The Annual Speedorama Car Show was held at the Automotive Building at the CNE grounds in Toronto on January 27, 28, 29, 2007. This year's show was held again in the Automotive Building at the CNE which is steeped in automotive history in the Toronto area. There is no better venue for a nostalgia-tinged hot rod and custom show than this marvelous old building down on the shores of Lake Ontario. The shows seem to blossom (if that's the right metaphor) out of a bleak, barren, and somewhat isolated area of Toronto more suited to summer-time activities – all crazy, noisy, and colourful as the carnival that is the Canadian National Exhibition – but in the dead of a January week-end and indoors, thank goodness. This year's theme was ‘Celebrating the Toronto Car Scene's kustom culture ‘.

With regard to the annual hot rod shows that nested here for a precious few days in the dead of the Canadian winter, in the past I wrote:
“I used to suck these shows up like a vacuum. I would go to the show and hang out for hours and hours with like-minded car freaks, just soaking up the atmosphere. I recall the splendid panoramic view from the second floor mezzanine that wrapped around the interior of the building. The entire show could be seen from this vantage point sprawling across the floor below in a crazy landscape of dazzling big flake paint, blinding chrome, a storm of flash bulbs, spot lights, rotating theatrical lights and mirrored disco balls that threw packets of light around the cavernous hall that was open to the roof. The air was electric, the rock-‘n'-roll pounding, and the crowds flowed in the aisles like a weird liquid –I sucked it up, I wallowed in it –it made my day, made my month, made my year –and it felt like I was ‘home' and warm and comfortable and happy. I only felt like that once a year when the car show came to town.”

Greeting the visitor inside the main entrance of the Automotive Building (a great two-story tall, airy and bright atrium with colossal antique light fixtures) was none other than one of the most beautiful Canadian custom cars ever created –‘Time Bomb' –built by John St Germain of Goodwood, Ontario. This stunning '36 Roadster has undergone a countless number of modifications in its seven years of creation. These attributes are so subtle, esoteric and harmonious that they push and pull the eye up and down the luscious shape of this car. The entire opus is a masterpiece of visual aesthetics that flow and relate from one to another rather like the formal ‘sight-paths' used in Renaissance painting and sculpture. In this case, the fade-away lines of the Packard ‘hip' in the upper grille into the hood, the flow of the front fender to the running board to the slant of the top at the side window to the slope of the rear fender essentially form a triangular repetition that carries the eye on a wonderful slippery and fluid dance. And the drop-dead gorgeous rear trunk/rear fender area virtually looks ‘liquid' as it trails away from the rear deck to the graceful lower fender extensions. Man, and to think that all body modifications have been done in lead (think paddles and files)……staggering, really.

This show had Chip Foose and Adrienne Janic ‘AJ' from the popular TV show ‘Overhaulin' who were the most gracious personalities in the ‘signing posters' department. They signed colossal numbers of shirts, posters, hats, pictures and posed for thousands of ‘look at me with _____' pictures and smiled, made jokes, and made everybody feel great. Foose spent hours walking around and talking to car owners, posed for hundreds of pictures, shook a thousand more hands, asked interesting questions and chatted endlessly with nearly everyone – what a great asset he is to the car hobby and the custom-car building business.

One of my endless pursuits in attending/reviewing car shows is coming across the pure, unadulterated essence of hot rodding in an owner-built car. This search for the ‘spirit of hot rodding' or in this case and this show, the ‘spirit of customizing' is manifested in a raw, unfinished car that exemplifies the nature of creativity, few dollars, endless enthusiasm, and badass aesthetics. Such cars are not generally the stars of car shows – they attract little media attention, they are not shiny, are usually in primer, and most importantly the list of modifications and parts does not read like a list of every aftermarket company that attends SEMA. There is an inherent atmosphere of rebellion and ‘sinisterness' about them that I find truly refreshing – these ‘grass-roots' and ‘backyard' builders do what they do for themselves and live or die on their own creativity. Such a car is the '51 Ford custom built by Dan Price of Brooklin, Ontario. This piece started life as a four-door sedan and Dan got it much later as rusted hulk without an engine. The car was lowered by removing spring-leaves, installing lowering blocks, and notching the frame. The four-door was transformed into a two-door sedan and the top was chopped within an inch of its life. The interior is passable but unfinished; the bodywork includes '53 Buick headlights, a molded Buick grille, Cadillac ‘Dagmars', and smoothed bumpers. And best of all, this car has been driven for thousands of kilometres in rain, snow, sleet, sunshine. It simply epitomizes and embodies all that customs are about –badass style and attitude. I love that car.

The show was punctuated with professional displays like ‘Mothers' Car Care Products where the ‘Overhaulin' crowd hung out with the ‘Momma's Boy' 1966 Lemans and the fabulous ‘AJ's Build' 1963 Comet, both feature cars from episodes of the show. If you think those cars looked good on TV, they look even better in real life, simply dazzling. The talented crew with the unconstrained imaginations at ‘Oddball Kustoms' blew my mind again with the (mostly) bare metal '53 Pontiac torpedo-back custom car project with highly modified rear fenders and a chop that defies comparison. The display was also accompanied by what looked to be a pack of wild dogs – namely, ‘RUS-T' the '26 Ford Roadster, ‘Hemi-Roid' the '30 Ford Coupe (‘Altered dragster' style), the Sergeant Splatter T-bucket Jag, and the ‘Derelict' gold flaked bike. The ‘Derelict' bike is actually a Sportster kit with a frame, gas tank, and oil tank, and the customer supplies the motor and forks.

Other notable rides (and there were many) include the following:

-the '32 Deuce 5-Window Coupe of Alan and Peachy Thompson;
-the '37 Ford Cabriolet Roadster of Larry and Glenna Cross;
-the '33 Ford 3-Window Coupe ‘Ratified' of Dave and Ardele Thompson;
-the '63 Nova of Ed Wieczorek;
-the ‘Parts Pro Performance' '69 Camero of Luis Custodio;
-the '30 Model ‘A' of Steve Hurst;
-the hand-built ‘Monster Mobile' of Gerry Nimz;
-the ‘Big Bad Wolf' car of Mark Adams;
-the '47 Chev Fleetline of Brent Middleton;
-the ‘Speeding Billet' bike of Steve Schuller;
-the '35 Ford pickup of Steve Edwards;
-the '37 Ford Rumble-seat Coupe of Ed and Lynn McLean;
-the '55 Chev of Richard Ruiter;
-the marvelous display of vintage Flathead hot rod intakes and heads accompanying the ‘AV8' ride of Garnet Rhame.