Father’s Day filled with Exotic Cars

I had the great privilege on Sunday to be asked by the Yorkville Exotic Car Show to bring the BatBerry down to participate as part of their Father’s day show. It is a charity event where they bring out a bunch of exotic cars from around the area to allow everyone to check out these vehicles in person.  Proceeds from the show go to support Prostate Cancer Canada. Fantastically well run event with professional organizers, great coordination, communication and support from security staff and the Toronto police department.

The above picture is an actually really good representation/summary of how the day started.  And of course, the BatBerry is not waterproof yet… so it got a little damp 🙂

I have to take my hat of to Sean and the team from Elite Custom Car Storage who took care of the transportation of the car to and from the show.  They made sure that it happened even with the downpour of rain and multiple tries to find a means of transporting the car to the event.  I must say that they were a top notch company to deal with. I see why people trust them to move around their half million dollar vehicles.

Of course, once we successfully managed to get the car up on the truck the rain finally stopped. Murphy’s Law.  But the rain gods were eventually friendly since as soon as we arrived at the show the rain stopped and the rest of the day was nothing but blue skies and sunshine.

Having the BatBerry at the show was an absolute hit!  Kids both young and old loved the car and it had a swarm of people around it from the time it arrived and even had the streets lined with people watching the truck load it back on to go home at the end of the day.  I figured since the car is only half way complete, I might as well let people get up close and personal to get lots of great photo opportunities.

I was also lucky enough to have my wife and daughter come down to the show to see first hand how excited people were to see the car.  My daughter was proud as could be showing off the car that she sees in the garage every day (but usually in pieces). It was great to have the two of them down there supporting me for Father’s day!

Of course there’s always a few disrespectful people who seem to think it’s a good idea to climb on top of the car for a photo…. so I had to shoo away a few folks.  I figured that since I don’t sit on the roof of their car, they shouldn’t likely be allowed to sit on the roof of my car. But generally everyone was pretty good.  I even did a short interview that ended up on a local news report for the show.

Also, I’d like to send out a big Thank-You to the followers of this blog who made the trip downtown Toronto to say hi and check out the car in person. It’s always great to meet people who are interested in my crazy project!

There were lots of great questions from everyone who were interested in the car and even some fun ones with the kids.  A couple kids were asking if the car was mine.  When I said yes, their response was “But then where’s Batman”.. so I told them that they had to keep it a secret… but “I was Batman”.  It was awesome to see their eyes light up with this great new secret that only they knew and their parents were absolutely great to play along 🙂

What I always find amazing is watching people rush past Lamborghini’s, Ferrari’s and McLaren’s to get up close and take pictures of a Batmobile that is still only half finished! It goes to show just how iconic this car really is and the emotional reaction it gains from those who love the Batman character. It was great to hear so many comments around the car being the hit of the show and I was asked to do a bunch of other events including bringing the car to a wedding… and the awesome part was that it was the Bride asking for it to be there 🙂

Loading up the car was much easier since we had already gone through the process once before.  The truck driver had an audience of about 200 people lining the streets and a group of police officers, so I told him “no pressure it’s not like anyone’s watching”.  I was even joking with one of the kids watching us load the car.  The truck pulled in front of the car and lowered down its bed.  He asked “Are you loading the car up now?”.. my response was “No, this is just part of the show… The truck is actually creating a ramp, and I’m going to activate the afterburner and we’re going to jump the car over the truck!”

His jaw dropped!! But then his dad started laughing and he realized I was just pulling his leg 🙂