Mega Wheels: Milton’s drive-thru car show experience for car enthusiasts

Article content

The Mega Wheels event is finally happening and ongoing through June 19 to June 27, and tickets are still available.

Article content

If you were like me — tired of being at home during the pandemic and looking for something safe for the kids to get excited about — then you probably already bought tickets way back in March.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

Mega Wheels: Milton’s drive-thru car show experience for car enthusiasts Back to video

The event was supposed to take place during the second week of April. When Ontario went into lockdown with stay-at-home orders in place, the event got pushed to May, when things were supposed to reopen. But as we all know, that didn’t happen and the event was postponed, once again, to the first week in June, at which point I was surprised they didn’t just cancel and refund disappointed car lovers. The lovely people at Country Heritage Park didn’t give up on us, however. When the government made one final extension to closures, amid the vaccine rollouts, Mega Wheels was forced to change the date to one week later.

Article content

So, it’s finally our time to see all the mega wheels.

The event’s website promised a 2.5 kilometre stretch of monster trucks (that’s what we were most excited about), classic cars, military vehicles, constructions and farm vehicles, as well as Brampton Batman and some delicious food trucks options at the end — or the start, whatever you prefer.

So, all six of us — me, my husband, three kids, and my sister — loaded into the 2021 GMC Yukon Denali (check back soon for my full review of the monster truck that shouldn’t be allowed in the SUV segment). I was the driver of the beast, on mega wheels that boast 22″ rims. My husband was in the front passenger seat, my two older kids in the middle row’s captain’s chairs, and my sister and youngest in the back row. This was strategic because the third row doesn’t have amazing access to big windows (in fact, you can barely see out those little peep holes) and my two-year-old just wasn’t as excited as the other two.

Article content

When we approached Country Heritage Park in Milton, Ontario, we were directed by some workers to drive through to the lineup where they scanned our ticket through the window (because COVID, duh). There was a designated radio station to tune into, and according the website, it would play some “favourite cruising tunes” and fun facts. There was a lot of country music, and I never actually heard any facts since it wasn’t long before I changed the station.

I appreciated that the speed limit was super slow (5 km/h) because it never felt like we — or anyone else — were holding up the line.

The first thing we saw was an epic monster truck placed on top of a car. It was fantastic and got us excited for what was to come. Then, directly following the truck was a pink 1972 Cadillac Coupe DeVille and everyone in the vehicle got a bit more excited because “a pink car” was the only thing the two-year-old wanted to see — but of course, in the moment, she didn’t care.

Article content

My almost-five-year-old was beyond excited to see the bigger cars, as well as the colourful ones that you don’t generally see on the highway.

Then he nearly lost his poop, for a lack of better terms, when he saw (Brampton) Batman and his Batmobile. He was ecstatic, until we actually pulled up beside Batman and he became somewhat starstruck (or maybe just extremely shy) and wouldn’t say hello or wave back at Batman. Then, as we inched past the superhero, he exclaimed, “I can’t wait to tell my teacher I saw Batman” — virtually, of course, in online school.

Toggle full screen mode Previous Gallery Image

1. 

2. 

Next Gallery Image Toggle gallery captions

View All 2 Photos

1 of 2

All 2 Photos for Gallery

1. 
2. 

Function Not Available

Full Screen is not supported on this browser version.

You may use a different browser or device to view this in full screen.

OK

Article content

Some of the cars had a banner beside them, explaining a cool fact, or the vehicle’s year, make, and model. There was a 1925 Ford Model T, and well, let’s just say I’m glad Ford now has employee pricing deals.

The Yukon drives pretty smoothly, which is great when you’re driving at under 10 km/h. If you need to pick up speed — we didn’t ever have to during the drive thru — this car is so heavy that it sounds like it’s struggling to work up the courage to move. Once it gets started, keep your distance from those in front of you, because it takes a moment to completely stop all that weight.

The lineup of cars originally started with vehicles on my side, but quickly moved to the other side, which kind of sucked. Yes, it was disappointing to look at the cars from my husband’s window, but what’s worse was that I had to rely on him to take pictures of the cars. Needless to say, I wasn’t very happy with his positioning of vehicles in the photos he took, some being chopped off in odd places. At the very least, we were high enough in the Yukon to get some pretty good angles of the different cars, including an odd Hummer wrapped in Gucci print.

Article content

Along the way, there were a couple more monster trucks posed on top of crushed cars, some fancy classic cars, a ton of tractors, some intense military vehicles, and even a guy on a penny-farthing bicycle.

Contrary to the website, I didn’t see a skateboard showdown, however, I’ll chock that one up to COVID and assume some schedules might have been changed.

Toggle full screen mode Previous Gallery Image

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. 

9. 

10. 

11. 

12. 

13. 

14. 

15. 

Next Gallery Image Toggle gallery captions

View All 15 Photos

1 of 15

All 15 Photos for Gallery

1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 
7. 
8. 
9. 
10. 
11. 
12. 
13. 
14. 
15. 

Function Not Available

Full Screen is not supported on this browser version.

You may use a different browser or device to view this in full screen.

OK

Article content

There were four food trucks at the end, but one wasn’t open yet, one sold mostly hot dogs, one sold poutines, and the last one was an ice cream truck — nothing that felt desirable at 10:30 a.m.

Was it worth the wait? Let me put it this way: I would do anything to get the kids out of the house. It’s dubbed a family event, but if I’m being completely honest, I think classic car lovers, car enthusiasts, gearheads, or whatever your preferred term is would have revelled in the history behind the vehicles — something my kids couldn’t really appreciate.

Even though it wasn’t quite what I expected, it was still enjoyable. The slow drive was relaxing and the kids had fun. The 30 minute drive-thru may not have been the monster truck event that I had anticipated — not that we were expecting a full on monster truck show, though a few more trucks would have been nice — but it was still a really simple and fun thing to do with the kids, after being trapped inside for so long.

In my opinion, the GMC Yukon Denali stole the show. It had a ton of space for all of us to comfortably sit, as well as move around during the event. I just wish I had realized sooner that the back window above the trunk could open, that would have been an extra view for the passengers stuck in the back. Check back soon for Millennial Mom’s detailed review of GMC’s beast, but until then, check out Peter Bleakney’s review  during his trip to Elora.