It's the middle of winter. I enjoyed a lovely holiday season in Montreal followed by a fun 7-day trip to Cuba with the family. I participated in another TSD rally with the Saabaru a couple of weeks ago with my co-driver Josée. We signed up in the "expert" class, for those with more than three events under their belt, and we finished last out of 5 experts, and 7th out of 30-something participants over all. Even though we came last, this was our best score ever (I think) with 6.9 minutes of penalties in 240 km. We accumulated most of these penalties by arriving too early, so I'll have to slow down a little at the next event. The car behaved absolutely flawlessly in the rally and has been reliable on the road thus far this winter.
I went to the car show last week, and it was quite disappointing. There are few interesting cars on offer for enthusiasts and I will never consider a brand new car anyway. A few comments: the most boring lineup is probably from Mistubishi, which basically has only SUV's and the 3-cylinder Mirage. Another stand that was surprisingly lame was Porsche's: no GT-2 or 3 or 4... no racing cars... quite boring. BMW had a couple of M-cars, but, as was the case in general at this year's event, no racing cars.
Here are a few photos:
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| There were some cool tuner cars |
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| Nice Datsun 510 |
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| Super-clean Porsche 914-6 |
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| Stripped-down Toyota GT86 |
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| Expensive track day special |
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| The new G-Wagen |
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| Still one of my favourites, although the orange makes me think McLaren more than Honda... |
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| One of the only race cars, a TCR Audi |
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| Another track version of an already fast car |
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| Not a great colour for Lamborghini's SUV |
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| This was a great colour and wheel combo |
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| After all the waiting, the new Toyota Supra is a bit disappointing in the flesh |
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| It looks like a bunch of other cars out there, |
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| A lovely first-gen Civic |
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| Toyota is offering this cool retro blue on at least three models. |
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| Still cool after all these years |
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| Race and street versions |
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| At least Nissan brought a race car |
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| One of my favourite cars this year, a semi-affordable track car. |
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| Nice styling, nice wheels, cool paint |
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| The new Competition version of the M2 |
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| ... clearly indicated on the trunk |
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| One of the McLaren's, I can barely keep track of their names |
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| Koenigsegg, not my thing, but nice |
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| Even less my thing, but still impressive |
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| Nice details on the rear |
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| Continental had this nice Cayman GT4 on Rotiform wheels |
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| The new Mustang Bullitt was nice. |
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| I was susprised to see the Jaguar Project 8 |
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| Nice new colour for the Toyota FRS |
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| M-Town! |
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| Nice Jeep pickup |
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| The Challenger Hellcat still looks good |
I haven't done anything with the BMW and Civic, both of which are in storage. There are quite a few small jobs I would like done on the Civic, and I hope to get organized to have Pat do them before the season starts.
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| Nice winter car |
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| Saabaru after the daycare drop-off |
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| Saab in the supermarket parking lot |
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| An unexpected shopping car on a stormy winter evening |
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| I don't love the Audi S3, but it looks decent in yellow with these wheels |
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| Did I mention that it was snowing during the TSD rally? |
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| It was still snowing after the event |
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| I spotted this newer Chinese MG in Cuba |
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| It looks OK, could use some nicer wheels |
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| I love that this R8 driver not only drives his V10 Spider in winter, but that he or she also clearly parks it outdoors... |
