When it comes to Mopars in Canada; Edmonton, Alberta is the mecca for high-performance examples. Back in the day, dealerships such as Crosstown Motors sold a ton of Mopars. Under the direction of Zane Feldman, Crosstown Motors grew to be the largest volume dealership in the late ’60’s to the mid ’70’s. On top of selling a ton of cars period, Crosstown also sold a lot of high performance cars. It’s been said that Crosstown sold more Hemi cars per capita, than anywhere else in North America.

Besides selling Hemi cars, they basically every type of high-performance Mopar you could imagine, from A12 B-Bodies to uniquely optioned E-bodies and even the very rare 1971 and 1972 Dart Swinger 340 Specials. They even sold 1 of the 2 Canadian LO23 Super Stock Hemi Darts! In fact, our ’69 Charger came from Crosstown and our ’71 Charger R/T just so happened to be a dealer demo there!

With so many cool Mopars being sold out of Crosstown back in the day along with the various other dealerships, it’s no secret that Edmonton is home to a whole bunch of killer Mopar iron. With this, you’d expect a huge Mopar show, right? Well, not so much. Back in 2009, an all Mopar show was done at Castrol Raceway near Edmonton. Unfortunately, it was a one year thing and was never to be seen again. While there have been various smaller Mopar shows around the area over the years, there hasn’t been one that has played host to hundreds of cars.

Over the past while, the Edmonton Mopar Association has been working hard making a name for themselves and building their club. Last year, they decided to start planning on all Mopar show that would attract Mopar enthusiasts far and wide. While they knew it would be a big task, they were up for the challenge. With the help of sponsors and various clubs in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the Edmonton Mopar Association (EMA) put their plan into motion and their Western Mopar Madness show took place on July 27th.

Hosted at Castrol Raceway, Western Mopar Madness offered a large car show and 1/4 mile drag racing along with various vendors and a on-site mobile dyno. We made the 1,200 km (750 mile) drive to the show and enjoyed every part of it. The night before the show, Blackjack’s Roadhouse hosted a meet and greet for show enthusiasts. While we didn’t make it to the meet and greet, we understand that it was a fantastic turnout thanks in part to the sunny and warm weather and a great time was had!

The day of the show, the weather forecast looked iffy. The weatherman called for a 40% chance of scattered thundershowers in the afternoon hours of the show. Despite that, the sun and warm temperatures came out in the morning and Mopars from far and wide came to the event to either participate in the car show and drag racing. However, just after noon, the dark clouds started rolling in and light showers started falling. While drag racing had to be put on hold because of the showers, most of the show participants stayed.

Sadly, an hour or so later, a storm front rolled in and the skies opened up with very heavy downpour. Thus, the drag racing was cancelled for the remainder of the event and many show car started packing up and leaving early. We’d say the weatherman was definitely wrong with his forecast as the rain turned into a monsoon with heavy rain and wind later that afternoon!

Even with the weather taking a turn, around 450 Mopars showed up and participated in the event! The sheer amount of beautiful and high quality Mopars absolutely blew us away. We actually lost count of how many factory Hemi cars were there. In total, 13 Daytonas and Superbirds attended, setting a record for most Wing Cars in Canada at an event. On top of that, 5 of the very rare Canadian Dart Swinger 340 Specials attended.

One of our favorite parts was the line-up of legendary drag cars. Two factory ’70 Hemi ‘Cuda drag cars attended including TRAPMATE and Old Trapper. While TRAPMATE still wore it’s battle armor, Old Trapper has been concours restored back to it’s original F8 Green paint. Another absolutely stunning car to see was the legendary original Old Trapper ’67 Plymouth Hemi GTX. This car has two NHRA National Records back in the day and raced at various tracks all over Canada and the US. It was a total treat to see all of these amazing pieces of history all in one place!

We also have to give a special shout out to the welding students at Leduc Composite High School along with MFP Kustoms for creating some of the coolest trophies we’ve seen! The EMA along with the sponsors and volunteers worked hard and created a fantastic show. From what we’ve been told, plans are already in the works for Western Mopar Madness 2020. In fact, we’ve been told it might even be a two day event! Keep an eye out on their website for future show information. We already can’t wait for next year’s event.

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