With Driven approaching fast there is plenty to look after but I wanted to get a quick post live tonight to keep the blog active and give you all something new to look through. On April 26th the Nifty Fifty’s Ford Club of Calgary hosted their Spring Thaw event as a way to kick off the season and give enthusiasts a good reason to get their toys cleaned up. This year was a little different as the event was moved to the Grey Eagle Casino, and while the parking lot’s design did cause some congestion issues at the end of the day it all went very well and everyone I spoke to seemed to have a great time. It was a chance to see some incredible cars out and back on the road, catch up with friends, and also pick up the first sunburn of the season (some things never change).

Cars of all eras, makes, and styles showed up and I doubt anyone couldn’t find something that interested them. I saw everything from an R34 Skyline to a Plymouth Superbird drive by during the day.

After the awards were announced the sound of cars starting up and running was all we could hear and a line started to form leading to the exit – this is where the only real problem arose as with how the lot is arranged, trying to get such a large number of cars out at once only lead to a massive clog and it ended up taking over two hours to empty the lot! We decided that rather than join the line, we would instead relax and watch the cars go by and leave once the crowd had cleared out. This also gave us more time to chat with others and even get a look at some vehicles we hadn’t seen while walking around due to the size of the show.

Thanks to the Nifty Fifty’s club for once again hosting the Spring Thaw and to the Grey Eagle for allowing the use of their lot for the event!

 

Naturally I brought the Focus down, after shining it up the day before. Coming along with it was the Thunderbird and the two happened to wind up parked next to each other.

Since we have an early-90’s Suburban in the fleet this one always gets my attention. The flames aren’t exactly my style but it’s super clean and well-done.

This was one of my personal favourites of the day – “Double Double”. Using a Tim Hortons’ offering as a theme for a car may not seem like an obvious choice at first but I really like how it turned out! The colour was amazing.

Little Kermit here was drawing a steady crowd. The photo doesn’t really convey just how small it was but the space between it and the yellow lines should help give an idea.

Many vehicles can be spotted driving around town right now with these flags to show support for our hockey team (the Calgary Flames) but these were the only ones I spotted at the show – definitely a cool touch. I like how the car’s colour scheme happens to match.

This little VW is one I don’t recall seeing before. Reading Jason’s blog, I see it was also present at the recent Close To Home show.

The last shot for today is of Kanji’s BRZ with its new lip kit. The roped-off area for the show filled up after about 500 cars but more kept arriving and wound up parked in the regular lot. I only took a very quick stroll through and didn’t grab a single shot aside from this one when I suddenly spotted the Subaru parked off to the side.

With Spring Thaw taken care of, next on the calendar (May 2nd) was the 780 Tuners Season Opener and I drove the Focus up to Edmonton to attend that one as well. Coverage of that is coming next, along with updates involving all of these parts the mailman has been delivering lately…17 days to Driven!

-Bill