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The Montreal arrived because Alfa was asked to build a show car to represent the auto industry at Canada’s Expo ’67, often called the Montreal World’s Fair. Alfa's Montreal remains a steal Classics | Rare auto hard to find, but worth the hunt August 27, 2007 BY DAN JEDLICKA Sun-Times Auto Editor The 1971-75 Alfa Romeo Montreal coupe is among the most exotic, affordable sports cars, with a rakish show car body and a detuned Alfa V-8 race engine. It's valued at $18,900 if in good shape -- or the price of a mid-size Hyundai, for goodness sake. During a recent trip to Italy, I saw modern Alfas all over the place. The automaker plans a return to America in 2009, after leaving in 1995. It was Italy's most fabulous automaker in the 1920s and 1930s, developing the wildest race cars anyone had ever seen, besides sexy road cars. An Alfa sports car driven by Dustin Hoffman in the 1967 film "The Graduate" made the automaker famous here with the general public for years. Alfa arrived decades before Enzo Ferrari started his auto company in 1946, following World War II. In fact, Ferrari long was intensely involved with Alfa before the war. Old Ferraris are selling for ridiculously high prices, but many old Alfa sports cars are reasonably priced. That's because Alfa discontinued racing on a full-time basis in 1951, while Ferrari never stopped competing and thus has maintained a racier image. It also doesn't help that Alfa isn't selling cars here now. Alfa concentrated mainly on producing small coupes and sedans in the early 1950s. However, just to keep its hand in, Alfa built a few winning race cars and some sexy sports cars. The Montreal arrived because Alfa was asked to build a show car to represent the auto industry at Canada's Expo '67, often called the Montreal World's Fair. Alfa thus built such a car with the help of Bertone, a master Italian auto design firm and appropriately named it the Montreal. Bertone came up with the show car body in only six months. The Montreal was based on Alfa's proven Giulia sports car chassis, but the Bertone fastback coupe body was radical. Low and sleek, the Montreal had a bunch of air slots behind each door, which suggested a mid-engine design, although its engine was up front. An unusual design touch was four headlights partly tucked behind slatted grilles reaching up into the car's nose. Most guessed that the show car was an Alfa prototype that might be produced. However, a production version wasn't shown until 1970. It also was called the Montreal and looked virtually the same as the show car, except for slight changes made to the nose and tail. The production Montreal had a front-engine/rear-wheel-drive layout, although it kept the show car's air slots for cockpit ventilation and semi-hooded headlights to provide a more distinctive look. As with the show car, the front end looked a little overstyled, with three separate openings: a center one shaped like the traditional Alfa shield flanked by two openings that surrounded the quad headlights. The production Montreal's engine was quite different than the show car's engine. The latter had a 1.6 Alfa Giulia sports car engine with 112 horsepower. That was far from being a supercar engine. But nobody really cared what was under the hood of the concept Montreal because it was meant to be looked at, not driven. Alfa had made its postwar reputation mostly with four- and six-cylinder cars, but the more-powerful Alfa six-cylinder was too long to fit under the Montreal's hood. Fortunately, it had on hand a new 2.6-liter aluminum, four-camshaft, fuel-injected V-8 that produced 230 horsepower at 6,500 rpm. The virtually hand-built V-8 was nothing less than a detuned version of Alfa's T33 race engine. Although exotic, which produced sounds auto buffs loved, the V-8 made the production Montreal a genuine supercar with a 136 mph top speed, although it was docile on the street. The Montreal used a five-speed ZF transmission that could handle the engine's power and torque. It had a beefy feeling shifter with short throws and a positive feel. The Montreal cost about $7,300 and was Alfa's top model. It only weighed 2,830 pounds and was as fast as a Porsche 911 -- its main price competitor. Other rivals included the new, far less sporty and costlier Mercedes-Benz 350SL 230-horsepower two-seat roadster and Jaguar XK-E V-12 coupe with 250-horsepower. The Montreal would have cost a lot more if Alfa hadn't given it many parts from its standard models, especially the popular Giulia sports car. For instance, it had Alfa trim pieces and manual recirculating-ball steering that lightened up once you got moving. The Montreal had a "live" rear axle, instead of a more elaborate independent rear suspension, but it was well-developed and helped give the car good handling. Four-wheel disc brakes provided strong stopping power. The roomy interior had sculpted bucket seats, a handsome wood-rim steering wheel and a large speedometer and tachometer in twin pods above highly stylized ancillary gauges you'd expect in a show car. It also had tiny back seats that were fine for groceries or children -- and for insurance companies, which charged lower premiums for any auto with rear seats. Alfa gave the Montreal little advertising or promotion. It considered the car a sideline, although it still sold 3,925 Montreals. The number would have been higher, but the Montreal was never certified for U.S. sale. Most were individually imported outside Alfa's normal factory distribution channels and "federalized" to make them meet U.S. safety and emissions standards. That can make a Montreal a little hard to find, but it's certainly worth a search. In fact, I know where one is being totally restored by some lucky guy at a suburban auto restoration shop.

There's heavy renovation inside and outside of this beautiful old building which now houses Charcos and Smoke's Poutinerie. Condos? Rental? Who knows. At least it's getting a new life. They did a fair bit of demolition to put in windows (and what I assume will be balconies). Here's what it looked like last summer.

(Courtesy of The Globe and Mail)

By MESFIN FEKADU, Associated Press Writer Sat Mar 21, 7:18 am ET NEW YORK – As a steady stream of celebrities pay their last respects to Natasha Richardson, questions are arising over whether a medical helicopter might have been able to save the ailing actress. The province of Quebec lacks a medical helicopter system, common in the United States and other parts of Canada, to airlift stricken patients to major trauma centers. Montreal's top head trauma doctor said Friday that may have played a role in Richardson's death. "It's impossible for me to comment specifically about her case, but what I could say is ... driving to Mont Tremblant from the city (Montreal) is a 2 1/2-hour trip, and the closest trauma center is in the city. Our system isn't set up for traumas and doesn't match what's available in other Canadian cities, let alone in the States," said Tarek Razek, director of trauma services for the McGill University Health Centre, which represents six of Montreal's hospitals. While Richardson's initial refusal of medical treatment cost her two hours, she also had to be driven to two hospitals. She didn't arrive at a specialized hospital in Montreal until about four hours after the second 911 call from her hotel room at the Mont Tremblant resort, according to a timeline published by Canada's The Globe and Mail newspaper. Not being airlifted directly to a trauma center could have cost Richardson crucial moments, Razek said. "A helicopter is obviously the fastest way to get from Point A to Point B," he said. After Richardson fell and hit her head on a beginner ski slope at the Mont Tremblant resort in Quebec, the first ambulance crew left upon spotting a sled taking the still-conscious actress away to the resort's on-site clinic. A second 911 call was made two hours later from Richardson's luxury hotel room as the actress deteriorated. Medics tended to her for a half-hour before taking her to a hospital about a 40-minute drive away. Centre Hospitalier Laurentien in Ste-Agathe does not specialize in head traumas, so her speedy transfer to Sacre Coeur Hospital in Montreal was critical, said Razek. "It's one of the classic presentations of head injuries, `talking and dying,' where they may lose consciousness for a minute, but then feel fine," said Razek. Richardson, 45, died Wednesday at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. The New York City medical examiner's office ruled her death was an accident. On Friday evening, Richardson's husband, Liam Neeson, looked distraught but grateful for the outpouring of sympathy as he greeted grieving family members and friends who attended a private viewing for his wife. Neeson was the last to leave the viewing at the Upper East Side's American Irish Historical Society, where he was joined by the couple's sons, — Micheal, 13, and Daniel, 12 — as well as Richardson's mother, Vanessa Redgrave, and sister, Joely Richardson. An array of famous friends came to express their sadness about the family's sudden loss. Neeson hugged friends as he left the society's building at 8:40 p.m., after more than six hours of receiving condolences from friends including Mike Nichols, Diane Sawyer, Matthew Modine, Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman, Ethan Hawke, and Sarah Jessica Parker. Also among the stream of visitors were Kenneth Cole, Laura Linney, Fisher Stevens, Howard Stern, Stanley Tucci, Julianna Margulies and Mathilde Krim of the American Foundation of AIDS Research — amfAR. Richardson had served on the charity's board of trustees since 2006. "She looked incredibly beautiful," Krim said, adding that everyone appeared to be in shock and Neeson looked distraught as he received everybody. Theaters in London's West End dimmed their lights Friday to mark Richardson's death, just as Broadway theaters did Thursday. In a tribute to the stage and screen actress, the lights were lowered before the curtains went up on evening performances. ___ Associated Press writers John Carucci in New York and Amy Lutz at Mont Tremblant contributed to this report. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090321/ap_en_mo/natasha_richardson

China's fastest-changing cities Hong Kong Skyline MATT WOOLSEY Forbes.com November 5, 2008 at 2:09 PM EST Ten years ago, the Minnan Hotel dominated the skyline in Xiamen, a special economic zone on the Taiwan Strait. At 168 metres tall – about the size of the skyscrapers that abut New York's Central Park – it was a conspicuous outlier in a developing city. Now, it's beginning to look like a tree in a forest, as buildings just as tall have popped up across the waterfront and in the city centre. But development in Xiamen hasn't been nearly as rapid as in Shenzhen or Guangzhou, two cities on the Pearl River Delta. With dynamic economies based on industry, service, shipping and logistics, they are China's fastest-changing cities by our measures. Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing round out the top five. They're followed by Dalian and Nanjing, two cities that have emerged as factory-based growth centres, but are also turning into vibrant markets for consumer goods. Behind the numbers These rankings are based on three measures of China's 20 most populous cities. To gauge recent change, we looked at economic growth using indexed data from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), a state research agency. Smaller industrial boomtowns like Hefei and Suzhou scored particularly well by this measure. We also examined the growth of each city as a market, which symbolizes the changing of cities from industrial centres to service-driven economies. For this measure, we looked at data from CASS as an indicator of where growth and change would continue. With global growth slowing, Chinese cities are going to become more reliant on domestic spending. “In the global slowdown, China's domestic market is the key linchpin,” says Yuwa Hedrick-Wong, economic adviser for MasterCard Worldwide. “There's a lot of government spending right now on social welfare programs to try and unlock households' savings.” Finally, we looked at the most obvious and aesthetic indicator of change in China: the cities' skylines. The government that didn't officially use the word “urbanization” until the late ‘90s and that was founded on Mao Zedong's agrarian principles now rules a country more than 50 per cent urban in its population distribution. Skyscrapers and cranes may be the best marker of globalization's effect on China. Using data from Emporis, a global builder based in Germany, we ranked each city by the aggregate height of its skyline. What the future holds If industrialized expansion was the tale of the last 10 years, consolidation will be the story of the next decade. Shenzhen, once a fishing village, has been competing for logistics, financial and technology services with Hong Kong ever since the 1997 changeover. Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong to its north, has grown at an annual clip of 18 per cent since the 1997 changeover, according to the Asia Development Bank. Shenzhen was the mainland Chinese rival to Hong Kong before that city became part of China, but has only recently decided to move toward economic co-operation, instead of competition, with the special administrative region. That means ceding financial services to Hong Kong and enhancing logistical and shipping services in Shenzhen, says Yan Xiopei, vice-mayor of Shenzhen. “We want to connect Shenzhen and Hong Kong,” says Xiaopei. “We will make endeavours for building Shenzhen and Hong Kong into a world-class metropolis.” Not far from Shenzhen, a massive railway and port expansion development across the Pearl River Delta, slated for completion in 2010, will connect the east- and west-bank factory facilities, which manufacture everything from Apple electronics to Wal-Mart products, to the deep-water shipping ports on the east bank. “Factories on the western bank have always been at a disadvantage, because they don't have access to the deep-water ports on the east bank,” says Andrew Ness, executive director of C.B. Richard Ellis, an international commercial real estate firm. “The railway will change that.” Even more obvious in the next decade will be the economic integration of small villages and cities into major metropolises in parts of the Yangtze River Delta outside of Shanghai and in the periphery of the Beijing-Tianjin corridor in the north. Of course, keep in mind that China's idea of a small village can have a population close to one million. “Five-hundred thousand to 800,000 [resident] towns aren't even considered cities, but small townships,” says Fan Gong, director of the National Economic Research Institute in China. “We will see several regions grab together on the river areas and form large metropolitan areas.” According to Mr. Gong, the government is abandoning past policies like the urban registration system, which kept farmers in the country, and is instead encouraging urbanization. Mr. Gong estimates that by 2050, 75 per cent of China's population will live in cities. The rapidly changing nation may no longer be recognizable to Mao, though reformer Deng Xiaoping might enjoy the 92 cities with one-million-plus people.

(Courtesy of The Canadian Press) OT: How about also raising the spending limit for shopping in the US. Would be nice if we could come back after a a day with $500 CDN (goods) and week with $2000 CDN (goods)