Hopefully everyone is having a good weekend – with the Redline show being next week I’m sure many are working away to get things finished up in time for what should be another amazing event! It seems we’re currently in a marathon of larger meets and even shows now, with more and more announcements being shared on social media for gatherings around the city. Even though Driven itself was only a couple of weeks ago it almost feels longer with how much has happened since. On that, today I have the final entry of our Driven coverage so that the photos I’m sitting on from various installs and other happenings can start going up next. 

Before the photos begin today I will put the disclaimer out that I did not shoot every single car at the event, in case that wasn’t obvious yet. Many cars we have the good fortune of seeing semi-regularly and so they appear on the site in other entries, whereas in other cases perhaps cars were blocked by spectators, I wasn’t overly happy with the photos, or frankly just didn’t photograph them. There were years I’d come back from Driven with near-on 1000 new pictures on my memory card but these days you could say I’ve streamlined things a bit – for lack of a better word – and come back with a fraction of that. 

With that, here are the final photos from this year’s Driven Calgary. This entry isn’t going to be as long as the previous two but there were a few more gems I still wanted to share. I hope you enjoy!

We’re starting off with a few more of the MkV; I shot a few more of this than of many other cars for my own photo collection, but also so I could have a number to send Jesse’s way. And in case you were wondering about those rear flares: 85mm! 

Brilliant colour combo, with these two. 

These ’69 Mustangs were quite something to see, because they weren’t actually ’69 Mustangs. As the display boards showed, each was a newer model Mustang (a 2012 in the case of the black car, and 2014 for the silver car) that had most of its body cut off and replaced with the panels of the older model. A couple of proportions here and there were slightly off due to what the old sheetmetal had to fit around but if you didn’t know what to look for you’d never suspect anything. I also wonder if they’ve ever had trouble with police just due to a random check of the license plates, and seeing that they should be on newer Mustangs yet they aren’t. Except they are… 

Is it weird if I were to say an FR-S sporting full V1 Rocket Bunny aero with no graphics brings the word “subtle” to my mind? So many cars – especially those with widebodies – have so much going on these days that this almost looks simple or low-key in comparsion.  

I remember I’d taken a couple of photos of this MR2 at a Menace meet last year, but they never made it on to the site. If I were to tell you that it was swapped – and not with a Toyota motor – what would your first guess be? K-series, perhaps? 

Well, you’d be wrong. How many guesses would it take for you to finally land on “Audi V8”? And no, I have no idea how it managed to fit in there. 

Kyle’s ST, with the hood popped to show off the painted accents and Massive (brand name, hence the capital M) front strut bar.

This E36 was quite impressive – and I wish I had more photos to show of it. Once you could stop staring at the full Pandem kit, a peek under the hood revealed that it backed up the looks with a single turbo-converted N54 swap. The interior meanwhile, was a gorgeous white/black combo which worked perfectly with the wrap colour. 

I was excited to see this FD debut at the show; Nick had been working on it recently giving the exterior a lot of attention. It was fully resprayed in its original Competition Yellow Mica, but not before receiving a brand new quarter panel and a period Mazdaspeed front bumper. Add in the matching wheels, and you have another car (like Clayton’s R32 GT-R) that looks like it was built 20+ years ago and was perfectly preserved since then. 

On the other end of the scale then, was Nick’s own FD and its molded TCP kit. This thing looked amazing in its previous form – honestly I’m not sure which look I even prefer – but there’s no denying the insane visual presence it has with the widebody. 

Brandon’s freshly-painted Mustang, next to Ryan’s S5 and Shawn’s WRX. That chrome tint is mental.

I appreciate the commitment (bravery? accepting of the fact that you’ll be stared at non-stop by other drivers and police alike?) that running a livery like this takes; Calvin recently put one on his S15 and says it’s the “heatiest” car he’s ever driven by a wide margin. He offered to let me borrow it and I haven’t yet taken him up on that – I’m not sure I could handle it. Granted, his livery is a bit less…PG…than this one. Haha

It was hard to miss these two with their vibrant wraps and spot-on wheel fitment. I didn’t even know you could fit so much dish on that generation Civic!

And finally, as the last shot for our Driven coverage this year: one that’s technically not even of Driven. This was me peeking through the fence at stuff in the parking lot, as the green bugeye caught my attention and was too nice to not take a photo of! 

So yes, that concludes this year’s coverage. I hope you all enjoyed, and I want to extend a thanks to everyone who was sharing the photos of their cars – or sharing photos in general – on social media! There was a lot of awesome feedback on this year’s entries and I was excited to see so many tags and incoming messages on the various platforms. With this entry now wrapped up I’m going to get straight into editing the photo sets for the next few posts to come, though I can’t say just yet which I’ll publish first. Regardless I have some pretty cool things I can’t wait to get live, and hope that you all enjoy them as well. 

More to come soon; thanks for reading!

-Bill