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Toronto Auto Show: A view from the floor

I spent yesterday at the Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto for the press preview. I know I did, because my feet feel like they've been run over by a bulldozer. And now that I'm off them, it's time for some observations.

- Chrysler has promised us the Fiat 500 within a year. Chrysler Canada president Reid Bigland can usually be counted on to deliver at least one jaw-dropping comment, and he didn't disappoint. Referring to both the car and the leggy model who stood beside it during the presentation, he said, "It's trendy, stylish and youthful and, like Antoinette, a lot of fun."

- The show looks good and the mood is upbeat, but there's no hiding the fact that it's smaller. It used to take up the north and south buildings of the Metro Convention Centre and then spill over into the Rogers Centre stadium, but this year, it's strictly in the Metro Centre. It's nice in that you no longer have to walk or shuttle over to Rogers and then go a million miles up the ramps and down the stairs.

- That said, the show went all-out with eye candy for enthusiasts: an enormous display of Carroll Shelby's cars. He was even on hand for a gala event the night before the press day. Plan to spend at least half your day looking at these vehicles. Then go down to the 800 Level and see the ten cars in the Cruise Nationals.

- What is up with Suzuki? It has the Kizashi, its first all-new in-house car in I don't remember how long. The critics like it. The U.S. can buy it. And here in Canada, there are a couple in the company's booth -- and that's it. No press conference. No fuss. It's not on Suzuki's consumer website. I can't even get product information on it from Suzuki Canada, despite it being already on sale south of the border. As a colleague said, "It almost feels like Suzuki doesn't want to sell any cars."

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In today's paper ...

I have a review of the Dodge Dakota in today's Toronto Star; you can find it here.

I also turned a rant on tuner cars originally published here into a piece for the paper, which is available over here.

So who gave them the keys?

Note to the government, the police, the media, old-car enthusiasts, new-car enthusiasts, and to the general public at large: This is not a tuner car.

Okay, some background. In Ontario, where I live, all of the above regularly get into huge kerfluffles regarding tuner cars and the propensity of their drivers to engage in either planned or impromptu street races. When the heat gets hot enough, the government instructs the cops to go round up as many Hondas and Toyotas with tomato-can exhaust pipes as they can find. At one point, in the most ridiculous media stunt I think I've ever seen, two seized tuner cars were crushed by a bulldozer, with the warning that more would follow. (To the best of my knowledge, they haven't.)

So I opened my newspaper today, and found that three teenagers in my area were charged yesterday with street racing, after three vehicles tore off from a light and one of them hit a tree and landed on a fire hydrant. According to the paper, "Officers found a 1997 Chevrolet Venture minivan on its side ... about 12:10 a.m. yesterday. ... Police seized the van and two other vehicles, a 1996 Pontiac Torrent and 2006 Pontiac Grand Am."

Two of the drivers were 17, the other 18. Now, unless things have changed drastically in the many years since I was a teenager, a full-size minivan generally tends to belong not to the teenager, but to the teenager's parents. That was also the case in 2006, when a Toronto taxi driver was killed by two young men driving Mercedes-Benz cars owned by their parents. In fact, when I read about crashes caused by street racing, full-blown tuner cars don't really seem to make the list all that often. Here's a thought -- maybe it ain't the car.

Maybe parents should be asking where Junior needs to go with two tons of steel and very limited driving experience late on a Friday night. And if he doesn't have an ironclad reason, maybe he shouldn't be getting the keys.

Here's the harsh reality. Street racing is like drunk driving: we can reduce it, but we're never going to eliminate it entirely. We can crush cars, we can ban nitrous, we can tell the cops to pull over cars with little blue lights on their windshield washers, and we'll still get testosterone flowing when the light turns green and it looks like your minivan can take his minivan. We need to stop with the kneejerk reactions and work on realistic solutions that don't involve herding up the Hondas whenever a BMW hits a tree.

If you're of a certain age and grew up in southern Ontario, you probably remember the reminder on Buffalo's Channel 7 every night: It's eleven o'clock. Do you know where your children are?

Do you?