By Justin Couture, MSN Autos

Part and parcel to working at an office located in Toronto’s financial district is seeing fancy cars. Underneath MSN Autos HQ are two floors of parking, many spots of which are filled with fancy European, Japanese, and American exotic metal.

Take a stroll — especially on P2 — and you’ll find some unique cars. There’s an electric blue Tesla Sport, a white Lotus Evora, a black Ferrari 458 Italia, a new BMW M5, a gray Ferrari California, a pale blue 911 Turbo S Cabriolet, a couple of Maseratis, two Bentley Continentals including one a Flying Spur Speed, and at least two dozen Audis, BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes. I often feel somewhat inadequate parking whatever tester I have, even if it’s thoroughly respectable (this week, it's a Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8).

By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos

For those of us who grew up playing Pole Position and evan Ivan Stewart's Off Road Challenge in the arcades of our youth, 3D physics engines are amazing things. They control every aspect of how the car works, how it handles and how it interacts with the environment. Plus, the more 'realistic' the engine, the more realistic the damage.

Rigs of Rods is an open-source simulator that's been meticulously crafted to offer 'soft-body' physics (whatever that means). When the crew decided to mix ROR with the 'king' of video-game beauty, the CryEngine3 that's used in the system-straining Crysis series, the results are simply amazing.

Watch this mid-'80s GM pickup run through a series of mind-boggling tests and crashes over various terrain, and you can totally see how they have things just right. The way the suspension works over bumps, how the separate bed and body flex in different ways depending on the forces exerted.

My favourite bit is how much attention to detail is put into the side mirrors, something that's usually ignored or forgotten - watching them hang forlornly after getting shmucked against a wall is a thing of beauty.

Click through to see the video.

By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos

Guitar legend Eric Clapton is a notorious gearhead, owning at one point or another some of the most important modern and classic Ferraris in the world. From '60s V12 classics like 250 GTO SW or 275 GTS to more recent stars like the Enzo and 575M. But one of his favourites is apparently the 512 BB he owned for three years, a flat-12 mid-engined supercar that eventually spawned the iconic '80s Testarossa. 

So what happens when a storied owner like Clapton decides that he'd like to recreate the 512 but with all the comforts and performance of a modern car? He picks up the phone to Maranello and gets out the chequebook...

This is the result: the Ferrari SP12 EC. SP stands for 'Special Projects' and EC is obviously Eric Clapton. However, the 12 doesn't mean the car has 12 cylinders, although the Clapton was reportedly trying very hard to get Ferrari to stuff one inside, but was (amazingly) rebuffed. No, Clapton's in the 12th such custom product to come out of the Centro Stile facilities.

The two-tone red and grey paint evokes the 512's '70s cool, as do the matte metallic hood vents. Although the SP12 EC is based on a current 458 Italia, the wheels and triple exhaust pipes remain the only recognizable elements. The one-off skin - and it will remain a one-off as Clapton gets to keep the body molds - hides the still-amazing 4.5-litre V8 that produces a stunning 562 horsepower and 398 lb-ft of torque. An eight-speed dual-clutch transmission helps the car go from 0-100 km/h in just 3.5 seconds and should top out around 325 km/h.

So what did Clapton pay for this extravagance? Nearly $5 million. I guess 'Slow Hand' can go as fast as he likes.

By David Menzies for MSN Autos

Look ma – no hands! Look pa – no brains!

What could be more dangerously moronic than texting while driving? How about texting while riding – riding a powerful motorcycle on a highway that is.

A bus passenger on the M2 Motorway in Australia couldn’t believe her eyes when the coach came alongside a motorcyclist riding at about 80 km/h. Both hands were off the handlebars and he was gripping a smartphone, furiously texting away. Even more disturbingly, he wasn’t even looking where he was piloting his Ducati Monster.

Evel Knievel, eat your heart out.

I have sincere doubts the motorcyclist was a surgeon on call, so one is left to ponder: what message(s) simply had to be transmitted so urgently that it could not wait until the man arrived at his intended destination?

And if the information was truly that life-altering, couldn’t he have pulled over and engaged in a conversation while immobile?

If anything, this incident paints a picture of just how truly pathetic some people are when it comes to smartphone attachment in that they simply cannot go two minutes without reading or transmitting an update.

By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos

Well that didn't take long.

Porsche is introducing its first special-edition based on the 'new' 991 model 911, something that usually takes a couple years to filter through the market. However, given that the 'Club Coupe' is meant to honour the 60th anniversary of Porsche's two oldest and largest owner clubs, it's hard to knock the timing that much.

What we have here is a Carrera S fitted with the Powerkit option, which bumps power to 430-horses. No official word on transmission choice, suspension or driving aids, but we're guessing these won't be stripped-out racers. Visual changes include SportDesign body-work with a different front fascia and a rear duck-tail spoiler, with the whole package painted Brewster Green - including the 20-inch SportTechno wheels.

Only 13 Club Coupes will be made with one going automatically into the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, leaving a dozen to cover every other Porsche market (other than India and China). Apparently, there will be a lottery held for current Porsche Club members to make the purchasing process fair, and if chosen, you get to cough up $200,400 for the car.

I have to say that visually, the Club Coupe is just about my perfect vision for a modern 911... But the thought of having to pay out over 200 large makes my head shake.

What do you think? 

By John LeBlanc for MSN Autos Canada

Remember when the original Prius went on sale in the late 1990s? As one of the first, mass-produced gasoline-electric hybrid cars, the quirky Toyota was considered a cult car at best. Today, 15 years later, the Prius family—consisting now of four models, the original Prius hatchback, the Prius plug-in hybrid, the larger Prius V, and smaller Prius C—is the third best-selling car in the world.

By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos

With one stellar victory at the 96th Indianapolis 500, Dario Franchitti silenced all the criticisms about the Scottish driver's poor performances so far this season and his inability to get a handle on IndyCar's new single-seaters. Despite qualifying 16th during Bump Day events a week prior, Franchitti obviously got a handle on his machine. He was quietly and methodically picking up positions during the opening legs of the 500-mile race even after he was spun around in the pits by E.J. Viso during the first stop of the race and had to restart from the back of the field.

During the last 10 laps, Franchitti and his Target Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Scott Dixon were first and second, trading the lead back and forth while trying to break away from a big pack of racers hunting them down. Eventually, Takuma Sato put himself into a can't-miss position - a tight second to Franchitti with one lap to go - and looked set to become the first Japanese driver to win at Indy. But despite the calming influence of car-owner and Indy 500-winner Bobby Rahal in his ear, Sato pulled the trigger too early, spinning out and hitting the wall hard.

Franchitti won the race under caution, as he has every time he's won at Indy. Teammate Dixon was second with KV Racing's Tony Kanaan third, and the trio crossed the finish line in formation.

By David Menzies for MSN Autos

During last week’s royal visit to Canada, Prince Charles took part in a not-so-impromptu game of street hockey with some kids in Saint John, N.B. It was one of those goofy “photo-ops”, as they say in the biz, and the Prince looked completely out of place given he was wearing a button-down suit and was oblivious as to how to hold a hockey stick (hey, Prince, two hands on the stick next time, eh?)

In any event, it was a good thing Prince Charles wasn’t engaging in this particular photo opportunity in Toronto. After all, street hockey is sadly verboten in many of the city’s neighbourhoods.

It’s an outrage that any road in our great dominion is zoned street hockey non grata. So it’s a good thing Hogtown residents have Toronto City Councillor Josh Matlow to go to bat for the mega-city’s pint-sized asphalt shinny players.

Well ... not really.

You see, while Super Josh had it right that street hockey prohibitions are dumb, where he erred – big time – was his proposed solution. (Put on your helmet and make sure your mouth guard is in place, folks, because you’re not going to believe this...)

Instead of just doing the obvious – i.e., simply rescinding the bylaw or instructing bylaw officers to ignore it – Matlow cooked up a scheme that would make Kafka gasp.

By Steve Mertl for MSN Autos

The B.C. government is shutting down AirCare, the sometimes controversial program that forced Vancouver-area drivers to pay for regular inspections of passenger vehicles’ anti-smog gear.

AirCare was set up in 1992 to deal with a looming air-quality problem in the fast-growing Lower Mainland.

Smog from Metro Vancouver’s crowded streets funneled east until it hit the mountains at the other end of the Fraser Valley, leaving residents there trapped in a cloud of foul air. It was the first program of its kind in Canada.

By Justin Couture, MSN Autos

Toronto, Ont. — Clutch, gas, stall. No, wait. Clutch, wait, gas, shift, sputter, stall. Sorry, sorry. Clutch, wait, gas, wait, shift, stall. Argh! Curse words. The keys? They’re somewhere over there, out the window.

Learning to drive manual is an exercise of patience at the best of times, and torture — for learner, teacher and car — at its worst. The fact that most new cars sold in Canada today come equipped with automatic transmissions is the result of this. Of course, there are lots of reasons to pick an automatic. Thanks to continuous improvements, automatics are smoother and quicker to respond. With the advent of seven and eight-speed transmissions, they can also offer the edge on fuel economy figures.