In August of this year, as the Tragically Hip made their final tour eastward across Canada, I found myself behind the wheel of a large automobile in the very heart of the country.
How did I get here? Well, there’s a sign on the Trans-Canada I’d heard about, one to mark the exact longitudinal middle of the country.
I parked the big blue Dodge on the shoulder, took a picture and then stopped to watch the traffic moving east and west. There were new trucks and old cars, loaded-up minivans and college kids piled into old Civics and Corollas. Everybody was on their way to or from something, each one wrapped up in their own world.
As for me, I was headed to the 100th meridian. The Challenger, a meat-headed brute with a stick shift and a 6.4-litre Hemi V8, was the most appropriate steed I could find. Built in Ontario, it was made to hoover up the straight-line tarmac of the prairies, hammering along towards the horizon, king of the wheat.
I found some little offshoot of a road, marked the crossing of the 100th via GPS, then played a little “Courage” as a tribute to Gord Downie. When the music faded, there was a silent emptiness, the kind of thing that makes you feel like a small traveller in a big land.
Standing there, alone in the vastness of this country’s empty places, was the high point of the year. I’ve driven down many a road in 2016, and as a pretty crazy year draws to a close, it’s worth having a look back.
The Worst Car I Ever Drove
Let’s begin at the bottom of the barrel, shall we?
A visit to Honda’s headquarters in Ohio provided the opportunity to drop in on my friend Myron, who has one of the oddest collections of cars in the United States. Among other things, he has a bunch of early Hondas, a Porsche 914 pickup truck, Wilt Chamberlain’s Ghia 450 SS, and a three-wheeled Davis Divan.
He also has a car that’s almost entirely without merit: a Leatta Cabalero. Now, before those of you with a grasp of Spanish try to point out a typo, that’s really the name, not the correct “caballero.”
They couldn’t even get the spelling right.
Coach-built in Post Falls, Idaho, the Cabalero is a complete potato. It’s based on the Chevette (not great) and then adds some 150 kilograms of Bondo and fibreglass to make something that looks like a 1970s Lincoln Continental that got left in the dryer too long. The Cabalero’s steering was vague. Its acceleration was meagre. However, most alarming were the brakes, which slowed the car with all the vigor of a mild headwind. Worst car I drove all year, and possibly of all time.
Best Import
Japanese cars have come a long way from the cheap and disposable machines of the past. These days Honda, Toyota, and Nissan all have their own luxury brands, and will sell you everything from a twin-turbo supercar killer to a hybrid limousine that rivals the Germans.
I managed to get a seat in all sorts of ordinary and extraordinary Japanese steel this year, including some right-hand-drive notables like a V12-powered Toyota Century, and a modified R34-chassis Nissan Skyline GT-R. However, there was an easy winner.
Thanks to Christian Chia, head of the Open Road group, I managed to line up a unique back-to-back drive of a 1967 Toyota 2000GT coupe and a V10-powered Lexus LFA. Both these cars are extremely rare and valuable, with the 2000GT considered Japan’s first supercar and the LFA a future collectible.
The 2000GT was delicately beautiful; the LFA was completely insane. How lucky to have both in your garage.
Domestic Bliss
The past year had me rounding out the current trio of domestic muscle, with drives in the Mustang Shelby GT350, the Dodge Hellcat and, most recently, the Camaro ZL1. The latter is sort of a combination of the two former, with a 650-horsepower, supercharged engine for straight-line dominance and handling good enough to beat the Mustang around the Nurburgring.
As good as the Camaro is, my heart really belongs to the Shelby Mustang. It’s not quite as quick as the ‘Vette-engined Chevy 2+2, but it comes with a usable back seat and a much better trunk space. I loaded the Shelby up with a bunch of camera gear and a friend and headed up north, staying overnight just southeast of Lillooet, then continuing on up beyond Williams Lake.
There, hidden on the high plains of the Chilcotin region, there’s a wild horse sanctuary. Like the high-powered Mustang, the wild horse has been crowded out by the demands of urban living.
Here, though, both can run free and fast, galloping under empty skies. It’s a pretty good place to find yourself.
Character of the year
In a year when I rode around in a dune buggy with Nardwuar the Human Serviette, hopped in a Lamborghini for coffee with 1970s racing legend Walter Wolf, and sat in the Canadian-made Royal Buick that carried King George, Queen Elizabeth, Charles and Diana, it’d be hard to pick just one standout person.
Well it would be, if it wasn’t for Rudi.
Rudi Koniczek has been bringing Mercedes-Benz 300SLs back to life just outside of Victoria for decades. He just marked 50 years of working with Mercedes and his team is in demand all over the world. If you ever get the chance, pop in to see his collection – it’s jaw-dropping.
However, even better than the cars is the man himself: twinkling-eyed, jolly, horribly profane, sometimes dreamy, an adventurer.
I popped in to visit him as an excuse to have a look at his Tintin collection. Like his intrepid Boy Scout hero, Rudi places integrity above all else. However, just like Hergé’s cartoons, he’s not above a bit of slapstick humour. It’s a privilege to know him.
Drive of the year
Even with all this high-powered machinery, exotic historic oddballs and lapping days at the track, picking out the best drive of the year isn’t hard.
Funnily enough, it happened in Idaho, not far from where the homely little Leatta was assembled. In the middle of a four-week family road trip, we found ourselves winding up through the mountains and crossing the border from the U.S. into the Kootenays.
It was a perfect day, bright and sunny, with fresh green leaves and the road unfurling before us. We’d spent the night in a homesteader’s tent, stoking up the fire before breakfast.
Ahead of us was an overnight stay in Nelson, with the promise of a good meal and soft beds. We’d come far, and there were miles yet to go before we slept: the badlands of Alberta, the Icefields Parkway.
But that’s all a year is, isn’t it? It’s the hurry-through, the constant motion. You stop for a moment to mark the milestone, get out to stretch your legs and watch the traffic pass. 2016 – The distance under your wheels. 2017 – What lies ahead?
