Over the past 16 years we’ve done several stories in this series. Everyone thinks they are all gone, but that’s just not true.
I got a call on one of my TGIF stories. Gladys had read The Sun at a coffee shop that Friday morning and noticed the author was described as a borderline hillbilly.
She figured he sounded non-threatening, so she called me up and asked if I knew anyone who would be interested in a 1960 Plymouth Belvedere. Her husband Ray had bought it new.
I pictured something sitting in an overgrown back yard, with maybe a tree growing out of it.
“Does it run? “ I asked
“Oh sure, we still drive it once in a while, but we have a new SUV now.”
Like a kittycat with a piece of string (there were no laser pointers back in 1960) I had to go check it out.
Ray opened the garage and there sat the big black beast. It had the original wide-block 318-V8 and pushbutton 3-speed automatic.
It wasn’t rusty, the seats weren’t torn up, the bumpers and chrome looked like new.
Whitewall tires and dogdish hubcaps adorned the original steel wheels. I had to chuckle at the fender-mounted mirrors. It was a complete time warp, like something one might find in Medicine Hat.
Ray fired up the engine and it sounded good (it was rebuilt 8 or 10 years ago, at 129,000 miles). He told me how he didn’t want one of those (at the time) new-fangled slant sixes, so he ordered this car and waited two months for it to arrive at the dealership in North Battleford, Saskatchewan where he was living.
I glanced at the odometer – it now has 131,000 miles, so its just broke in.
Ray told me how he had gotten a job in Edmonton selling hardware ( it meant something different back then) which came with a company car. He was still single and had left the 40-below F. weather ( we had studied Centigrade in school and determined there was no use for it) to visit a friend in Calgary.
As he was leaving, it was slippery and he bumped another car. He had to leave his new car here and take the train back to Edmonton. He returned the following weekend to pick up the car, all fixed.
“Lot of damage?” I asked.
“ Oh yes, a whole new grill…I think it was $150 to fix it. But it was new, so the insurance looked after it.” But he continued to tell me that Edmonton was still 40-below and Calgary had a chinook that weekend. He quit his job and moved here.
His plan was to move to BC, but he never left Calgary – we can relate to that.
One fond memory was when he picked up the new car at the dealership. At the first traffic light, a young kid excitedly asked him if he REALLY was Batman.
Back then, a full-size car was just that. The couple remembered many trips to Radium, Jasper, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Great Falls and Spokane.
Sometimes there would be four adults and five kids in the car. One can insert their own favorite ethnic joke here, or gasp at the lack of seatbelts.
Over the last few years the car has been used by many wedding couples. Can you picture pulling up to Prom in this?
It was an enjoyable afternoon and the couple indicated they would probably sell it now, after all this time. They weren’t interested in kijiji.
I told them I’d ask around. It isn’t what you would call a pretty car, but ugly is in now, big time.
It’s a goldmine for someone, without breaking the bank. And, of course if somebody buys it they will need an appraisal…
Fred Nelson is an accredited Calgary auto appraiser who is sometimes mistaken for Homer Simpson. He has no credentials as an Automotive Journalist, and no interest in acquiring same. Phone him at 403-242-3856 or FredNelsonRacing.com