60 Years Behind the Wheel: The Cars We Drove in Canada, 1900-1960
By Bill Sherk
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About this ebook
Winner of the 2004 International Gallery of Superb Printing Bronze Award for Superb Craftsmanship in Production, and the Ontario Printing and Imaging Association Excellence in Print Awards, commended for the 2004 Honourable Mention for Superb Craftsmanship in Production
From rumble seats and running broads to power tops and tailfins, 60 Years Behind the Wheel captures the thrill of motoring in Canada from the dawn of the twentieth century to 1960. There are intriguing stories of cars with no steering wheels, and fascinating photographs of historic vehicles from across the country. From the Studebaker to the Lincoln-Zephyr, from the showroom to the scrapyard, here are over 150 vehicles owned and driven by Canadians.
Bill Sherk
Bill Sherk taught high school history in Toronto for over 30 years. Currently he is a feature writer for Old Autos and also writes a weekly syndicated column, "Old Car Detective," for 30 Canadian newspapers. He is also the author of I'll Never Forget My First Car and Old Car Detective. Sherk lives in Leamington, Ontario.
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60 Years Behind the Wheel - Bill Sherk
60 YEARS
BEHIND THE WHEEL
The Cars We Drove in Canada
1900–1960
Bill Sherk
A HOUNSLOW BOOK
A MEMBER OF THE DUNDURN GROUP
TORONTO OXFORD
Copyright © Bill Sherk, 2003
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of
Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
Publisher: Anthony Hawke
Copy-Editor: Andrea Pruss
Design: Jennifer Scott
Printer: University of Toronto Press
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
Sherk, Bill, 1942-
60 years behind the wheel: the cars we drove in Canada, 1900–1960 / Bill Sherk.
ISBN 1-55002-465-5
1. Automobiles — Canada — History. I. Title. II. Title: Sixty years behind the wheel.
TL26.S456 2003 388.3’42’0971 C2003-904043-7
2 3 4 5 07 06 05 04 03
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credit in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
Printed on recycled paper.
www.dundurn.com
From rumble seats and running boards to power
tops and tailfins, this book captures in stories and
photographs the thrill of motoring in Canada
from the dawn of the twentieth century to 1960
60 YEARS
BEHIND THE WHEEL
To my loving wife Brenda,
my front-seat passenger on the highway of life,
whose faith and encouragement helped make this book a reality
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword by Mike Filey
Introduction
Look, Ma! No Steering Wheel!
Winton Runabout, Toronto, circa 1904
Cadillac Truck, Toronto, circa 1906
Breakdown Near Sarnia, circa 1908
Engineless Car, Leamington, circa 1908
Born to Sell Newspapers, circa 1909
Fred Foster’s 1908 McLaughlin
Why Not Own an Automobile?
1909
Instant Grandstand, Weston, 1910
More Cars than Horses, Toronto, 1910
Two-car Garage, Leamington, 1912
Motorcycles and Sidecars, Toronto, circal912
New Model T Touring, 1912
1912 Model T Touring, Leamington, 1939
Russell Torpedo, Toronto, circa 1911
Car and Trailer, Leamington, 1913
Cadillac with Horses and Chickens
Before Traffic Lights, circa 1914
McLaughlin Touring, Charlottetown, circa 1914
Grandfather’s Centre-door T, 1926
Ian Marr’s Rockne Convertible, 1944
Toronto Water Works Trucks, 1914
Car Loses Wheel, circa 1914
Licensed As a Car, 1914
On His Majesty’s Service, circa 1915
Canadians Celebrate Armistice Day, 1918
Hauling Telephone Poles, British Columbia, circa 1920
Press and Movie Photogs, 1919
Going Nowhere Fast, 1920
Railway Station, Ayton, circa 1920
Licensed As a Motorcycle, 1922
Buy Your Tires Here!
1921
Slow Down and Live
1922
Toronto Welcomes You
1924
Repair Garage, Beeton, 1925
Your Money Is Safe in Here
1925
Camping at Point Pelee National Park, 1925
1927 Model T Roadster, Pelee Island, 1927
Where’s My Car?
1926
Emancipated Woman Driving Studebaker Roadster, Alberta, circa 1926
GM Expands its Line of Cars
Visitors to Canada, circa 1928
Top-down Motoring, 1929
Did This Car Get a Parking Ticket? circa 1930
After a Snowstorm, 1929
Repair Garage, Toronto, circa 1930
Model A Fords in Family Album
Downtown Traffic, Toronto, 1929
A New Brunswick Model A
Car Races Train and Wins, Quebec, circa 1930
New Car Dealership, Toronto, 1931
Barney Oldfield Comes to Toronto, 1931
Remember Tree-lined Streets?
Model T Coupe, Manitoba, 1932
Ivor Pascoe’s Model A Ford
Styling in Search of Sales
Glen Ubelacker’s 1932 Oldsmobile Convertible, Wasaga Beach, circa 1941
Author with Glen Ubelacker
Car Wash, Toronto, 1933
Nova Scotia Snowstorm, 1934
1934 Ford Deluxe Sedan Delivery
No Grease Pit Here, Quebec, 1934
Goodyear and Hupmobile, 1934
Springtime on Bay Street, Toronto, 1935
The Innocents Went West
Downtown Traffic, 1935
1934 Pontiac, 1936
A Tale of Two Running Boards
Harry Weale’s 1935 Oldsmobile
Kent Weale’s First Car
Manitoba Farm, circa 1936
Fraser Canyon Road, British Columbia
On the Road in Quebec, circa 1938
Durant Roadster on Fishing Trip, 1937
Long Live the King! 1937
British Columbia Convertible
Loaded with Extras
Side-opening Hood on 1937 Buick
Alligator
Hood on 1937 Ford Coupe
Aunt Constance and Her 1938 Graham
Ron Morgan’s 1938 Graham
Winter Snow and Slush, 1939
Prince Albert National Park, Saskatchewan, 1939
Checking Under the Hood
Plymouth Introduces Power Top for Convertible, 1939
War Hero Rides in 1939 Plymouth Convertible
McLaughlin-Buick Convertible, 1940
Bathing Beauty on 1940 Mercury
Dick Riley’s 1940 LaSalle Convertible
Directing Traffic at Sunnyside, early 1940s
Young Couple in 1939 Mercury Convertible, Quebec
Calgary Service Station, circa 1941
Bob Chapman’s 1931 Chrysler Roadster, Toronto, 1941
Bus Service for War Workers
Customized 1936 Ford Roadster, 1942
Alex Horen’s 1932 Ford, Windsor, 1943
Alex Horen’s 1921 Gray-Dort Touring, circa 1958
Hauling Coal in a Rumble Seat, 1945
Blonde Pushes Truck Uphill, 1945
Free Parking at King and Parliament, 1946
Tractor Out to Pasture, 1946
Trunk or Rumble Seat? 1946
Danforth Used Car Alley, Toronto, 1946
Spinning its Tires on Avenue Road Hill, 1947
We’ve Been Everywhere!
Wash This Car!
Sitting on a 1947 or ’48 Buick
New 1949 Monarch, Leamington
Step-down
Hudson, Novar, 1949
Saskatchewan Youth Buys First Car
1949 Triumph 2000 Roadster, Toronto, 1956
Jim Featherstone’s 1941 Plymouth
Janet Reder on 1941 Dodge
Not the Better Way, 1952
Manitoba Adventures with a 1938 Plymouth, 1952
1928 Chevrolet Roadster, Carlisle, 1953
1953 Chevrolet Convertible, Kingsville, 1954
Thorncrest Ford-Monarch Dealership, Toronto, 1953
Bob Downey’s 1956 Meteor Convertible
Ontario Automobile Dealership, Toronto, 1953
1947 Ford Sportsman, Quebec, 1954
1954 Meteor Niagara
Convertible
Canada’s Answer to James Dean, circa 1954
Norm Lightfoot and Friends
Three Fellows in a Nash Metropolitan
1952 Pontiac Hardtop, 1955
1949 Pontiac in 1956
1949 DeSoto from Alberta
1957 DeSoto Convertible, 1958
White Rose Gas Station, Blytheswood
B-A Service Station, Toronto Area, late 1950s
Bringing Home the Groceries, 1958
Hungry for Horsepower, 1959
New Brunswick Memories
Ten-year Drop in Price to 1960
1931 Chrysler for $30
Ron Fawcett with Two Model T Fords
Customized 1960 Meteor Convertible at Autorama, Toronto, 1960
Mike McGill and the Etobi-Cams
Unusual Engine Swap
Rust in Peace …
Photo from Bob Kirk’s Family Album
Calling all Cars
Special Thanks
Notes
FOREWORD
by Mike Filey
WHEN I WAS JUST A young teenager attending North Toronto Collegiate Institute (the finest high school in North America and coincidentally the school at which the author of this book taught, long after I was there), I was never tempted by such mundane propositions as beer, cigarettes, or skipping class. Not me. However, I was often tempted by another, the desire to own a car. In fact, my friend John Ross, who was employed in the family contracting business and really didn’t need an education to make his way through life, would just happen to drive by in his new red 1958 Pontiac convertible as I made my way to school along Broadway Avenue. This guy would drive me crazy. He had a nice car, I wanted a nice car. Several times I came close to giving it all up. I’d simply quit school, go out and buy myself something new and flashy, and worry about paying for my
car in the next life.
Well, that just wasn’t to be. First off, I didn’t even have my driver’s licence. In fact, my parents were adamant that my schooling would come first and if I stuck with it, my dad would teach me to drive and let me use his new, but rather commonplace, 1959 Ford two-door sedan when it came time to take the test. The big day came and I passed. Now it was my turn to get a car. Actually it was a stretch to call what I was able to afford a car at all. It was a 1949 Morris Minor with one option, a heater, the fan of which was under the passenger’s seat. Turn the device on and the person sitting beside me would rise two or three inches. The car also had mechanical brakes, a set of flipper directional signals, and was constantly infused with a not totally objectionable (at least not to me) aroma of burning oil. Well, I couldn’t do anything about the heater, the brakes, the signals, or that smell, but I could certainly make the vehicle look flashier. I’d give it a do-it-yourself paint job. (Actually, I’d have to do it myself, the fifty bucks I paid for this thing left me flat broke.) So off to the Yonge and Church streets Canadian Tire store I went and bought several tins of paint that when mixed together would give me that turquoise colour I wanted. At least I was pretty sure they would.
As it happened the colour turned out okay, but the amount I had to work with wasn’t quite enough. When I reached the trunk area I realized I could never reproduce the colour I had created. What to do? Simple. I went back to the front of the car and pushed the paint towards the back of the car, hoping to move enough along to cover what was left of the original maroon colour.
The old Morris may have been my first car, but it certainly wasn’t my last. Far from it. I went through cars like some of my friends went through packs of cigarettes. After the Morris came a 1954 Nash Metropolitan that really wasn’t mine. It belonged to Joan Lewis, the wife of druggist Phil Lewis, and as a kind of perk for working in his store at Eglinton and Redpath for an outrageously high number of hours, at an outrageously low hourly rate, I was allowed to use this tiny babe magnet
on weekends. Next came a 1958 Hillman (never started when it looked like rain) Minx. On this one I spray-painted the hubcaps gold. One day while driving down a country road north of the city one of the caps shot off the car into a farm field. I could only imagine someone finding it years later and believing they had come across remnants of one of those abandoned gold mines out near Markham.
Finally, I graduated (Ryerson, Chemistry, class of 1965 … actually I took that subject ’cause one of the guys I chummed with had a car and since he was going to Ryerson I decided to join him so I wouldn’t have to wait for the bus), got a job, and, of course, bought a brand new car, my first. It was a lovely turquoise and green 1965 Ford Fairlane Sports Coupe. Wow!! One problem, though: I hadn’t been working long enough to accumulate a down payment.
Heck, I didn’t even know what a down payment
was. Yarmila, my girlfriend and later my wife, came to the rescue. Hope she doesn’t read this, don’t think I ever repaid her.
Now a working stiff, the new cars came fast and furious: 1967 Mustang fastback (should have kept that one), 1967 Dodge Monaco (should never have bothered with that boat), 1968 Mercury Montego (that one almost prevented a wedding — mine), where am I? … 1970 Ford Torino followed by a 1972 version. Now the cars start to blur, but I remember visions of a Plymouth Arrow (a what?), a 1980 Pontiac Grand Prix, a couple of Toyota Celicas, a Honda Prelude (did I have two of them?), and a couple of Saturns. Oh, I hear you ask, what was the best car I ever owned? The one my wife of many, many years bought for me when I turned fifty-five, my classic 1955 Pontiac Laurentian, just like the one I coveted all those years ago.
INTRODUCTION
FOR OVER ONE HUNDRED YEARS, Canadian motorists have travelled the streets and highways of this vast Dominion in many different makes and shapes of automobiles, many of which are no longer built. Remember the bullet-nose Studebaker? The step-down Hudson? The Nash Metropolitan? How about Hupmobile, LaSalle, Durant, Graham-Paige, Packard, Pierce-Arrow, and DeSoto?
And even with cars still being built, we have names that have passed into history, including Lincoln-Zephyr, McLaughlin-Buick, the 490
Chev, the Model T Ford, the Chrysler Airflow, the Mercury 114, and the Curved Dash Oldsmobile.
All these vehicles at one time were brand new and sparkling clean, fresh from the factory and showroom floor. And nearly all of them were mass-produced on an assembly line, with each one looking much like the one ahead and the one behind.
But every time a new car leaves the factory, it becomes unique and unlike any other car in the world. Each new owner takes it where he or she wants to go, often picking up scratches and dings along the way. The second owner does the same, and the third, and fourth, and so on until the car often reaches its final resting place in a scrapyard.
Each owner gives the car a unique experience, adding another chapter to its auto-biography.
And during the life of that