And more, and more, and more.

It's been a while since my last "post featuring silly numbers of car photos", so here you go. Those bored stiff by this sort of thing, feel free to look away.

I've taken some shots at a couple of recent events - first, the Canadian Motorsports Expo, back on an unseasonably warm day in late January, and then at the annual Canadian International AutoShow in February.

The Motorsports Expo was rather modest in size, and was held at the somewhat grandly named International Centre, out near Toronto airport. The stars of the show were found at a booth celebrating the 50th anniversary of Mosport International Raceway, another of my favourite photographic haunts. First off, a stunning, but never terribly successful, Panoz LMP-1 Roadster S. Unusually for this kind of car, it had a front-mounted engine.



The other real stunner at this show was a Frissbee KR4 Can-Am car. From the last gasp of Can-Am in 1986, long after its glory days were over, this is basically a Lola T400 Formula 1 chassis with full bodywork and a Chevy engine in the back. Up-and-coming driver Paul Tracy would win the last ever SCCA Can-Am race in this car, at Mosport.



At the AutoShow, the usual bombardment of generic-looking new models was in evidence, along with a disappointing lack of exotics. But there were a few, including the astonishing presence of a Ferrari 599XX, the biggest, baddest, craziest front-engined sports racer the Scuderia has ever built. Unfortunately, it was hidden in a back corner behind a concrete post, but here it is anyway.



There was plenty more to look at, but the highlight had to be a tribute to motorsports legend Carroll Shelby, including some cars that are real legends, such as this rather pretty Shelby Cobra Daytona coupe, one of only six ever built.



And, of course, among the selection of stunning Cobras, Mustangs and the like, a few Ford GT40 race cars, including this absolute beauty, memorably crashed by one Mario Andretti at the 1967 24 Hours of Le Mans. Its sister car won the race, prompting driver Dan Gurney to spray the assembled multitude with champagne, thus starting a new racing tradition.



So there you go... more cars, more photos, more hours on Photoshop. And more Motorsports and AutoShow photos over at Flickr, as usual.

Automobilis Repari!

Following on from the last post, the Ricardipus-mobile is now fixed. It's like magic: throw a wad of cash at it, and hey presto! it becomes repaired even while you're not there to see it happen.

And there I was, thinking I might have to buy a replacement:



Despite what I said about it before, this would have done nicely.

Leaving summer

It is autumn, and I am busy. Very, very busy. But not too busy to get out to the local Conservation Area a couple of weekends ago, to take a look at the fall colours. They're legendary around here - maples in bright golds, oranges, reds. The only problem is, that like the other in-between season (spring, that is), autumn only lasts for about a week here. Case in point - it snowed yesterday.

So you have to be quick. Quick, if you want to see those maples exploding in orange against a brilliant blue sky, fluffy white clouds floating by, the air crisp and cold and scented with wood smoke:



Or the riot of colour over the marshlands:



Or the local wildlife, doing its best to compete with the foliage for your attention:



Or those yellows - those glorious, glorious yellows, a last gasp before winter's blinding whites and drab greys set in:



Whoops, sorry about that. Not sure how that one slipped in there.

Daddy's girl.

"I like that horsey."

"Which horsey, honey?"

"The one on that shield."


I swear I didn't put her up to this.

An opinion nobody asked for

Despite rpg's efforts to distract me by asking me to post about muppet-ish behaviour at another place we both frequent, here is yet another post about cars. Because there hasn't been one for, oh, five posts or so.

Which cars? Jaguars? Faster-than-light prototypes? The now-available, oh-so-spiffy battery-operated Tesla Roadster?

Nope. This post is about, now hold your breath, it's a shocker, I'm telling you, you really won't believe it...

Ferraris.

[cue sound effects of mass exodus of disgusted readers]

Ok, ok, it's my marque of choice I know, and I spend far too much time yakking about them, but I really couldn't hold this in. Because after a year or so of speculation, disinformation, and the occasional faked Photo-chop picture, the venerable Scuderia has finally announced its plan for the next Prancing Horse (or should that be, 460 horses?). In true Ferrari style, they've resurrected a hallowed nameplate: the California, reminiscent of the beautiful 250 GT California Spyder of old. Hey, it worked with the Testarossa and the Mondial, so why not?

So, quivering in anticipation, I read the exuberant press release, looked at the typical airbrushed-beyond-belief factory "photos" (of a car that has not yet, as far as I can tell from my limited attempts to find out, been built) and generally spent some time thinking about it instead of doing more useful things. And the result is that I find myself... unimpressed. Someone, somewhere else, opined that when Ferrari releases a new model, we expect to be blown away by its styling and looks. This one looks like a Honda S2000 spliced onto a BMW Z4 roadster, and given a glossy Rosso Corso paint job. Not that either of those cars are particularly bad, but they just aren't Ferraris.

The California is a front-engined (ok, "mid-" front-engined) V8 sportscar, with a folding hardtop roof. The location of the V8 engine is a first for Ferrari, which is not nearly as exciting as you might think since they've been making V8 cars since the early 70's, and front-engined autos since the company's earliest days. The folding roof is a first too, catching Ferrari up to such high-performance heavyweights as, oh, say Pontiac. All this hype is really just another way of saying that it's the first such vehicle to emanate from Maranello simply because they haven't bothered to build one before.

My main gripes, however, are these: first, it basically seems like a front-engined F430. Which I confess is not an original observation, as just about everyone who cares seems to have come to the same conclusion. What makes the F430 great is that it's an absolute demon, a Formula 1-inspired bottle rocket of a car, with Launch Control, paddle shifters, big cheerful air ducts and a gorgeous Pininfarina styling job. No matter that they stole the mirrors from the Testarossa, the tail-lights from the Enzo, the teardrop-shaped cheek vents from Phil Hill's race car, and the overall body plan from the 360 Modena - it's still a mean, lean, lovely machine. A latter-day Enzo for the quarter-million-dollar-a-vehicle set.

Why we need a front-engined version of this, which gains a trunk but almost certainly sacrifices a whole lot of handling, is anybody's guess. The earlier rumours hinted at a "baby Ferrari", a return to the Dino, which I think would have been much more fun. A cheap and cheery little Ferrari, almost in reach of someone who might otherwise buy, say, a Porsche Boxster. Instead, we get a high-tech Corvette that will doubtless cost as much as an Aston Martin V8 Vantage, which, truth be told, is probably its main competition.

Shame really. The world really doesn't need another Corvette, or any number of other front-engined V8 berlinettas I could name. What we need from Ferrari is another monster, something verging on the edge of ridiculous, without stepping over the line into Lamborghini or Pagani territory. Maybe not an Enzo, or the turbo-charged, crazed rocket ship that was the F40, but how about something really eye-popping, really fast, or really different from the rest of the pack? While I'm sure the California will contain excellent technology, a tremendous assortment of bells and whistles, and those trademark hand-stitched leather seats, I can't help but feel just a little, teeny bit let down.

Ah well. Ferrari doesn't exist to make people like me happy, and I imagine that they'll sell an absolute pile of these things. Coming soon, to a highway near you.

A lazy Sunday Springy morning

A weed.

The tell-tale green haze on the willows, tiny leaflets on the rose bush and clematis, the sweet smell of manure from nearby farms hanging in the air. Another sign: I sighted the first Ferrari of the season yesterday - a 355, freed from its winter lair, shamelessly downshifting for no obvious reason other than to make a cheerful noise, flaunting its 8-cylinder muscle at the record-high gasoline prices we seem to be saddled with in these parts.

Spring, it seems, is here, as is the annual post about it, I guess.

And with spring comes grant deadlines, unfortunately. I have a string of them on my whiteboard at work, stretching out through mid-May (and a few long-range ones into July, and even October). Which goes a long way towards explaining why posts here have been thin, to say the least, even taking yesterday's exceedingly lame effort into consideration.

Of course, the deadlines really have the effect of feeding my procrastination engine: weekends are now so nice and sunny (although still cool, with a crisp breeze blowing today) that I have no problem at all in finding multiple things to do instead of grant-writing (or blogging, for that matter). Even mundane tasks, like dismantling the ageing composter, or picking last year's ivy leaves out of the flower beds, take on a remarkably romantic appeal when compared with sitting and typing about this piece of equipment, or that budget line item, or trying to articulate in 2,000 characters or less why we need great gobs of government money to do our research.

I would type more now, but I need to pour some more coffee, and maybe barbeque some lunch. Having already been roped into playing a couple of rounds of a Scooby-Doo boardgame, after watching the red cars dominate the Spanish Grand Prix, I'd say that this Sunday, like many others, is shaping up to be another less-productive-than-anticipated day. Ah well. At least there's a blog post to show for it.

RAAARRRHH!!!

That's the noise an Allosaurus makes, apparently.

Which I heard in person, at the Walking With Dinosaurs live show, which visited the Air Canada Centre on the weekend. The two Junior Ricardipi and I also visited the ACC, at the same time.

And it was this: great. Lots of fun fog and lighting effects, huge audioanimatronic dinosaurs, smaller dinosaurs with people inside them (operating them, not being eaten) and narration by a guy who was like a calmed-down Nigel Marven with a hint of Aussie accent. Absolutely great. JR#2 was a little scared, and maybe the show was a teeny bit long for her, but JR#1 was entranced the whole time. The only downside was that Mrs. Ricardipus didn't come, since the tickets were horrendously expensive. But she got a bit of time to herself, which was nice.

The show-stealer was a baby T-Rex... until mummy T-Rex came along to fetch her home, that is.

And as a bonus, in the drizzle on the way home I saw a jet-black Ferrari Testarossa. That dual mirror-stalk is unmistakeable, just in case I missed the ridiculously huge cheesecutter side strakes. 400 horsepower-ish and rear-wheel-drive - not the first vehicle I'd choose to drive in the rain, though.

--

In other news, the wretched report from before has given way to a grant application, which got polished off yesterday. Now I have a progress report to complete, for tomorrow. All of these are for the same funding agency. What, do they think we don't sleep?