Infiniti

With winter just around the corner Chop Shop decided to send the 2011 season off properly with a charity BBQ (proceeds to the Canadian Cancer Society and the Food bank) called Oktoberfest. The somewhat unseasonably nice weather lead to a great turn out and because this wasn't a show the atmosphere was super laid back which made it a great way to kill a couple of hours on a fall day.

Looking at this100% authentic Junction Produce Y34/M45 sitting among the rest of the Liberty VIP cars at Importfest '11 it would be easy to assume that it was an out of town car. It certainly looks the part of a car that would be right at home in the garage of a member of the Yakuza. However this beautifully modified Y34 isn't from over seas, or the United States, it is from right here in Toronto.

Summer sure flew by pretty damn fast, the first Stretch and Poke meet of the year doesn't even seem like it was all that long ago and now the last one for this season has come and gone. Though I was only at this season-ender event briefly I was there long enough to see that the community is appreciative of all of Dave's efforts and showed that by the great turn out.

I mentioned last week that Sunday September 11th was a busy day to be a car enthusiast here in Toronto. Conveniently the two events were close enough (about thirty minutes apart) that you didn't really have to make a choice between the two if you were only a spectator like myself. The first event I attended (and returned to) was the Battleground Show N' Shine put on by Battleground Performance and Division R.

There is a lot you can tell about a car club by reading about them online. The size of the club, the cars that make up the club, and how many awards they have won all things translate easily through text. Things that don't translate quite as easily are the presence the vehicles they drive have, the reactions they cause, and the personalities of the individual members. These are things that to really get an understanding of you have to experience in person.

Here's the second part of the 2011 Importfest coverage (well third if you include the women). Compared to last year the first thing I noticed when I showed up at Importfest this year was how incredibly busy it was. While this is obviously awesome it made getting clear photos a little harder than usual, but with some patience I was able to put in work. I tried my best not to re shoot too many of the same cars from the previous coverage so that those who didn't make the show could get an idea of the variety of cars IF brings out.

Is there such thing as a car show hangover? If so that is what I have after this years Importfest Toronto. This has always been a show that people look forward too but I felt as though this year people were anticipating it even more than usual. I think the increased amount of anticipation was due to the hard work the Ifest team put in beforehand promoting the show online and at events, as well as the announcement of several 'feature' cars coming to the show from both within the GTA area and abroad.

Is this seriously only the third rolling shot edition of Theme Tuesday? I could have sworn I had done more than that, I suppose the rig shot one kind of counts, either way they were both several months ago so here we go again. I've taken zero rolling shots myself this year and had none taken of me. I should really fix both of these issues before the season is out.

Car washes are fun when you're young, but frankly, if you're out of the training diapers it's about as boring as it gets when it comes to cars. Unless of course, there are women in wet, skimpy clothes bending over to polish your dirty body. And what makes it even more special and makes us feel a lot less guilty for wanting to partake, is when companies do these car washes for charity! (Plus our significant other can't get as mad). (Potentially NSFW, you've been warned :P)

Stretch and Poke's second official meet of the 2011 season was on Sunday and it brought out all of the usual suspects (Scraped Crusaders, StreetClass, Dorimoto and more) as well as some of the people behind the upcoming ImportExpo. Dave and his ever growing crew are working pretty hard this year to raise the bar in regards to meets in the Toronto area and so far so good as they were able to pull a decent crowd even for Fathers day.

Here is the second batch of photos from the first Stretch & Poke meet of 2011. Over 150 cars turned up to this meet which actually dwarfed a few of the shows that day. I am really glad you guys chose Euros for Part 1 on the fan page because it gave me a chance to edit the rest of the photos I took for todays much more photo intensive post.

This is going to be the second last set of coverage and it's pretty substantial, 50 plus photos from the outside of the show so if you are on a phone or a stressed connection give it some time. Imagine the net worth of all the cars on the convention center grounds during the week? That's a lot of money.