VROOM VROOM WHILE STANDING STILL: WHEELS ON THE DANFORTH CAR SHOW

The cars are parked on the street. They are not moving. Their engines are not running.

But they look fast, they look powerful, they look dangerous. The look sleek and sexy and beautiful. They look like my past, they look like art. The art of steel and paint and chrome and leather. The art of looking fast, while standing still.

This past weekend was our second visit to Wheels on the Danforth, an annual on the street car show that happens in the Crossroads of the Danforth, where Danforth Ave meets Danforth Rd in Scarborough, close to Victoria Park subway station. Last year our visit was plagued by cool rain but this year it was hot and sunny and dang, did all that chrome love it.

The show features vintage and classic cars. Detroit, of course, was well represented ...

... but a few foreign interlopers managed to sneak in

While all the cars were arftfully parked, not all the wheels were stationary. A stunt troup joined the show, featuring BMX bikes and a skater. A lot of speed on display, but no chrome and none of that panty-dropping-rumble the muscle cars represent (It's true, everytime I hear the roar of a 68 Shelby GT Mustang my panties drop right off)

It's a great show, very community based. There is judging and rewards but the atmosphere is very relaxed. It's quite easy to have conversations with the owners of the cars and they were more than willing to accomodate Collete and myself, opening hoods, opening trunks etc so we could get good shots.

No celebration of gas and chrome and internal combustion muscle is not complete without beer and rock and roll and Wheels on the Danforth supported both in the form of a beer tent and the Blues Brothers.

You can hear the latter on the video. I would reccommend hitting the "YouTube" button in the lower right corner so you gain the function to play the video full size

WHEELS ON THE DANFORTH CAR SHOW: GENTLEMEN YOU MAY PARK YOUR CARS

Earlier this summer we went to the Molson Indy to watch cars driving very fast.

This past weekend we went to Danforth Avenue to watch cars .. not move at all. And yeh, we had fun

This was our first visit to Wheels on the Danforth, a community based care show where they close off a few blocks of the eastern Danforth and fill them with cars.

Like most competitions there are prizes so they move different classes of cars along the street as the day goes on. We got there just when I wanted: Classic muscle cars, mostly, with some older hot rods thrown in. It was mostly American muscle but a few foreign interlopers did find their way in

But it was mostly about the Detroit cars that I think were enfused with their own singular sense of style. Not to mention their own hugeness. Damn, some of these cars are enormous. A two door coupe is bigger than most SUVs today .. and some vans

There is of course nostalgia in my admiration of these cars. Some of them are just flat out beautiful but others, while not esthically pleasing, triggered an emotional response; both Collette and I saw this truck and realized that how many of these we had seen or ridden in as kids. She's pretty sure her dad owned one at one point. Beautiful no, but something built and built well for a purpose that gives it its own unique charm

And while this Ford pickup had been restored to pretty much original, others decided to put their own spins on their trucks, turning something prosaic and purpose designed, into something beautiful and individual.

That's always the interesting thing about these car shows; who chose to restore their vehicles and who chose to customize them. I have to say in terms of the classic muscle cars I am not a big fan of heavy customization. Many of these cars back in the day were sold with options and in GT packages etc that provided the owner with mag wheels, hood scoops, spoilers etc. I like to see them like that, as I remembered them back in the day

But every owner who struggles to restore their ride to the original, there are those who just want to chop it, lower it, paint stripes on it, put on the widest tires possible and fill it with some engine entirely inappropriate: Long live the hot rod

Not all of the cars on the street were muscle or hot rods but they had their own appeal. A vintage VW but is not muscle but it has a classic charm all its own. And the bottom pic below is a Pinto, a car not considered muscle back in the day but here some creative mechanic filled it full of mechanical testosterone

The organizers of the event did a great job, lots of cars, a live band, some food stands. The rain kept the crowds down (not a bad thing) and it made the cars all wet and shiny so it wasn't bad from a visual sense but yeh, it got a bit cool and dreary.

Still, we had fun and we will be back next year

All of the photo's on this post are Collette's work. My work is the video below. Now, go shine up your car and park it
Wheels On The Danforth from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.