Motorama

Chevy truck, Motorama, Toronto, March 2016

THERE ARE FEW THINGS I ENJOY AS MUCH AS A CAR SHOW. I spent a day helping out a friend at his t-shirt booth at an auto show out by the airport, and I couldn't help but bring along a camera, so forgive me if I bore you a bit with what I saw that day.

If you love cars - and I'll forgive you if you don't love cars as much as I do - you probably find yourself entranced by little details: a stretch of chrome detail, tarnished or buffed up; a riot of racecar liveries; the bloom of rust on an old junker; the spectacular care lavished on a hot rod engine. Walking the convention hall floors, it was hard not to go into a fugue state every now and then.

Motorama, Toronto, March 2016

There was a lot to see: Dragsters! Rat rods! Stock cars! Restomods! Billy Gibbons! One thing that struck me this time around, though, was the room devoted to tuner cars - hot hatches and '80s sleds and ricers, dropped and stanced and loaded with LED lights and speakers. Not normally my cup of tea, but it was where I saw the youngest crowd, and a lot of kids.

And then it occurred to me: You can love the old Chevys and Ford trucks and Mopar monsters all you want, but this is the future of these shows; in twenty or thirty years the crowds will be milling around restored Civics and Fiestas and low-end BMW coupes with the same reverence they have for Camaros and GTOs today. Hard to believe, I know, but I'll put money on it.

Motorama, Toronto, March 2016