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.

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 and much of Alberta 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.

In 2019, the Edmonton Mopar Association (EMA) changed that with their “Western Mopar Madness show. Hosted at what is now called “Rad Torque Raceway,” the show featured a large car show and ¼ mile drag racing. The show was a massive success with over 450 Mopars attending, despite a huge thunderstorm rolling in during the afternoon.

Unfortunately due to Covid, like many other things, the show was cancelled for 2020 and 2021 but returned for 2022. For this year, the crew at the Edmonton Mopar Association promised a larger event, this time spanning three days with a meet and greet cruise in on the Friday night and the car show on Saturday with some test and tune racing on the ¼ mile. Sunday would be the main day of racing as well as a second car show on site.

We made the 1,200 kilometer trek (750 mile) with our ’71 Charger R/T in tow and enjoyed every minute of the event, despite having issues with our car trailer on the way. The event was very well done and well organized. However, despite being a larger event and the weather being perfect (sunny and warm), numbers were surprisingly down this year with only around 275 cars attending compared to 450 or so in 2019.

That being said, the quality of the cars that attended were mind blowing; from 340 Dusters to Hemi ‘Cudas to sunroof B-Bodies and everything in between; there was something for everyone! Our personal favorite car was a stunning factory white 1970 AAR ‘Cuda that had red interior! What an incredible combo!

Our good friend Bob Jennings even attended the show from Indiana with two of his Super Birds that you may have seen in our magazine before. He made the trip up with his legendary purple psychedelic Hemi ‘Bird and the famous Alpine White “Alaska ‘Bird”. It was an absolute honor to finally meet him in person and check out his cars. They are truly mind blowing!

We are really looking forward to attending Western Mopar Madness 2023 and can’t wait to see what the Edmonton Mopar Association has in store! We just want to give a special thanks to everyone in the EMA for their hospitality!

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