volkswagen

What do you get when you cross a Mk1 Volkswagen Caddy, a 91 Toyota Soarer, some metal for a roll cage, two wheel tubs, BC Coils, a hydraulic handbrake, green paint, and some Rota Grids? Evidently a cool little truck that can slide with the best of them.

Traditionally a Theme Tuesday post would be in place of this one but since I didn't have time to get one finished before leaving for Vegas I am going to get right into the 2012 SEMA coverage. Since attending in 2010 I've been itching to get back and based on what I saw outside the convention center yesterday SEMA 2012 is going to surpass my expectations.

Shortly after Importfest --where he won both Stretch & Pokes' aggressive fitment category and the best assisted Stance award sponsored by Stance Is Everything-- Ryan asked if I would be interested in shooting his car for a feature on Stretch & Poke. Dave (at Stretch & Poke) and myself have been looking for a way to collaborate for a little bit now and this was really the perfect opportunity.

Recently a couple s-10 owning friends of mine stripped their trucks down to bare metal and seeing them both paint and rust less (at least for the time being) triggered this weeks Theme Tuesday. Interestingly enough it was common to come across posts that read 'this car was later painted' due to how hard it is to keep a bare metal car looking pristine no matter what you coat it with.

Import Expo is now in it's third year of operation (and I believe fourth event) and while previous shows took place in the middle of summer this years served as the unofficial show season close out event. Having never attended an Import Expo event before I went in with an open mind knowing that this one wouldn't be quite on the same level as their summer shows I had heard great things about.

When I did the first 'Cars With Mouths' Theme Tuesday in 2011 I never imagined it would be so well received, nor did I think that it would lead to a part two, but a year later here we are. Plenty of military (Warthog/Tigershark) inspired examples in this post as well as a few more creative examples.

I've heard good things about Rockstar Motorsports through Brett, Kiwee, and Neil but up until Saturday I had never actually been to the shop myself so after helping (standing around) Lyndsey with a photo shoot we rolled the new support vehicle over to the Rockstar facility in Oakville to see what was up. The turnout was better than I expected which was great to see because it was a charity event aimed at helping a family that recently lost someone to cancer.

I didn't go to H20i again this year, no excuse really, I just plain couldn't afford it due to recent purchases and trip to Vegas (read: SEMA) at the end of this month. So similar to last year I did a quick perusal of photo threads and compiled a short list of cars I liked.

A few weeks before he was shredding tires in an effort to amuse a hot dog eating jagermeister aficionado Mike Smeraldo drove his Jetta out to Calgary to meet up with Mike McConnell. Put two Mike's with a passion for Volkswagens in one place, add a camera, and you end up with these photos.

The CSCS season finale is always an exciting event to attend because while some are gunning to set records on the track others are looking to secure year end awards in the show and shine. For myself and several others the excitement began on the way to the track with a surprise emissions/safety spot check by the Ministry of Transportation right off the highway.

Since the 'Drifting Gif' Theme Tuesday I've had a bumpercrop of various automotive gifs floating around on my hard drive and today I am going to post all of those that are not racing related. You will probably have to be a little patient and let this one load a minute. I'm sure posting a page of only gifs is not exactly on the list of things to do to decrease page load times.

Lately a number of people have been subtly (and not so subtly) suggesting that I should make the switch to air. While I have yet to make up my mind one way or the other I will say that the idea of having the ability to lay sparks down whenever I feel like is pretty damn appealing.