Great thanks for the update....! I just replaced my Camshaft Position Sensor and the motor seems reliable starting again.

Interestingly, two other problems seemed to have also been resolved (these have been building up over the last few month). The first was excessive black smoke under heavy acceleration when the engine is hot. Now there is very little smoke just at the beginning of the acceleration phase.

The second was a surge in engine revolutions when heavily accelerating, typically up the long hill near our house, when the engine would suddenly jump from 2000 to about 2500 revs and immediately die back down to 2000 again. I did not notice this surge during test runs despite pushing the acceleration very hard.

After 14 years and 100k miles, I think it makes sense to renew all if not many of the sensors. I will go ahead and do this over the spring break.

Update 2016 -3 12: Drove 400 kms this weekend. Car runs really well....!!!

Update 2016 03 12 Later in the day: aaargh... car stopped on the highway again. It's been about 500kms since changing the camshaft position sensor. Wiring to that sensor looks good. Looks like I only fixed part of the problem. Anyone have any other ideas as to cause? I will now change over the Crankshaft Position Sensor tomorrow. Does anyone know if you have to drain the oil before removing that sensor? If not I'll find out the messy way...!!!