The car enthusiast community on Toronto is fragmented. Groups are broken up by types of cars, the country of origin, and even how old the vehicles are. The stallions in the Demaras Racing stable include a 1992 SVX and a 2003 WRX; Japanese tuner cars. Yet the ultra-rare SVX would fit in fine at a vintage car meet since it is a 33-year-old GT car. But the Subaru WRX is more like a modern day hot rod. Inexpensive, readily available, plenty of aftermarket go-fast parts available so owners to turn them into very quick cars.
On Insta there’s a page dedicated to promoting car meets called OntarioCarScene and most weekends it lists pop-up meets for Euro or tuner cars. These are late night meets the media usually calls unsanctioned car rallies. This time, a new show popped up on the feed; an early morning car meet at the Three Horses Care & Speed Shop.
Unlike the tuner car meets that happen in the suburban wastelands of Mississauga, this one was right in downtown Toronto. And not in some abandoned big-box store parking lot either. At this meet the cars would line both sides of Dupont St in front of the motorsports themed café while a live band played inside. Upon arrival, the notion that the WRX is a hot rod was proven to be a little off the mark.
First of all, the folks at the show couldn’t be any more friendly and welcoming. The guys at the meet looked like greasers and bikers from the 50’s but rather than street racing, these gents were only too happy to talk about their cars over a shot of espresso.
At 10:00 am,. local band Fuzz Vultures started playing surf-rock classics, their sounds spilling out the open garage door onto the street.
We’re really not experts in vintage vehicles, but some we did recognize were a candy-brandy wine coloured 1965 Chevrolet C10 pickup truck, a mint green 1950 Pontiac Star Chief sedan and an emerald green 1972 Oldsmobile Omega 2-door coupe (like a Chevy Nova).
Some of the really wild customs were just beyond recognition. This purple creation below might have been a 1938 Lincoln Zephyr, but with the chopped-top it’s hard to tell what this car rolled of the production line as eighty or ninety years ago.
Any pre-1980 car was welcome at the meet, and some of the regular daily-drivers from years gone by included a rear-engine 1965 Chevrolet Corvair Monza and a 1968 Cadillac convertible land yacht. These unique rides were from the era when Detroit was not afraid to take chances on revolutionary vehicles, or build something completely ostentatious.
With the GoPro attached to the passengers side window of the Subaru WRX Bugeye, we drove up and down Dupont St to get some cool shots of the cars that lined the street on Sunday morning, before we continued our drive through downtown Toronto.
The stars of the show were the hot rods from the 1940s. Some of the cars looked like they’d been built in the 1950s and were no held together with hose clamps, plywood and rusty nuts. Others had so much gleaming chrome they seemed like they were built last week; not a dent or scratch or spec of rust.
From mid-century famil cars to hot rods and hot rods, the Three Horses car meet was a glimpse at how the Ontario car scene used to be.
Nice jdm and hot rods
We really REALLY believed the Bugeye WRX would be seen as a Japanese hot rod, but nobody else thought so! Some of the guys at the show still gave the car some love and asked questions though.
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But those old hot rods are a trip! Floors made of plywood and stuff like that.
Doesn’t matter, hot rods still turn heads
My son and I were chatting up one of the hot rod guys. He commented something about the WRX parked up the street, and we’re, like “Yo … that’s our car!”.
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Turns out he’s a Subaru mechanic and owned a WRX years ago.
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He seemed to get the “modern day hot rod” idea we were going with.
That’s awesome💯 especially the modern hot rod idea. Hot rods are rare in Kenya
OHHH MAN, I lived in the Toronto area for 5 years and I never came across these people. The traditional Hot Rod scene was my bread and butter for so many years. I miss those days so much.
I can only imagine the hot rod scene in Toronto gets smaller every year. I’ve heard about some of their meets, but brother, they’re so exclusionary (if that’s a word) traditional guys hate the rat rod guys who hate guys with fenders on their cars.
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But this meet at Three Horses was fun. Very agreeable bunch of guys.