I love BMWs,” exclaims Howard Glassman, a.k.a. Humble Howard, co-host of Toronto’s EZ Rock morning show. “I have a man crush on them.”
In fact, the beloved radio personality has owned several BMWs over the years — all 325i’s — so he’s in auto heaven now that he’s finally moved up to the 5 series.
“It’s like the grown-up BMW,” he says.
Glassman bought his 2006 black 525i BMW five months ago second-hand. “It’s in mint condition and it makes me look super-hot,” says the perennial funny-guy.
He pauses, then adds: “If you knew me, you’d know how stupid that last remark was because nothing can make me look super-hot.
“It’s just so comfortable and it’s fast,” adds the father of two, who admits to accumulating his fair share of speeding tickets over the years.
“Because I go to work at four in the morning, I get almost all my speeding tickets then because you feel all alone on the road and you go fast. Next thing I know, I’m pulled over and I’m thinking ‘what did I do?’”
Although he tries to keep his speed under control on the road, where Glassman really indulges his need for speed is in the air. “I also fly airplanes — twin and single-engine planes — so I kind of get my speed kicks that way,” he says.
A native of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, who started out as a stand-up comic before hitting the radio as co-host of the popular Humble & Fred morning drive show, which thousands of Torontonians tuned into each day for nearly 20 years, Glassman recalls with fondness the first car he bought when he was 16: a used Austin Mini.
“I bought the car in the middle of the winter for $900,” he recounts.
“And I had it parked outside our home. The first big snowstorm we had, I looked out and I couldn’t see my car. It was almost buried, it was so tiny.”
Now that his oldest daughter is 15, Glassman knows she’ll want to get behind the wheel of his beloved Bimmer.
“But I made her understand that it’ll be years before she’ll drive this car,” he says like devoted the BMW-lover that he is.
– Heather Buchan is a Toronto-based journalist whohas worked at several magazines, including Hello! Canada, where she cut her teeth in the world of celebrities.
