Oshawa has always been a makers’ city; manufacturing has been at the city's heart since its inception. From Pedlar People Limited to The Williams Piano Company, and most notably General Motors Canada, Oshawa has been known for making things. Because of its association with GM, Oshawa is known as the Motor City, and automotive vehicles are a part of the city’s culture.
This culture of all things vehicular and vintage is celebrated via the annual Kars on King event on Friday, August 23, in Downtown Oshawa. As many of these vehicles are works of art, the Kars on King event is really a street-based art festival, a chance to marvel and enjoy, to literally look under the hood of cars from every era.
Last month, we suggested an art walk through the downtown to see murals and public artworks on display throughout the city. Well worth doing, however, if you take that same walk during Kars on King, thus adding in the hundreds of sleek, polished vehicles parked throughout the core, all the designs, the details, the individual expressions, Cadillacs and Corvettes, Trans Ams and transport trucks - the city becomes one living art gallery and all of its history and culture gels into something quite real and tangible.
At Oshawa’s main art gallery, the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Tony Romano: The Big Hat Exhibition continues. Romano uses recycled metal to create a storyline of machines with minds. Part shadow puppet and part steampunk, this show, too, when seen in the context of Kars on King, takes on a whole other viewpoint. In the timeline of shapes and movements, cogs and levers and carriage wheels, the hand cut and hands-on making of the art, one can see the McLaughlin's family history with carriage making prior to making cars.
Also on exhibit at the RMG is ‘Pegi Nicol MacLeod: Unforgettably Hers.’ This exhibit brings together works by MacLeod, which the Gallery has in its permanent collection. The monthly RMG Fridays is also an opportunity to catch these exhibits. The August edition takes place on August 9 with music from Cale Crowe of Alderville First Nation and the Ottawa-based duo Moonfruits.
Oshawa is also home to the Canadian Automotive Museum, a place well worth a visit any time of the year, but why not tie in with Kars on King? Exhibits include ‘Exit the Horse: the Early Years of Canadian Motoring 1851-1910’, ‘Canada’s Car Stories’ and a full-scale model of Lightning McQueen from Disney Pixar’s movie Cars.
The Canadian Automotive Museum also offers Walking Tours. On the August Long Weekend (in Oshawa called McLaughlin Day), the museum has organized, for Saturday, August 3, a 90-minute tour of the downtown streetscape where once the McLaughlin Carriage Company, McLaughlin Motor Car Company, and General Motors of Canada were omnipresent. Guides will introduce participants to the city's rich automotive history, and this is also an opportunity to see new businesses which have moved in and, in some cases, preserved those stories, such as the newly opened Market at 70 King, formerly the Genosha Hotel. To mark the City’s Centennial, the tour ends at the Museum with an overview of the past hundred years of cars manufactured in Oshawa, such as McLaughlin-Buicks, Oldsmobiles and Chevrolets.
Stay overnight and visit the Oshawa Museum complex by Lake Ontario. On August 4, the museum is celebrating McLaughlin Day with a tour of its carriage collection, Drive Shed, and Henry House, one of the three buildings that make up the complex.
While Oshawa is known as the Motor City, the name Oshawa, from its heritage as a portage route, means ‘the place to get out and walk.’ So in August, get out and walk, take advantage of this walkable city and tour the works of art, including the fabulous cars of Kars on King, some of which were once made right here in the great city of Oshawa.
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