Muscle cars at the Classic Remise Berlin. Welcome to our weekly round-up of the biggest breaking stories on Driving.ca from this past week. Get caught up and ready to get on with the weekend, because it’s hard keeping pace in a digital traffic jam.Here’s what you missed while you were away.Europeans are buying tens of thousands of American classics every yearThanks to a certain orange loudmouth, America does not have the best reputation overseas in Europe and the U.K. right now, but according to a Hagerty report, Europeans can’t get enough of their classic cars. Data gathered from shipping companies indicates around 30,000 classic cars are shipped from America to Europe each year, with muscle cars and Corvettes being the most commonly imported. One shipper believes it’s the quality of cars from rust-averse U.S. climates as well as the variety to choose from that has been enticing overseas buyers, even if they’re shopping for vintage European vehicles. Fisker released a photo of its upcoming electric SUVEV company Fisker pulled back a part of the sheets covering its forthcoming US$40,000 electric SUV this week. CEO Henrik Fisker posted a partial sidelong shot to Facebook, highlighting the D-pillar and the LED turn signal embedded therein, saying the lamp “will provide extra safety when you change lanes.” The company is allegedly “moving fast” to develop the Tesla Model Y competitor, and currently shopping around for a manufacturing plant.Supposedly ‘abandoned’ Plymouth GTX put up for sale despite owner’s objectionsEarlier this week, Hagerty reported a 1969 Plymouth GTX that had been forgotten in a Michigan storage facility with fees accumulating was going up for auction, despite the fact that its owner had come forward to legally claim it. Initially, the person wasn’t able to prove ownership to the authorities and the auction was allowed to continue. Since then, however – and just in the knick of time really – his ownership was proven, a legal motion filed and the sale of the rare GTX stopped. Watch our editors try to justify the 797-horsepower 2019 Hellcat Redeye 2019 Dodge Challenger Hellcat Redeye Nick Tragianis / Driving Adding another 80 horses to an already 717-horsepower engine is like putting Nutella on top on an Oreo: entirely unnecessary and probably quite dangerous, but, hey, since it’s just sitting there, you might as well eat it. As Driving’s Clayton Seams and Nick Tragianis note in their joint review, the Hellcat Redeye may be a bit of a “stupid car” with way too much power for most situations, but for the kind of person who lives life by the quarter-mile and appreciates machinery with real personality (even the obnoxious kind), there’s nothing quite like it. You can buy Patrick Dempsey’s 1965 Mustang fastbackHow much do you love Grey’s Anatomy? Even if your answer to that is negative fifty, you may still appreciate this custom Mustang build commissioned by actor Patrick Dempsey, who played Dr. Derek Shepherd, a.k.a. McDreamy, on the popular medical drama. A little over a decade ago, Dempsey hired Panoz Custom Sports Cars in Georgia to inject some modern style (to the tune of US$300,000) into this 1965 Mustang fastback, using a 2004 SN95 Cobra SVT as a donor. The result is a black-on-black 420-horsepower custom build with a six-speed manual transmission. And you can own it. Dempsey’s former baby is up for sale at a garage in Utah. Canadians can’t get enough of these seven aging vehiclesIf it ain’t broke, don’t update it. We went through some figures from manufacturers and other online sources to put together a list of seven aging cars Canadians can’t seem to quit. There’s the Dodge Grand Caravan that hasn’t been significantly updated since 2011 but remains the best-selling minivan in the country. Or the Toyota Tundra, which was last majorly overhauled in 2007 but had its best year for Canadian sales in 2018. Or the most ancient on the list, the Nissan Frontier, which has been playing the same song for 15 years, and we’re still giving it a standing ovation!Too many crossovers could kill the market, report saysIt’s called “market saturation,” and according to a new report, that’s where we’re headed if automakers don’t make a course-correction away from the concentrated production of SUVs and crossovers. The “Car Wars” report produced by the Bank of America Merrill Lynch suggests that the market could experience a 30-per-cent decline in auto sales by 2022. It’s projected that SUVs, crossovers and light trucks will make up 70 per cent of the 246 new or significantly updated models expected to arrive between 2020 and 2023.
Origin: News Roundup: Europe’s thing for classic American cars, a new affordable electric SUV, and Patrick Dempsey’s custom Mustang
Dempsey’s
Patrick Dempsey’s 1965 Mustang fastback is up for sale
Back in 2008, Patrick Dempsey was busy saving lives on screen as neurosurgeon Dr. Derek Shepherd, a.k.a. McDreamy, on the TV medical drama Grey’s Anatomy. In real life, he was making more than a surgeon would and spending it on stuff like custom Mustang builds he could love forever, or at least a few years. The car the actor poured over US$300,000 into to build just over a decade ago is now up for sale in at a garage in Utah. Dempsey, a racer himself, commissioned the restomod from Panoz Custom Sports Cars in Georgia, beginning with a 1965 Mustang fastback as the base and a 2004 SN95 Cobra SVT as a donor. “The goal of the build was to take a classic design, preserve its beauty and at the same time make a piece of history into something that is practical, livable and completely contemporary for today’s environment,” reads the car’s description on Blacksmith Garage’s website, where there is no price listed. “The Panoz build took two and a half years and more than 3,900 hours of computer-assisted design (CAD), engineering, fabrication, custom molds, assembly and finishing time.” The team tuned the SVT’s supercharged 4.6-litre V8 up to 420 horsepower from 390, and pulled its T56 Tremec six-speed manual as well. They also fashioned a custom side-exit exhaust system with variable-tune mufflers. Suspension is Panoz’s version of the ‘04’s, which it made to improve handling and stiffness as well as provide a crumple zone for passengers. Design, meanwhile, is pretty straightforward: black. Gloss black exterior paint with chrome trim and black leather interior. The Dempsey Mustang has driven some 8,400 miles since Mustang Monthly put it on the cover of its May 2008 issue, writing “If they handed out Academy Awards for resto-mods, actor Patrick Dempsey would get the Oscar for his Panoz-built ’65 Mustang.” True story. If you don’t want to buy the thing but wouldn’t mind looking at more pictures, check out this Silodrome post by a photographer who got to take it for a rip “in the middle of nowhere,
Origin: Patrick Dempsey’s 1965 Mustang fastback is up for sale