buy it themselves or more easily woo sponsors to make their racing dreams come true.

During the planning phase of the series, Nissan Canada and series promoter JD Motorsport tapped racing car builder Motorsports In Action of St-Eustache, Quebec to build the pint-sized racers. MIA, which is located in an indescript row of commercial units racing at Autodrome St-Eustache about 40 minutes northwest of Montreal, fabricates and preps vehicles for varying types of racing series and prides itself on build quality. However, as they say, “Good, Fast, Cheap. Pick Two,” it’s much easier to build a racing car with a high-dollar budget than it is to put together an economical package like the one requested for Micra Cup.

Thankfully, due to MIA’s combined knowledge and ingenuity, racers get a decent chunk of all three. And MIA’s Carl Hermez gave us a tour to show us exactly how they do it.

Canadian B&B, get ready: The Renault Twizzy EV is coming to your shores at last.

Reader iMatt shares his experiences with the Volkswagen Jetta 2.0 “Quebec Special”

Is the old 2.0L engine really as bad as the internet believes?

I knew it was only a matter of time before I’d need to buy a second vehicle to compliment the Honda Fit shared by my girlfriend and I. That time finally came with a forced relocation at work and after taking many months to decide what I wanted in my next vehicle, I decided my top two priorities were value and comfort, neither of which being the focal points of the Fit.

The Nissan Micra has officially lost its title as “Canada’s Least Expensive New Car”. Now, the cheapest new car is now the Hyundai Accent.

Quebec’s love affair with s mall, efficient cars is well-known around these parts. And a new government measure will only further enable that, as Quebec is set to raise annual vehicle registration fees based o vehicle’s displacement size.

Most estimates put the market share of manual transmission cars in the United States at less than 10 percent. Whether it’s a lowly Nissan Sentra or the mighty Porsche 911 GT3, it seems that Americans just do not want to drive a three pedal transmission. The die hard manual crowd, as vocal as they may be, can’t seem to get anyone to listen to them, for love or money. If only they knew that just a few hours north of Boston, there existed a land where automotive purity was considered as the full contact lap dance.