Calgary World of Wheels 2013

For 47 years the World of Wheels show has gathered Canada's best customs and classics in Calgary, Alberta. This year's show was filled with muscle cars, hot rods, kustoms and a few modern high performance rides. There was little in the way of Italian exotica, but the hall was full of cars waiting for the beautiful Canadian summer.

Fun With Blocks

The blocks you used to play with as a kid were fun because you could make anything with them. And that's sort of what we're doing today. By halving and doubling the cylinder count of engines with our calculators, we can create hypothetical and fantastical beasts that never were. Let's see what weirdness we can come up with. 

Found in the Yard: The All American Oddball

Ice cream is good. Ketchup is also good. But the two mixed together is questionable. By that logic, today's 1984 Ford Thunderbird Turbo Coupe is a ketchup/ice cream smoothie of equally questionable merit.

New URL, Same Great Taste!

The Life Mechanical has moved to it's own domain at thelifemechanical.com. The old blogspot.ca and blogspot.com addresses should automatically redirect to the new .com address. If you're having trouble accessing pages, articles or images please comment under this article or let us know on our Facebook page. 

Thanks for reading and we look forward to inundating you with cool junkyard finds, car reviews and more event coverage as the weather warms up. And as always, drive somewhere new!

The lead photo was taken by Graham Richardson.

Home Field Advantage: Rattlesnake Raceway

Aerial view of Rattlesnake Raceway, located just outside Midland, Texas.

Some of the fastest race cars of the 60's came out of a little shop in Midland, Texas. Jim Hall and his clever Chaparral cars re-wrote the book on race car aerodynamics. To develop his revolutionary cars, Hall funded the construction of his own race track. (Sound familiar?) Located in the barren desert picturesque plains of West Texas, Rattlesnake Raceway was the home stomping grounds of some of the most radical race cars of the era.

60 Years of Corvette: A Timeline

Like it or not, the Chevrolet Corvette is America's sports car. The Mustang is a four seater, the Viper hasn't been around long enough and the GT40 was slightly British and a race car at heart. 2013 marks the final year of production for the C6 Corvette and 60th birthday of the original. So before we usher in a new era with the C7, let's take a look back.

The Underdog

The Geo Metro is an icon of the 90's. The butt of countless jokes, the diminutive Metro wormed it's way into North American culture by virtue of its cheapness and sheer practicality. The car of choice for Ned Flanders, the Metro has dorkiness that only an AMC Pacer could match. But underneath all it's silliness, the Metro was an honest and fun sub-compact with fuel economy numbers that few modern cars can rival.

Found in the Yard: A Tale of Loss

The junkyard is not a sad place. It's a place where people can gawk at neat finds and acquire cheap parts to keep their current pride and joy on the road. It's like an open casket viewing but it's okay to harvest organs. However, every once in a while, a car comes along that can really elicit some emotion. This 1977 Chrysler Cordoba is one of them.

Found in the Wild: The Real Turbo Brick

Aerodynamics are just a fad. Or so the designers at 1980's Buick (And 1980's Volvo for that matter) seemed to think. Like a dangerous child's toy, today's featured 1982 Buick Regal was covered in sharp creases, drop offs and points. But this particular Buick is also a little edgy under the hood.