Spotted: Lime green desert sand rail cruising through Toronto

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, when junkyards were filled with crashed VW Beetles, countless do-it-yourselfers built their own dune buggies. Some bought kits like the Meyers Manx, while others simply grabbed a tube bender and built their own chassis (the running gear was cannibalized from a crashed VW you bought on the cheap.) Open-framed machines like this one are known as “sand rails,” and are still common in California. But you don’t see a lot of them in downtown Toronto. I spotted this one on Dupont Ave.

Sand rails like this one are popular in events like the Baja 1000, where competitors race through the Mexican desert. A rear-mounted engine, fat tires and low weight let you float over sand that would sink other vehicles. But you do get a few rocks and bugs in the head.

As a boy, I was fascinated with filter-feeding whales, which feed by opening their mouths and straining tiny ocean creatures through massive plates known as baleen. If you checked the family tree of this Firebird, there’s a good chance you’d find a baleen whale or two. Kevin Roy spotted it on College St., in Toronto.

I spotted this stripped and camouflaged Jeep in Forest Hill, a Toronto neighbourhood best known for Range Rovers and BMWs.

When it comes to Jeeps, there are two schools of thought. The first is the Dude Jeep: you treat your Jeep like a pampered luxury car, avoid off-roading, and anoint your prized ride with only the finest waxes. This Jeep is from the second school, where you paint it with a spray can, use it hard, and leave the top down come rain or shine.

I spotted this well-worn Mercury Marquis in Toronto. It’s nice to see old Detroit iron still on the road.

If you were to pack a guitar and head to the Mississippi Delta to meet the devil at the crossroad, this would be a righteous ride for the trip.

Behold: a history told in Rust Check inspection stickers.

I spotted this taped-up ride in Toronto.

Nature hates straight lines, and it takes a holistic approach to engineering. While human designers insist on materials like steel and carbon fibre, configured in precise arrangements that follow defined load paths, birds make strong, resilient structures by weaving together thousands of twigs and stems in a latticework of near-infinite complexity. Kind of like this mirror repair.