Spotted: Is that a stretch limo ... hauling a load of building materials?

The Chevrolet Corsica is not a timeless classic, so you may as well have some fun with it. I spotted this one on the QEW expressway. The driver looked like he was having a good time – there’s something to be said for the $200 car and the $10 paint job.

Reader Kris Brown noticed this rig near his home in Calgary. It’s not every day that you see a stretched limousine being used to haul a trailer loaded with building supplies.

Here’s another view of that hard-working limo. Give it a wash, unhook the trailer, and you’re ready to load up the bride for that big church wedding.

I spotted this Dodge 340 Demon in Squamish, B.C.. If you lived through the golden age of the Detroit muscle car, you’ll recall the details that defined the genre: shaker scoops, hood hold-down pins, and tachometers bolted out in front of the windshield. Lime green paint was a thing back then, too.

There’s parallel parking, and then there’s this alternative technique. My friend Dave Springford spotted this Smart car in Prague. (This parking system is not recommended for SUVs.)

Reader Craig Delmage spotted this setup in the parking lot of Algonquin College, in Ottawa. Their motorcycle-training curriculum appears to include some novel elements.

Reader Werner Watzdorf spotted this classic VW van in a suburb near Adelaide, Australia. It looks original, but with some strategic modifications – like the aluminum side step and the Fuchs-style Porsche wheels.

This funky-looking Toyota camper truck was parked in Mt. Shasta, California (a high-altitude town noted for clean air and what may be the world’s largest collection of New Age businesses – crystal shops, aura readers, etc.) The Toyota’s angled top would improve aerodynamics. And check out the clearance on the front and back end – this thing was definitely designed for off-roading. And those external storage lockers would hold plenty of crystals.

I spotted this first-generation Honda Insight in Washington State. The Insight, introduced in 1999, was the first hybrid vehicle available in North America. Even though it beat the Toyota Prius to market here by seven months, the Insight remained a niche-market machine thanks to features that made it appealing only to efficiency geeks. The Insight has only two seats, and it came with a manual transmission and drag-reducing fairings that enclosed the rear wheels. Air conditioning was optional.

Here’s a rear view of that Honda Insight. The hybrid powertrain and excellent aerodynamics made it amazingly efficient – the first generation Insight still ranks as the most efficient gasoline-fueled vehicle ever certified by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with a highway rating of 61 miles per U.S. gallon (3.9 L/100 km)

But in 1999, the market wasn’t ready for a two-seat car that looked like a space capsule. As history has shown, pioneering products don’t always win (think of the Apple Newton, the long-forgotten grandfather of the iPhone.)

This Ducati Sport Classic rolled up next to me on Bloor Street in Toronto. Although it’s now discontinued, I’ve always liked the Sport Classic for the way it captures the style and spirit of the 70s café racer movement. If I ever broke down and got another motorcycle, this might be the one.

I spotted this Ford Falcon in Grants Pass, Oregon. My dad owned a Falcon back in the 1960s, but it wasn’t orange.

Looking at the dash of that Falcon took me back to the days when my father taught me to drive. Note the classic chrome speedometer and the column-mounted shifter. This one was an automatic, but my dad’s was a manual, with a clutch pedal and a “three-on-the-tree” shifter. Learning how to operate those two devices was the hardest part of driving, but I finally got it – and became a lifelong fan of the manual-shifter.

End of Days? The shift away from the manual transmission