The details of these cars evoke so much more than just the style of the car itself – they serve as a reminder of the very different world in which they were created. Think of the designer pouring over a drafting table working out the details of the grill on this ’65 (I think) Mercury Meteor

Interiors like the one on this 930 Porsche slant nose take on a more utilitarian and purposeful feel with age – no bulky airbags in here!

Grilles and slits abound on the exterior, reflecting the… interesting… style choices of the cars that were this slant-nose’s contemporaries.

Not to mention a substantial intercooler out back!

Sometimes on cars like this Shelby GT500KR (King of the Road) the details that first catch your eye aren’t the most important…

No switch, gauge, shiftknob or steering wheel can match a signature from the man himself!

Wonderful attention to detail, not everything from the 1960′s and 70′s had the fit and finish of a barn!

Personally I have an affinity for the typography used in a lot of the badging from earlier periods too…

This pro-touring Camaro had a lot of touches that were clearly the owners preference, and not original…

Like these E36 generation BMW M3 seats!

And this custom gauge cluster, complete with a 2din DVD!

Even some low-riders came out, the details these guys put into cars that most other people would pass by are really astonishing. This pin-striping really is a dying artform, one of the few truely original 20th Century American folk artforms.

Some more great typography, both OEM…

…and OEM plus.

Hope you enjoyed a brief look at some of the details on these great classics of all vintages!

Since the event was rammed full of Subarus we might as well start on one of the sickest! Here’s Wilbert’s 05 STI running VS-XX’s. Note the slammed Legacy in the background…

Easily one of the top 10 lowest cars at the event was this S2000 which had some serious fender pulling at all four corners to stuff those under.

Don’t want to pull your fenders? Grind em off and bolt on some flares!

Ad camber as needed…

It was a great turn out of both sides of the Japanese scene, Hondas, Subarus, Mitsus, Nissans…

Some of the S2k’s are trending towards having ridiculous fitment in the rear only, going for that more raked, roddish look.

If you told me you were putting a bolt-on rear diffuser onto a TL TypeS I’d look at you sideways, but damn if it doesn’t work well!

Super clean Civic on SSR TypeF’s, my ideal rim!

More of that trend towards exceptional poke in the rear, this time using flares to just barely cover em off. I’m not sure I get the single tip conversion keeping a bumper that’s meant for dual. I get that it’s kinda frankensteinish, but on a car that’s otherwise as sorted and clean as this it doesn’t fly so well. Just me though.

Neal’s pink/purple (you decide) R32 is just such a badass car from every angle. This thing is so properly sorted, I love it. It hasn’t changed in a while because, well, there’s not much to improve on!

Some visitors had the best perspective – down low!

Here’s a G35 I’ve never seen before running the Weds Sports SA-76 – they’re a pretty rare sight around these parts and look great on this car. Another one I wouldn’t believe until I saw it in person!

Another car you probably already know from this site, Arthurs absolutely stunning Trial widebody GC 2 door.

Stretch, poke, stagger, oggle.

A little sample of the Nissan contingent

Super clean 350Z on Nismos with a little nismo artwork too, may not have been Hella anything, but its pretty sick and not many of them floating around the streets up here.

Bugeye dumped on Grids, looking tidy, sounding gnarly.

My absolute favorite cars at the event were the ‘going for its’ – called that for obvious reasons. These guys just pick a stance and go for it! Pull those fenders hard, damn the paint.

Not sure what kit this is, Uras? But the wing on the back just sets it off kinda panda style. SR20′d? Check. Roofrack? Check.

At the other end of the spectrum would be this hyper clean G35 coupe with staggered fitment. It was a tough call between this and a couple others for cleanest setup. This one just needed a bit more drop in the front to clinch it…

Now that the GR Subarus can finally run some decent clearance there was one or two running the properly wide setups.

Absolutely immaculate and beautiful fitment on this Civic. Loved this. Hope to shoot it soon!

This Jetta had impossible fitment riding around on C4 Vette rims. I believe these are 16×8.5 along with what I imagine can only be a truly healthy dose of spacers!

Love the dice caps for the valve stems.

A4 Avante dropped on bags.

The new Civics are  a great platform it seems to go for some nice fitment. This SI belongs to my friend David and it really couldn’t be set up any nicer to be honest. I keep using the word clean over and over but hey, if they adjective fits!

This is about half the # of subarus that were in attendance, which is ironic since there were fewer flushed out Subarus than Civics. Still, the AWD crowd came out to show their support which was awesome.

EvoX’s can do this stuff in their sleep now. Rota Torques. Boom.

That’s what I’m talkin’ about!

More AME’s, this time on a turbo RSX. You may have seen this car shot before on Stephen’s site, truly a sorted car, lots of time and money invested in making this one of the best street RSX’s around!

Let’s take a quick look back at those ratted out cars – the VW (above) and the white/black 240 (below). Fitment, stance, character, just nailed it with these cars. Despite all the high dollar stuff that showed up I think these types of cars are my favorite. They’re showing real creativity, style, flare, and its all genuine, not forced.

Oh I have to share one more, this Accord is just so nicely dialed in. It shows so perfectly you can take a platform not many people would consider, do some really simple but well planned mods and wind up with an absolute stunner. I’m not a Honda guy, and I’m definitely not an Accord guy, but this just looks right to me!

Stretch and Poke was a big success, a casual fun time was had by all and any day a bunch of sick cars gather is a good day, so we’ll be doing it again. Look for more info on the next meet to be organized during the summer, this time with a lot more on offer now we know there’ll be some real interest!

Know what you need for a roadtrip? Exactly… and believe me its bigger than it looks here too. That girl in the background isn’t that short!

This has to be one of very few M5 wagons on the continent!

Yo dawg I heard you like Porsches so we stuck a Porsche in your Porsche. Now its 2x Porscher.

Not a gumballer, but this murdered out McLaren SLR was really eye catching parked up nearby!

This is what Gumballers were greeted by upon arriving at Yorkville, lots of fans and plenty of police to make sure not much happened…

599 with a tinted chrome vinyl wrap that changed from orange to red at the back. I’m not a fan of modern Ferrari design but the 599 wheels are pretty amazing actually.

More reflective vinyl wrapping on this Gallardo. ALong with a set of the ugliest tackiest aftermarket wheels I’ve ever seen on a Lamborghini. I’m sure they cost a fortune but nobody said good taste has to be expensive. Eeesh…

Much more attractive was this Gallardo with the matte black/red treatment!

Know what this hit parade needs? Another Gallardo, this time in plain chrome. I know they’re doing it to protect the paint but really, if you’re going to wrap a car didn’t someone come up with a better idea with some sort of theme or at least something different?

You’re damn right they did.

I’ll close out this brief post on the Porsche GT3 because really, you can’t get much better. What’s nicer is since the GT3′s were the euro editions, they had that sexy cage in the back!

Here we go kiddies, car nerds all over the GTA (myself included) have been muttering quietly about this event for the past few weeks since the route was formalized. Gumball 3000 came through Canada this year bringing with it the cars, some glitz, and a lot of crowds!

The cars on the Gumball see a lot of road miles so a lot of them like this Murcielago SV were wrapped in carbon fiber looking vinyl, ironic considering the majority of this car actually IS carbon fiber…

Even filthy, this car looks like a superhero’s ride!

A lot of people were curious how this roof rack system mounts up to the Lambo… here’s a detail shot…

Certainly however, there was one car everyone really came in the hopes of seeing – the Bugatti Veyron 16.4

The crowds weren’t disappointed! This car had a mobscene following it everywhere during the day and an absolute riot at night downtown.

I don’t think many of these cars will see quite this much use or abuse!

The interior of this car is just shockingly beautiful. It’s no wonder this thing weighs so much – it’s funny when other cars out there boast about being faster then a Veyron (SCC, looking at you) – there’s plenty of cars out there faster than this now but none of them come close to this level of stunning interior. This is more akin to a fine watch than a car.

16 cylinders… two banks of 8… W16 configuration… 8.0 liters… 4 turbochargers… 64 valves (sixty four!!!)…

1001 horsepower…

I didn’t think I’d be quite as impressed by this car in person as I was, it’s a stunning creation and really one of those exercises that was clearly undertaken as an engineering challenge more than just ‘a car’.

I still think the Morgan Aero is a weird car. I don’t care what you say…

Eventually some of the Gumballers decided to head out on track and drive without the risk of the local fuzz getting involved!

Now that’s a broad cross-section of competitors…

Care to wager what this is the interior to? Bet you can’t guess (unless you were there)

Plenty of MacLaren SLR’s were on hand, in fact they became a bit pedestrian after a while there was so many.

People started to turn their attention elsewhere…

Like the absolutely ridiculous Dodge Challenger sponsored by Asanti and Lexani wheels

I know it’s not a super-exotic but I have a soft-spot for GT3s…

It was pretty cool to hear the SLR’s driven in anger, and see the airbrake come out! These things always remind me of a world-war two fighter when you hear their engines. The throaty German motor accompanied by the supercharger whump is pretty cool!

While I imagine it’s one of the best types of cars for this type of ‘rally’ the Maser didn’t look quite as happy on track as some of it’s fellow competitors.

Still worse was this E350, but at least the driver was charging hard and turning some decent laps!

The SLR driver(s) were actually turning in decent laps too. You could tell the tires were having a tough time on the cold day, but still…

Hey at least it’s an interesting and unique wrap rather than the boring old chrome we usually see.

Mmmmm…

I spoke briefly with Brett the Veyron driver and asked if he was taking it on the track. He said the track was too short and the car is too heavy, it wouldn’t really be able to do much or have much fun. I guess coming from an owner, that’s as honest as you can get…

Beautiful white GT3

Aston Martin turning in a few laps. Astons look weirdly alien on a track, they’re much more at home on a highway or a downtown street, really not a track car to me. Stunning though…

Now this is something interesting! The Monster Energy Buckshot Racing “truck” (?) was something to see not only parked but turning a few squirrly laps on the track!

This thing must be an absolute twin turbo nightmare on the rough stuff. I can’t imagine it’s the best roadtrip vehicle! Then again, with that interior I mentioned earlier, maybe all the rally bits help!

Someone put it best “It looks like a Lotus on steroids”.

Even other Gumballers were awed by the wide cross section of cars!

This must be one of the first rollers to visit Shannonville, surely. It would’ve been great fun to see it out on track!

But alas it wasn’t to be, mostly the usual suspects.

Proving it’s perhaps not the best long-distance cruiser, the Morgan Aero popped out a rear window from being overstuffed I presume…

A broad cross section of the cars at the event… although the GTR wasn’t a competitor.

Now this is something truly unique – a stretch Volvo limo! If you’re going to bomb around on this cross country tour, this is at least one of the more comfortable ways I imagine!

Work that airbrake!

Ah yes, the California. This car came ALL the way from… Quebec.

Again, that’s diverse!

Don’t want a chrome or gold wrap? How about Alligator skin?!

The drift guys from DMCC tagged along in trailers and put on a bit of a show offering ride-alongs for the Gumballers.

Pat Cyr was on hand, his Hachi looking badass as ever.

Ooops. This 599 wasn’t the only exotic to go off track…

How sad would it be to drive your 911 Turbo all the way from Florida to hit the track in 10degree weather! At least it was sunny I guess?

I know it’s as obvious as chrome, but matte black looks menacing on a 430!

A spin didn’t discourage any of the Gumballers really, they’d get right back out on track.

Here’s why they tend to wrap their cars…

And here’s that spin!

The trip back to Toronto was as peppered with Police as it was exotics so it was only a matter of time before someone got pinched.

Stay tuned for more from downtown Toronto after the Gumballers arrived!

ALMS quite literally roared into Mosport this past weekend and having missed the past two years because of my stupid birthday landing on this weekend I was determined to go this time. Forsaking family and the girlfriend and donned my rain gear and went with a good friend who knows the track decently with the hopes of snapping some good moments. The weather was, as with CSCS, diverse…

Practice in the morning for the ALMS cars was interesting to say the least, the drivers started off under overcast skies and ended up inside the overcast sky!

We managed to find some sweet shooting spots though that let us peer through the mist and get decent angles on the cars. Luckily I had the bazooka lens otherwise every shot would’ve come out even more faded grey than this. The cars were definitely not pushing it hard on the wet track in practice – nobody wanted to stuff it into a wall, but ever so often you’d hear the Corvettes blast up a straight and get people talking.

Now competing in GT2 class the C6R vette’s looked and sounded simply amazing. Nothing else on the track bar perhaps the Panoz had the brutality of these cars. I can see why the NASCAR crowds came out in force…

Another brutal sounding car was the RISI Ferrari  F430. Every single corner this thing went into backfiring the whole way through, it was quite something to see and hear. No flames mind you that I saw.

The BMW M3′s were running well and seemed to be doing consistent times. These cars are beyond wide, they remind me really of a DTM style car. I was hoping someone in the paddock would have  a regular M3 parked nearby for comparison sake but no such luck.

As practice wrapped up the fog began to slowly lift and the supporting series began racing. I had little interest in them though – only so many formula cars you can watch when you’re anticipating the big boys getting back out on the track.

We definitely weren’t the only ones killing time until the big cars showed up again.

There’s street slammed. Then there’s race car slammed. Then there’s LMP slammed. These things scrape at every corner, and with the suspension travel of a radioflyer you know the forces being exerted on these cars in cornering to make a corner scrape like this must be staggering. These cars generate 3-4G at full clip in a turn. If you’ve never seen a car go into turn 2 at Mosport without lifting off the throttle, it’s a truly awe inspiring sight I found.

As we waited for the next session we decided to stroll the pits and see what spying we could do and how close we could get. Disappointingly the teams wouldn’t let us get under the cars or sit in them, but no problem getting up close with the bazooka lens!

Here’s a shot of the Kumho Tires LMP car engine bay. Note the carbon fiber head cover and liberal use of gold as a heat reflectant.

Listening to conversations with the Mazda head honchos we learned a few items about cost realities for the teams. Such as the $100,000+ steering wheel used in the Mazda LMP cars. No, that’s not a typo, and if you know anything about F1 cars you’ll know 100 large for a steering wheel isn’t an exaggeration.

The Robertson Racing Ford GT was as badass as racecars come. FordGT? That’s not wide. THIS is wide…

So many wheels and tires lying around. If only we Subarus could run a centre bolt conversion! When I asked if there was a kit or anything available I was just laughed at by Duane from CanJam. Wishful thinking but nothing ventured nothing gained.

AP Racing takes care of braking duties on the Lola chassis Mazda cars…

Panoz was represented too, here’s their one entry in GT2. I miss the Panoz LMP cars myself, those were always interesting to watch and they ran hard back in the day. Anybody else remember those grey cars? They were my go-to car in SportscarGT on the PC!

All of the cars were towed around the paddock when they were going for inspection or heading to the pits, which I guess is because they don’t have the smoothest of idles… Or something.

After some greasy food and a some more supporting series running it was time to get the ALMS cars out and qualify! The Mazdas were running hard from the get-go and scraping everywhere too…

Both Flying Lizard porsches were out doing well. I’m fascinated by the LED clusters the Porsches are running, some have 4, some have 8, some have 16 LED clusteres. Seems like a trend with these guys!

I thought the livery on the BMW M3 cars was a bit odd. Is it just me or if you squint a bit does it not look like these cars have had some serious tire rubbing up the side? I know Germans love Helvetica and whatnot but the designer in me knows there’s some typography work that needs to be done here…

The Ford GT was a fairly low key entry I thought, they didn’t seem to stand out watching them race like a few other cars. They were definitely fast but they never seemed to look like they were riding the edge of the car’s potential into a turn. Perhaps that’s a testament to the smoothness of the driver though more than anything else.

Here’s me trying by best to get a look inside the cockpit of a LMP1 car as it goes by… must be somewhat distracting with all those lights blinking at you at 183mph.

With the ALMS qualifying over the GT3 Cup Porsches came out and raced a solid race. The lead cars were turning in around 1:24′s so it wasn’t as electrifying as watching the LMP cars even qualifying but still a good race!

That’s enough from me, I’ll let the rest of the photos speak for the rest of the day!

Sunday practice saw a lot of wall riding and wall… tasting… by the Pro cars. 2 of the cars, including the Solstice and an R33 Skyline went out of the competition before it even began. The actual competition day was cooler than the previous practice day, but the competition was cranked up to temps you see on the surface of the sun! The drivers were driving with a ‘nothing to lose’ attitude it seemed and it made for great showdowns.

Unfortunately some of those showdowns resulted in cars being tossed into the dividers. Here’s the Tuner Icons S14 after making contact with a wall in turn 3.

The Kumho Skyline was doing a great job of keeping the crowd entertained during a brief intermission while the final 4 were set up…

Everyone was doing their best to get as close to the wall throughout the day without nicking it as possible!

Matt Waldin went into this round as the points leader and did a farewell burnout for the crowd in celebration of maintaining his points lead.  Quebec is up in 3 weeks… can’t wait to see how it runs!

I had been looking forward to Driftmania for the whole summer, and it happened to land on the very first warm weekend we had in Toronto. Prior to this it has been all rain and cool temperatures, which made for great drifting events on every on/off-ramp around the GTA but hardly prime to get crowds out and get fans amped up. The sun Gods were appeased though and DMCC brought their own heat with them! For more coverage hit below the cut…

I’ll skip the coverage of umbrella girls and rice rockets since we see plenty of those all throughout the summer across every other crap blog out there. I’m here to bring you the best action photos I can! Saturday’s practice sessions were at about 80% of what I felt the drivers would wind up going for. The crowd was much smaller than past years, and the weather was very very hot. That said, the drivers were still putting on a good show for the crowds when the Pro session started late in the afternoon sun. Here’s Spooky in the BFG GTO pouring th power in as she comes hard into initiate turn 1 infront of the judges. This was by far the best sounding car at the event!

She was getting very consistent angles in practice and had little trouble dominating a few of the runs she did. Big V8s are always a hoot to watch.

Justin from Intense Motorsports came into turn one hot and the car he was following was going too slow so he had to ease off which unfortunately put him into the cement barrier at about 110km/h. He was thankfully unhurt, but obviously a bit pissed. You can see in the image above that the impact was tail first which spun his front left corner into the barrier hard. This shot shows the damage done to the poor RPS13′s front end. Unfortunately the frame was about 6.5 inches removed from spec. The Intense Motorsports guys spent the evening straightening the frame using two big trucks (!!!) and SG Motorsports lent them their shop to align the car in preparation for the next day.

The rest of practice went smoothly with everyone putting in a fairly even number of killer runs and spins. The drivers were likely a bit unnerved by the un-evenness at the entry of turn one. Right after transitioning the cars were definitely lifting wheels and bouncing around going hard into turn one, which likely contributed to the car Jason was following slowing down, putting him into a wall. Here’s the other BFG GTO lifting a wheel entering turn 1.

Infinity has always made convertibles right?

What do you do when you’re practicing so hard the engine starts to overheat? Remove body panels until the problem goes away. In this case, one large panel.

Both the Pro and AM guys did the drift scene justice with some great decoration and mascots. This 240 had a pickup rear end and a Burger King along for the ride.

Checking tire pressures in the pit prior to launching…

Posted right at the entry to the pit, as the cars are coming in off the track. Hardly likely!!

Pat’s AE86 was doing great, stay tuned for more pics of it tomorrow.

Another of “Spooky” (aka Tania Bourbonnais) – what a rear end!

The woman – the legend. Is there anything better than a girl with a accent who can drift like she can? Don’t think so…

Our parting shot today is of the Briggs 240 .. can’t wait to see these guys go for it tomorrow!