Printed from the Review
Wheel World draws all ages of car fanatics
Playing with toy cars just leads to more expensive toys, exhibitors and fans at the Wheel World car show agree.
Six-year-old Evan Hills has about 1,000 Hot Wheels cars in his collection, sorts them by category and puts on his own car shows. His father Graham used the toys as rewards when the youngster was toilet training.
“He’s a car guy already, that’s for sure,” said Graham, who checked out the annual car show with his son Sunday at the Skylon Tower.
They both come by their love of cars honestly. Hills and his father sell industrial and auto parts, including heavy-duty equipment a lot of Niagara’s custom car builders use.
“I think what I like about this show is he has an eclectic collection,” he said.
Amid the carshow mainstays like Corvettes and Mustangs, Wheel World shows off the oldies like a 1926 McLaughlin Buick, the car that put Oshawa on the map, exotic cars like a 1998 Lamborghini Diablo and oddballs like a 1940 Packard hearse owned by local funeral director Ernie Morgan.
For Bob Russ, a customizer from Olean, N.Y., regular repairs on the 1974 Datsun he bought in 1982, as a senior in high school, just got carried away. Over 10 years, he gradually converted it into a monster truck called the “Boondocker,” with a raised chassis, front and rear hydraulic steering and a bright orange paint job with chrome trim shaped like flames.
For Canadian actor Don Francks, cars have always been a passion, but now he mixes it with his artistic ideas.
“I was a confirmed motorhead when I was a little boy,” Francks, who dabbles in the design of customized cars.
“I graduated from little toys to bigger toys,” said Francks, a Toronto-based performer who played in Finian’s Rainbow in 1968 and has scores of other credits over the past 40 years.
He came up with the idea for a polished aluminum body on a 1926 Model T Ford.
His friend Jim McBurney, Wheel World’s organizer and inventor, helped him build it. Like Francks, McBurney has had a lifetime love affair with the automobile.
After 13 years, his Wheel World show has become an established annual event in Niagara Falls. It’s often the same people who show off their cars, but like him, they often have a recently completed car project to show off.
“I’ve got to be a madman,” McBurney said, when asked why he keeps promoting Wheel World.
Copyright © 2007 Niagara Falls Review
© 2007 , Osprey Media. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Niagara Falls Review acticles reprinted with permission by the authority of Joe Wallace, City Editor of the Niagara Falls Review.
Related posts:
