Last spring, Calgary's Trevor Peeters began a new hobby.

As a bit of a joke, the 16-year-old started taking pictures of PT Cruisers whenever he happened to see one around the city.

Nine months later, he's snapped hundreds of pictures of the cars.

Chrysler debuted the unusual looking vehicle in early 2000, and it has its fair share of fans — and detractors.

For Peeters, it all started when he was at the Lake Bonavista Promenade with a friend. He saw three of the vehicles there, and then it "escalated."

As of Wednesday morning, his Instagram has 375 PT Cruisers and counting.

"I thought, 'oh man, this is going to be funny,'" Peeters told the Calgary Eyeopener. But he didn't expect it to attract any kind of attention.

When Peeters agreed to an interview with CBC, he called his mom to tell her.

"She couldn't stop laughing," he said.

On the hunt

Speaking to the Eyeopener's Paul Karchut as they drove through the city searching for a PT Cruiser, Peeters said there are certain places in the city where he seems to always find one of the oddly-shaped cars.

"Southcentre," he said. "In the parkade by Sears."

And finding PT Cruisers is like his "sixth sense" now.

"I can sense them. It's crazy. The hairs on the back of your neck stand up."

Skeptics might laugh, but Peeters takes this seriously. As he and Karchut pulled into the aforementioned parkade, he said he could feel a tingling.

And there it was.

"A red, PT Cruiser touring edition convertible," Peeters said proudly as the two exited their vehicle and Karchut posed for a photo in front of their find.

Peeters doesn't have an end goal in mind for his PT Cruiser hunting, although he suggests his abilities could make him a valuable asset to Canada's security agency.

"It's conditioning. At this point ... I could join CSIS," he joked.

With files from the Calgary Eyeopener