Father's Day with 100,000 People

Since both of my children were far away on Father’s Day and Regis was volunteering at the food bank, I was on my own for Father’s Day this year. Now, to be fair, both children did celebrate the day early so I was not really ignored. Instead I spent part of the day with 100,000 other folk here in Toronto. 

I subscribe to a couple of websites featuring events in Toronto and I discovered that there was The Yorkville Exotic Car Show on Father’s day running for two long street blocks on Bloor St which is a short walk from the condo. This is apparently an annual event where they close the usually busy Bloor St. From Yonge St. to Avenue Rd., lay down a long red carpet and feature beautiful cars parked in groups along the street for us PetrolHeads to wander along and view all the cars most of us cannot afford. 

I walked up and actually had to cue just to get onto the street even though admission was free; there were that many people there. Apparently last year over 100,000 people were there, and judging by the crowds I had to fight to actually see the cars, there were at least that many this year. 

This was not your usual “car gathering”, this really was an Exotic car show, with rows of Ferraris, Porsches, Aston Martins, Lotus’, Maseratis and private collection of classic vehicles, along with a few private vehicles mixed among the Exotics. 

It was an interesting event, with lots of very nice cars, and amazing crowds of people. I went to take some photos of the cars and this proved VERY hard because you usually had to wait for others to move out of the way just to get close enough to a car to get a picture, and just moving along the “red carpet” was a “move with the crowd” affair. I am always amazed by the people who feel that “my dog will love this event”, or let’s take the kids out in the giant “yuppy” stroller, and I am sure that many of the people in the crowds had little interest in the cars, they were there to see and be seen. 

So you know what is coming . . . . that’s right, lots of pictures of cars, so those not interested can leave now if you want. 

Bits of exotica . . .

I spent the day at the International Auto Show here in Toronto, and enjoyed taking photos of some of the beautiful vehicles there. I took lots of pictures, but all I am giving you here in the blog are some of my detail shots of little bits of some of the cars. I like to look at the cars and find interesting areas and parts of the cars to photograph. Some of these vehicles I am sure you will be able to identify, but some, I suspect no one will know where the bits came from. 

October Sunshine and Old Cars

On Sunday, the month of October arrived with sunshine and summer like temperatures. A perfect day for a “Top-down” drive in my little black Alfa Romeo Spider. Although you really do not need a car here in the big city, my classic little convertible was trailered to Toronto and I wanted to use to to do some interesting drives while we were here. 

I went on the Internet and found that there was a car show not too far from me and although I am still finding my way around the city,  I thought I could find the location of the park where the car show was being held. Plugging the address into Google Maps, I was directed about 30 minutes away to a community park. 

Now back in Nova Scotia, when I went to car shows, I would see other vintage or interesting vehicles on the drive to the show, so I was a little worried when on this drive I saw Toyotas, Fords and Hyundai’s but nothing special. However arriving at the park, I was greeted by a nice collection of very shiny interesting vehicles. 

The show was well organized and I was directed to a spot to park and given a registration number and told there were prizes for various categories. With my Nova Scotia Antique Auto licence plate, I was hoping there was a category for “Longest drive to get here”. At shows in Nova Scotia I was usually the only Alfa Romeo on display so I was hoping to see a few more here in the big city, but once again I was the only one. 

Maritimers are known to be friendly and I enjoyed attending these car shows to meet and chatting with other automotive enthusiastic about our cars, but here in the big city I was not sure what the attitude would be. I need not have worried; it seems that “Car People” are the same all over and I spent an enjoyable day meeting other car folk and talking about our cars. 

Oh, I did not win any prizes but I did meet a lot of nice people and had lots of interest in my little Alfa Romeo. 

Here are a few photos of some of the cars at the show.