Makes

After last weeks Winter Wednesday featured the first Avant in this post long time reader Phil was practically begging for me to post more Avants here on SIE. Being the nice guy that I am I've decided to honour his request.

Ford Escorts came in several very different flavors. There was the North American Escort, the superior European Escort, and then the Escorts second cousin twice removed the Ford Orion. A quick peek at the wikipedia page reveals that the Orion was a four cylinder motivated, UK only, saloon version of the Escort hatchback that didn’t sell particularly stellar or make much of a splash.

When Honda introduced the CRX SI in 1985 they had a campaign proclaiming it to be a rocket. This campaign hinged on a 16 second commercial that showed it blasting off into the sky via cutting edge 80's video technology. The owner/builder of this CRX was obviously deeply impacted by this commercial because he saw fit to equip his CRX with a gas turbine engine from a small helicopter.

I'm not much of a slush fan. It's dirty, wet, cold, ruins shoes, sucks to slide around in, and generally makes everything a grey soppy mess. Thanks to a fair sized snowfall Monday, and steady increase in temperature to todays high of 14° C, the city of Toronto is currently abundant with the watery slop.

I promised this Theme Tuesday to a local matte black Audi driving friend of mine a few months ago and today I am finally making good on that promise. I've made an effort to include a nice variety in here to hopefully avoid some flying tomatoes from the 'can't believe people like ruined rally cars' crowd.

There’s something about American vehicles from the 50's and 60's that is universally appealing. Pristine examples of this vintage can be found in a variety of locales in which they were never sold, imported by those drawn to the style they convey and period they represent. Cars and trucks from this era capture a time when vehicles were built simple and to the point, not over burdened with driving aids, or designed with pedestrian safety in mind. They were constructed to look good, drive reliably, and withstand the tests of time.

I posted a before and after comparison of this Icelandic 924 turbo on the Fan Page and a few people (somewhat predictably) declared it a Photoshop. About an hour later I followed up with another photo and still people questioned whether or not the car was real or a manipulation of pixels.

Yesterday I got on the subway in Mississauga (with no snow in sight) only to arrive to Toronto in the middle of a snowstorm. That's a complete weather change in about 30 minutes. The snow combined with the bitter cold (double digit negatvies with wind chill) served as a reminder that old man winter has kicked off his shoes and put his stanky old feet on the coffee table with intentions of over staying his welcome.

On Saturday I posted a picture of this Bronco II on the Fan Page with an open call for more information. A couple minutes later @hothweelsnick shot me a link to a 2010 Minitruckin' feature on the truck. The feature revealed that there is more going on here than a curious front end swap and a considerable ride height adjustment.

When it was announced that Pat Cyr was Scion Canada's choice  to campaign the FR-S for the 2013 season I think that the entire province of Ontario unanimously said 'Hell Yeah'. Scion Canada couldn't have picked a better person, or driver, to represent their brand and I don't think I am the only one who  feels Pat receiving support like this was long over due. During the conversation in which he invited me to come check out the car I could tell by the excitement in his voice that what he was building after hours at Cyrious Garageworks was something special.

After SEMA I took a serious liking to C10s, I mean I have always enjoyed them on some level, but after seeing Brad Commer and Chris Smith's pro touring trucks I took a real liking to them. Not to mention all of the other ones literally sitting on the floor both inside and outside of the Las Vegas Convention Center. At the time I held back on this Theme Tuesday because I was posting a lot of trucks.