Start your engines: The 40th Toronto Auto Show

It was ages ago since I last went to a car show. And it was nowhere near as fantastic as the Toronto Auto Show! We started off at the North building where the Japanese cars and SUV’s/trucks were showcased. The girls had a blast climbing in and out of the SUV’s, pretending to be picky buyers. There were also a couple of race cars on display—pretty cool. Hubby joined a game (one of the many gimmicks in the exhibit) for a chance to win gas cards. He went into a glass box with paper flying all around. And if he managed to catch the winning cards and put them in the small box within 15 seconds, then they were his.  In the short time we hung around, nobody won. Oh well. There were also some amazing hi-tech displays there, which left the girls in awe. There was the Nissan hologram booth where they get to select cars and their colours by moving their hands—like Kinect. There was also another activity at the Hyundai booth where the girls were able to manipulate images by touching a screen of smoke. You could select either the car or the engine, make the image bigger/smaller, and even rotate it.  You could also do the usual stuff with the car’s body like change the colour, add accessories, etc.

And before we knew it, it was time to eat. The food court at the North building offered some very lean pickings: pizza, sushi and hotdogs. We forked over $25 for a couple of hotdogs, a slice of pizza and a veal sandwich—no drinks! We were eating for sustenance, and that was it.  After all, we had another building to cover and many more cars to see. The Metro Toronto Convention Centre was so huge that there were shuttles to get from one building to another!  We opted for escalators and a good hike.

The South building had the European, vintage and accessory sections. We dropped the girls off at the Volkswagen supervised play area, so we could cover more ground.  The cars proved to be so interesting that we knew the girls would absolutely love them.  So, we took them around the exhibit after they were done with their crafts and face painting.  Hubby and I didn’t mind checking out the amazing cars a second time around.  We went back to the BMW concept cars—our family’s hands down favourite.

the BMW i8--can you tell why this is our fave?!

another view BMW i8--love the doors!

We preferred the i8 over the i3.


BMW i3

Girls being girls, we like anything sparkly. Add to that some cuteness, and you have a winner with the disco Smart car!

Disco Smart!

Then, we made our way down to the Toyota concept car—the Fun Vii. We got our family pic taken on a tablet and seconds later, our faces were up on the side of the car! It was so amazing! Think of all the marketing and advertising this car can do! (And while this was not demo’d at the show, we found out later on that the doors of the Fun Vii were also a giant touch screen!)

Toyota Fun Vii with some stock wallpaper

Our last stop (or so we thought) was the hot rod exhibit. Beautifully maintained and restored vintage vehicles garnered a few favourite votes for us.  Hubby especially liked the “Cruella de Ville” car and I was amazed at the intricate design of the dragon mags of another vehicle (pardon my ignorance at the models and makes—by this time, all the R’s, X’s and i’s were blurring in my mind).  It was already becoming pretty difficult to navigate the exhibits. The place was packed and we were getting tired (after all, we had been walking for almost 5 hours!). Lollipop give-aways managed to give the girls a much needed boost, but not for long. After another short stop at the exhibit for modern modified cars, we headed back to the parking garage, with all our loot bags, of course. It was time to enjoy our very own ride—with an engine we could actually start.

Hot Rod