Spotted: An SUV from decades before they were popular

The life of a downtown Toronto car owner would make for a decent blues song – brutal traffic, crippling insurance bills and no place to park. Then the snowplow passes by and buries your Beetle. As B.B. King would put it, the thrill is gone.

Here’s another angle of that buried Beetle. The owner appears to have two choices: find an industrial-size hair dryer and a really long extension cord, or wait for spring.

Back in the 1960’s, no one had heard of an SUV. But they existed in the form of trucks like this seventh-generation Chevy C10 Suburban, a family hauler created by welding a station wagon tail section on a pickup truck chassis. This generation of the Suburban was built from 1967 until 1972, and is notable for a distinct design feature – there’s only one door on the driver’s side. I spotted this one in Toronto.

When I spotted this blacked-out Ford Crown Victoria, I naturally thought it was a police car. Then I noticed the handicapped sticker on the dash, and realized I was in the presence of one of my favorite vehicle sub-genres: the ex-police car. There’s nothing cooler than a well-worn cruiser. As a side benefit, everyone on the freeway will slow down and let you past.

If you’re going to drive an ex police cruiser, why not keep the accessories that brand it as a lawmaker’s former ride? Like this spotlight, which comes in handy when you’re trying to see a dim house number or pinpoint a fleeing perpetrator.

The owner also retained the Crown Vic’s all-important Police Interceptor badge. This tells the world that your car has an upgraded motor, suspension and brakes. It also says that your car has a lot of hard miles on it, and that you got it cheap.

You can take out the radios and the shotgun mounts. And you can put in all the pink stuffed toys you want - but once a police car, always a police car.

I spotted this Lexus in my neighborhood. Not everyone would go with green wheels on an orange car.

Also spotted in my Toronto neighborhood: this camouflaged Ford F-150.

My cousin Greg MacCluskey is a long-time fan of classic cars and bikes. He wants me to come out to the west coast and ride up Mt. Baker with him this spring, and sent along this picture of the riding stable we can choose from. How can you go wrong with a Norton Commando, BSA Lightning, or Honda CB 900F? Greg restored all of them.

Greg also sent along this picture of himself with a pair of Norton Commandos. If you’re a gear head who grew up in the sixties and seventies, the Commando is permanently imprinted on your consciousness. This is a bike that symbolized an era - and it had one of the coolest names ever applied to a motorized vehicle.

My inbox is always flooded with car-company product announcements. But this one stands out – Porsche has released a new version of the 911 that ticks every box for me. This is the 911 GT3 RS. It doesn’t have a turbocharger, but it makes 500 horsepower. As a former Porsche mechanic and life long buff, I never cease to be amazed at how the company continues to breathe new life into this iconic car. The RS arrives in Canada this summer. Pricing starts at $200,700. Oh well, you can’t have everything.