Car meets are a funny thing. At one show, your ride is totally rad; something nobody has ever seen in real life before. At another show, you are just the guy driving a 30 year old Subaru that’s clearly the cheapest car in the lot.
Some car guys showed up in their JDM classics, like a Nissan 240SX drift car, and a modified Mazda RX-7 FD with a wicked body kit. The dark teal ’92 Subaru SVX on air-suspension fit in quite nicely, and many people stopped by to take a look at the vehicle with factory-optioned Hello Kitty in the passenger’s seat.
Local car-club GearUp hadn’t promoted their event at YD Auto Group’s dealership as an exotic car show, but with a McLaren, a C8 Corvette and an Ferrari FF sitting in the parking lot, it wasn’t going to be a bunch of Hondas with underglow.
Not that there’s anything from with a Ferrari. Anyone rich enough to walk into a showroom and buy one is fortunate. But customized cars, especially rare models or cars that were never sold in Canada, they’re so much more interesting. Totally unique.
When’s the last time anybody saw a ’93 Mazda RX-7 driving down the street, especially one as nice as this white one?
The cars from Maranello got grouped together, right in front of the dealership window. Ferraris on display included a 458 Italia, an 812 GTS and a factory fresh SF90.
Not to be out-done, the Lamborghini boys arrived a short while later. There was a ’92 Diablo along with a late-model Murcielago and Gallardo. Here’s a video from 6ixcars showing many of the exotics.
The Instagram promotion indicated that cars would be segregated by nationality so all the domestics were parked behind the building. There was a par of fruit-flavored Dodge Challengers, plus a 1956 Ford Thunderbird with porthole hardtop, and a 1967 Camaro with the rear suspension tastefully jacked up.
The show got so busy in the last hour that even exotics arriving late couldn’t find a spot to park. But the VIPs got special treatment so some ‘lesser’ Porsche 911s got moved out of the way. The humanity!
The star of the show was a McLaren Senna, one of only 500 in the world. These very special vehicles, that now sell for well north of $2,000,000, were built between 2018 and 2021. It’s rare to even see one of these at a show, ever rarer to see it burn rubber as the owner screeches out of the driveway.
This was a unique location as YD Auto Group actually had several race cars on display in their showroom. The weather was so nice that the owner opened up the garage doors and let everyone wander around the Radicals and GT4 cars. We also shot some video of the cars ‘rolling out’ of the big show, plus a cruise through Newmarket.
As the cold November winds blow in, surely this will be the final season-ending car show of the year. But if there are more, we’ll be bringing our dusty old Subaru once again.
Old Suburus have their charm. Lots of expensive cars out there. I had two Mazda RX-8s. I loved them. But the rotary engines were a hassle. When the engine blew in the 2008 RX-8, I thought about putting a short block V8 in it. I didn’t, but now I wish I had.
Your RX-8 sounds like the opposite of the Mustang they built at the end of Tokyo Drift, the one with the JDM straight six.
I always felt that once a car is no longer stock, and the original engine has gone to the scrapyard in the sky, it’s fair game to go wild and do a V8 conversion.
It was the cost of doing the conversion oat the time. I didn’t want to spend the money.
I hear you. You’ve got to really love a car to spend double its value just to get it running again.
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I know this fact personally.
My favorite car of the 30 or so cars I’ve owned since I was 15 was a 1979 Renault Le Car (R5). This one looks very much like it: https://images.classic.com/vehicles/2a18fdeaeedc2ce3e39865d5fdc3c74ba879e1c0.jpg?auto=format&fit=crop&ar=16:9&w=5500. I would have spent a lot of money to keep it going if I parts were available. The engine had over 250K miles on it when I traded it for my first Mazda. I’m sure the engine would have run another 100K or more, but all the plastic parts were breaking from the intense sun and ozone out here. After American Motors and Renault divorced, that was it for parts. That little car was the smoothest riding car I’ve owned with its offset wheelbase. Even smoother than the 56 Cadillac I had for several years.
Sounds like the Le Car had some trick suspension (hydropneumatic?) to produce such a smooth ride. I don’t remember much about them.
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But in ’84 my dad bought a 2.2L turbocharged Renault Fuego, which was just so cool. Factory installed boost gauge on the dash (which I stared at). AMC and Renault became Eagle up here in Canada but eventually golded. So…yeah…good luck finding parts.
The Ayrton Senna’s signature on that McLaren was a nice touch.
Yeah… I thought you’d like that!
Who can pay 2 million plus bucks for a …car?
Isn’t it insane?
I can barely make the monthly payments on my Civic.
It’s an obscene amount of money. I like exotics like the Pagani or the Senna, but I cannot relate to them.
When I see someone has a mint co edition 93 Civic with teal paint, I respect it because people just didn’t value those cars enough to keep them.
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So anyone who has one today…has my respect.
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Any rich A$$HOLE with enough cash can buy an exotic.