Kingsmen Kustoms has been organizing its popular Street Candy car shows for a little over five years now, celebrating its 5th anniversary this past May in Brantford. In that time, the Mississauga-based shop has expanded beyond its regular summer shows to try specialty events like Street Lytes. While the main Street Candy shows are held at indoor arenas, Street Lytes is a totally different experience, where the best part of the show doesn’t even begin until the sun goes down.
Traditionally held at the end of summer, when daylight starts disappearing earlier in the evening, Street Lytes trades the bright lights of an arena for a midnight-blue canvas. It’s the perfect setting for automotive creativity like colourful underglow, interior LED lights, and elaborate custom trunk setups loaded with subwoofers, air tanks and lighting. Some of these modifications barely get noticed in broad daylight, but after dark they become the main attraction.
This year’s event was held at Jane & 7 north of Toronto, in the parking lot of the 360 Sports Complex, with sponsors including On-Air Canada and music provided by DJ Pestano. Cars began rolling in after six o’clock, giving everyone plenty of time to park, polish and prepare for the night ahead.
As golden hour approached, the high-rise buildings beyond the parking lot were silhouetted against a brilliant orange and pink sky, while the last rays of sunlight brought out the colourful paint and wild vinyl wraps. For a few minutes, Mother Nature was putting on the best light show in the parking lot. But the car owners were getting ready to compete.
Demaras Racing’s retro show car, the 1992 Subaru affectionately called the Synthwave SVX, looked totally on-brand with its magenta underglow complementing the custom graphics and dark teal paint. The wedge-shaped Subaru was parked beside a wild Mitsubishi covered in a Looney Tunes wrap, making even the unusual SVX look almost low-key by comparison. That’s not something that happens very often, especially at a car show where standing out is half the point.
Some car shows have a JDM theme or a Euro slant, and tend to be a little exclusionary. Just try driving your slammed Honda into the Burrito Boyz parking lot at Pine Valley and Hwy 7 on a Friday night. You’ll quickly experience those nasty looks that communicate very clearly that your car is in the wrong spot. But luckily, Street Lytes is about a specific kind of customization, not a particular type of car. Nobody cares if you brought a late-model Mustang, a right-hand-drive Nissan Silvia painted like a Japanese police car, or even a green Kia Stinger slammed on air. There isn’t some unwritten rule about which badges belong in the parking lot. If your car looks interesting, you’re in the right place.
That’s what made the event so cool. A wide diversity of muscle cars, classics and imports created a unique show where spectators could walk from one row to the next and find something they’d never seen before. Every corner of the parking lot seemed to have something completely different on display. And all of this was just the ‘pre-game’ show while the sun was setting, before the real spectacle even began.
As the last rays of sunlight disappeared, switches were flipped, LEDs began glowing and the entire parking lot started changing colour. The cars hadn’t moved an inch, but suddenly everything looked different. The daytime car show was over, and Street Lytes was about to show everyone what it was really all about.