Capital Corvette Club Outing: Tuque de Broue, December 9, 2017

Although Corvette season is over, socializing is not and one of our members organized a group outing (with not a single Corvette!) to the Tuque de Broue craft brewery in Embrun, Ontario, yesterday.  Embrun, first settled around 1845, is located 25 minutes' drive from Ottawa, and has a majority French-speaking population.  It is predominantly agricultural but growing rapidly as a bedroom community for Ottawa.

The club visited the brewery last Fall for the launch of their pumpkin ale and the most recent visit was to celebrate the new seasonal beer, St-Nicolas Coffee Porter.  The proprietor is also named Nicolas but while he pointed out that he is no saint, he did mention that the picture on the label does look like him.  The beer is very smooth, with a noticeable coffee note at the end.  The owner of the plantation in Honduras that supplies the coffee was present as well!

The brewery has seen impressive growth in the last year, and Nicolas even mentioned that they ran out of beer in July at one point.  There are more fermentation tanks and an even wider range of interesting beers.  Food, in the form of pulled pork sandwiches, was available, along with many gift items.

We had our own table in the back room of the brewery but at the rate they are going they might be filling this space soon too!  So even without our Corvettes it was a fine day out...

Capital Corvette Club Fall Colours Outing: October 21, 2017

The Corvette season was rapidly winding down and the Capital Corvette Club grouped together one last time for the annual Fall Colours Tour. arranged by Kim and Dave Cruikshank.

After meeting at the usual gathering place at Myers Chevrolet in Kanata, our group of Corvettes cruised leisurely through the countryside, passing Carp, Almonte and Pakenham, and eventually making our way to the village of Balderson.

Originally called Balderson Corners, the little crossroads village was named after John Balderson, a British sergeant who settled there in the late 1860s.  In 1881 a group of local dairy farmers banded together and built a small cheese factory, which became celebrated as the home of Balderson Cheddar.   A little community sprang up, centred on the factory.  The original factory burned down in 1928 but was replaced by another building, which was expanded a number of times.  A cheese shop was opened in 1970 but Balderson Cheese is now made in Winchester, Ontario under the direction of the multinational Parmalat firm.  The cheese shop is now a gourmet shop, with a neighbouring Amish furniture shop and snack bar and that is where we pulled in.

The History of Balderson Village, a sign that contains more information than you can find about Balderson on the Internet!

After everyone had bought their various gourmet items, we hit the road again, continuing down Regional Road 511 in Lanark County, coming to Perth.  

It should be noted that a group of cheesemakers in Perth produced the Mammoth Cheese in 1893.  It weighed 22,000 pounds and was shipped to the Chicago World's Fair, an impressive feat in those pre-refrigeration days.  It subsequently was bought by Sir Thomas Lipton and shipped to England, where it was finally consumed.  Apparently a small piece still exists at the Perth Museum but is not on display due to its fragility.  There is a monument in Perth, a replica of the Mammoth Cheese, but sadly we were not aware of this when passing through.

The Mammoth Cheese, being moved by lots of horsepower

After enjoying some more quiet country roads we were soon on the outskirts of Ottawa and the Cruikshanks brought us to our lunch location, a Scottish pub in Stittsville.  A good time was had by all even if we all knew that the Corvettes would all soon be under cover, awaiting the good weather next year.

Capital Corvette Club Outing to Calabogie, September 30, 2017

The Corvette driving season in Ontario is rapidly drawing to a close and I have already made arrangements with my mechanic for an oil change and minor service before the car goes into storage on November 1.  It has been a terrific year again and looking at the odometer, which now reads over 72,000 kms compared to the 32,000 when the car was purchased by us on April 30, 2015, I feel that the car is being driven as it was intended although 18 months of actual on-the-road time has not been enough!

The Capital Corvette Club's latest outing was led by Wendy Hall.  There was an excellent turnout, with 22 cars present.  Wendy took us from our meeting point at Myers Chevrolet in Kanata westwards through Almonte and past several little villages on pretty--and deserted--roads until we reached our lunch stop, Shooters Bar & Grill in Calabogie.

After a very pleasant lunch, we drove out of the parking lot of the restaurant a short distance and parked along Lake Calabogie for some more photos.  It was a beautiful day, sunny and a bit cool.

Leaving Calabogie, we turned right onto Regional Road 511, which brought us southwards through the hamlets of Hopetown, Herrons Mill, Clydesville, Lanark and Balderson before reaching Perth.  This is an excellent road, with numerous curves and changes in elevation.  I was familiar with the first 20 kms of it as it made up the time trial course I rode a number of times on my bicycle.  But these 63 kms went a lot faster than expected as everyone enjoyed the handling capabilities of their Corvettes.

Reaching Perth, the group split for home, a simple matter of turning east on Highway 7 for Ottawa.

Raduno Chateau Montebello, September 24, 2017

Chateau Montebello is an enormous log hotel constructed in Quebec, opening in July 1930.  It was a private club, the Seigniory Club, until purchased and turned into a 211 room hotel by Canadian Pacific in 1970.  It is currently managed by the Fairmont group, although a Chinese real estate company owns the property itself, which encompasses 65,000 acres and 70 lakes.  The site of numerous grand events, including a G8 meeting, the hotel has played host to many celebrities.  Last Sunday these included my friend Brian, of Cobra fame, and myself as the Corvette was headed northeast from Ottawa over the usual poorly-maintained Quebec roads to Montebello, an hour away, for a non-Chevrolet event.

This was the annual Raduno Chateau Montebello, organized by the Italian Car Club of Ottawa, and sees all kinds of Italian-built vehicles from Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and the United States.  It was a blazing hot morning as we parked the Corvette in the hotel lot.  We walked past the imposing log edifice and the marina to the shore of the Ottawa River, where the first cars were rolling in for the "Raduno" (or Rally).  We were there fairly early and there were not a lot of cars yet to be seen but already there were some very interesting ones--how about three DeTomaso Panteras to start things rolling?  These Italo-American hybrids, with their Modena-built bodies and Ford V-8 drivetrains, have been gaining in collector popularity, especially now that the quality issues have all been addressed over the years.  The cars were sold at Lincoln-Mercury dealerships in North America from 1971 to 1975 but continued to be produced after the breakup with Ford until 1992.

The next group of cars to attract my attention were FIAT X1/9s, a car I always thought was very cleverly designed and possibly one of the best of the wedge-shaped generation.  Penned by the noted Marcello Gandini of Bertone, the mid-engined car was sold as a FIAT from 1972-1982, and then the project was entirely in the hands of Bertone until production ceased in 1987.  Powered by a 1300 or 1500 cc. engine, the affordable car offered impressive handling, a removable targa top, retractable headlights, front and rear storage areas and futuristic styling.  It was also notorious for rust so very few remain on the road today.  It was great to see so many examples at Montebello.

FIAT was well-represented with other cars as well.  There were a lot of the current FIAT 500s, with a particularly strong selection of the Abarth version of the car.  There were a number of the small economy cars for which the company was noted but also an impressive Dino Coupe, the only one of these I have ever seen.

The fabled marque Alfa-Romeo was present, with a number of Spyders, which were produced for many, many years, and a very fine red GTV, a coupe I have always admired.

Modern Alfas were present as well, with a pair of 4Cs at the Raduno, along with a white Stelvio SUV.

There were several other oddities, including a tiny Autobianchi, a Lancia Delta, and some British cars that found an appreciative audience, but most people were probably there for the Ferraris, which made a big entrance around 11 o'clock as the Ferrari Club of Montreal arrived en masse.  There were a lot of late model cars, including an FF, a 488, and an F12, and there was a big line of red cars with tan interiors established in no time at all.  Maseratis came as well, with a Quattroporte, a Grand Sport, and a new Levante SUV.  Ferraris impress when there a few of them at a mixed show but suddenly being confronted with 25 of them lessens the impact.  Nonetheless, they are cars with a strong presence although many of the current models lack the beauty of previous generations.

Of course, all this high-dollar showing off had a a down-to-earth althernative.  There was a Simpson Design Italia present, a very charming car which uses a Mazda Miata as a basis for a small sports car with lots of Ferrari 275 GTS styling cues.  It was very nicely constructed by Signore Pininfarina must be spinning in his grave.  

All in all we had a very fine day admiring the cars.  And of course can you have a Ferrari display without a beautiful woman?  We were entertained by this very tall and attractive lady who demonstrated the perils of choosing the wrong footwear as she was unable to walk across the grass without teetering dangerously and had to hold onto her male companion to keep from falling!

By 1 o'clock the heat (and dehydration) meant that we had had enough so we took our leave of the Italian cars and walked back through the spectacular hotel, with its hexagonal lobby and impressive fireplace that rises 20 m to the roof.  The hotel was constructed from 10,000 logs and must be one of the few in this "great camp" architectural style still extant.  The friendly staff offered a suggestion for our lunch in the village of Montebello and some pizzas later we were on the highway and headed for home.