Chris Barnett’s 1959 TR3A in Signal Red.

    For most people in Toronto the letters TTC mean only one thing: the Toronto Transit Commission’s subways, streetcars and buses that thousands ride to work each day.
    But for a group of automotive enthusiasts, those letters stand for Toronto Triumph Club. These are people dedicated to preserving the memory of Triumph automobiles, built in England from 1921-81.
    Each year at Toronto’s Canadian International Auto Show (CIAS), the story of one particular marque is told in the Classics Concourse on the 700 level of the South Metro Toronto Convention Centre. And this year, it’s Triumph’s turn.
    David Fidler is co-ordinator of the display and, along with club president David Tushingham, has been working for the past year to put it together.
    “We were approached by John Rosenthal and Tom Tonks of CIAS management in February, 2011, just after last year’s show,” says David. “We’ve thrown all our resources into it for the last 12 months and have searched far and wide for rare cars.”
    The display will concentrate on the TR line of two-seat sports cars, since few of the brand’s sedans (saloons, in British terminology) were sold here, and even fewer survive.
    Cars are not just coming from the TTC’s 310 members, but from Alberta, Pennsylvania, New York and North Carolina. Forty-three cars telling the TR story – including three on loan from the Vintage Automobile Racing Association of Canada – will be shown at the CIAS from Feb. 17-26.
    The display is a chronological record of the British marque’s postwar sports cars, with every TR model and variant. The oldest car is a 1935 Gloria Southern Cross, newest a 1981 TR8. Rarest cars are a GTR 4A Dove from the early 1960s, one of only three remaining, and two of only 329 Italia 2000s built from 1959-61, which, Fidler says, “look like small Ferraris.”
Other cars range from a 1948 Triumph 1800 roadster through the TR2, TR3 and 3A, TR4 and 4A, TR6, TR7, TR8, Spitfire and 4-seat Triumph Stag.

Shawn Vromman’s 1969 Triumph GT6.

    Like all vintage car clubs, the TTC’s membership is aging, “But we’ve done better than most at attracting young members,” says Fidler. One of those young members, Shawn Vromman of Bolton, Ont., will be showing his restored 1969 GT6 – a hardtop version of the Spitfire.
    But not all the cars are restored examples, like Fidler’s own 1969 TR6. Several are survivors representing exactly what the Coventry factory produced back in its glory days.
    The Triumph Cycle Company started building motorcycles in 1902 and assembled its first automobile in 1921. In 1930, the name was changed to Triumph Motor Company. In 1944 the business was bought by Standard Motors and production moved from Coventry to Standard’s factory at Canley. In 1960, Standard Triumph became part of Leyland Motors and built its last car, essentially a re-badged Honda Civic, in 1984.
    Triumph’s heyday was during the sports car boom of the 1950s and ’60s when North Americans were discovering the joys of open air motoring in responsive little roadsters that were an absolute joy when the road turned twisty. They captured the imagination – and the spirit – of a generation of young drivers.
    For more information, log on to http://www.torontotriumph.com.

Ford’s F-series pickups comprise the most famous line of trucks in North America. In fact, in 2011 the F-series was not only Canada’s best-selling pickup truck for the 46^th year in a row, but the best-selling vehicle.

But what about Ford’s M-series pickups?

That’s right, M-series. As in Mercury.

While not that uncommon at vintage car shows across Canada, Mercury trucks are almost unknown in the U.S.

For good reasons.

In the brave postwar world of 1948 there were two types of Ford Motor Company dealerships in Canada – those that sold Fords and those that sold Lincoln-Mercury products. Why they didn’t just combine all three lines I’ll never know, but I’m glad they didn’t. Because to give Ford dealers a more upscale car to compete against Oldsmobile and DeSoto, the Canadian division, then headquartered in Windsor, created the Monarch line of badge-engineered Mercurys. And so Mercury-Lincoln dealers could have a lower priced car to compete against Chevrolet and Plymouth, they invented the Meteor line of badge-engineered Fords.

Both of these new cars were made in Canada, and exclusive to Canada, but that still left Mercury-Lincoln-Meteor dealers without a brand of trucks.

To remedy that, Windsor created a line of commercial vehicles almost identical to that sold by Ford dealers.

(This wasn’t the first time the Canadian branch of an American manufacturer had done this. In 1936, Chrysler Canada gave Plymouth dealers its own badge-engineered line of trucks based on those from Dodge. All Fargo trucks sold in Canada from 1936-72 were built in this country. Fargo also became Chrysler’s export brand of trucks worldwide.)

Technically speaking, the 1948 models weren’t the first Mercury trucks. Ford of Canada had assembled Mercury-badged versions of the Ford sedan delivery for the two previous years – but only 52 in 1946 and 18 in 1947. They are among the rarest vehicles ever built in this country, but several still exist.

Customized 1948 Mercury pickup.

According to R. Perry Zavitz’s 1993 book, Monarch/Meteor, reprinted last year and available from Old Autos Publications for $30, there were few major styling differences between 1948-50 Mercury trucks and their Ford counterparts. The biggest change was Mercury’s use of a more massive chromed grille, with four broad horizontal bars rather than Ford’s five narrow bars. Mercury trucks also got a chrome strip on their front fenders and rectangular parking lamps.

“Virtually every Ford truck model was duplicated for Mercury dealers to sell,” Perry wrote. “The same engine and transmissions offered by Ford trucks of Canada were available with the Mercury label.”
Model designations were the same, except they began with an “M” instead of an “F.” From 1951, with few exceptions, the only difference between Ford and Mercury trucks was the nameplate.
Over the years, the Mercury line of trucks sold in Canada mirrored what was available from Ford – everything from parcel deliveries to heavy duty step vans, and from school buses and cab forward designs to Super Duty tandem axle models.
Mercury trucks were built in Windsor until 1953, then in Oakville, and were marketed here until they were phased out in favour of their more popular Ford siblings.

The last Mercury truck rolled off the Oakville assembly line on March 23, 1968.

Write to Glen at glenwoodcock@hotmail.ca

1965 Mercury pickup.

AMC boss George Romney, with 1954 Metropolitan.

   Mitt Romney is one of the frontrunners to become the Republican Party’s presidential candidate in this year’s U.S. elections. If he can win that nomination, and go on to defeat President Barack Obama, there would be a genuine car nut in the White House.

   In New Hampshire recently, his campaign stopped at a remote gas station which had photos of some vintage autos on the wall – including a 1955 Ford and a 1955 Metropolitan.

   “Who had the Metropolitan? Do you still have the Metropolitan?” he asked the crowd. When the owner stepped forward, Romney asked “Do you want to sell it?”

   The owner said yes, for $10,000.

   “I’ve got a ’62 Rambler American convertible that my son gave me for my birthday,” Romney said. “But I’d love to get a Metropolitan.”

   Romney may be the only American politician in the last 40 years to know what a Metropolitan is. That’s because his dad, George, was in his first year as head of American Motors Corp. when the Metropolitan went on sale in 1954 as a domestic rival for the compact Volkswagen Beetle.

   So Mitt, who grew up in the suburbs of Detroit while did dad was running AMC, comes by his love of cars honestly.

   The senior Romney had been managing director of the Automotive Council for War Production from 1941-46 and in 1948 became the right hand man of George Mason, chairman of Nash-Kelvinator Corp. When Mason died suddenly, just after Nash and Hudson merged in 1954, Romney became chairman and CEO of the new American Motors Corp.

   He brought in young blood, revamped the dealer network and phased out the old Nash and Hudson brands, staking the company’s future on small cars such as Rambler and Metropolitan. It worked. Sales climbed and AMC stock rose from $7 to $90 per share. A deeply religious man, Romney was entitled to massive bonuses but gave back that which he considered excessive. Contrast that with the actions of some CEOs today, who get huge bonuses even when their companies are failing.
   Romney quit AMC in 1962 to run for governor of Michigan – winning the first of three terms in the office. A longtime supporter of civil rights, it’s ironic that it was Romney who had to call out the Michigan National Guard during the 1967 race riots in Detroit. But he said Democratic President Lyndon Johnson’s decision to send it U.S. Army paratroopers into the city was “playing politics,” since Romney was seen by the White House as a potential threat to Johnson’s re-election.

   Romney sought the Republican Party’s nomination for president, in 1968. He started off strong, but he was an ineffective campaigner and his popularity steadily declined. The campaign really faltered when he withdrew his earlier support for the Vietnam war, saying he’d been “brainwashed” by the U.S. military on a visit to that country in 1965. Eventually, Richard Nixon won the Republican nomination and went on to the White House. And the Vietnam war raged on for seven more years.

   Interestingly, George Romney’s Mormon faith was never a campaign issue – unlike it is today, 44 years later, for son Mitt. Perhaps, in American politics, that’s what they call progress.

   Like his father, Mitt was a businessman before he was a politician and is credited for saving the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City from financial disaster. A moderate Republican, like his father, he served as governor of Massachusetts from 2002-06. But whether the younger Romney follows in his dad’s footsteps, which led to political obscurity, or blazes his own trail remains to be seen. Whatever happens, he’ll always be a car guy.

   “Someday when I have the time to fuss with a car that’s temperamental and needs repair all the time I might think about an old Mustang or an old Corvette,” Romney said at that New Hampshire gas station. “I would love to
get an early 1950s vintage Corvette.”

   Or maybe that Metropolitan?

This 1963 VW Samba Microbus sold for an astounding $217,800.

   Because a new season of old car auctions is about to begin, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the state of the hobby.

   If hobby even is the right word any more.

   Today, it’s become more of a business than a recreational pursuit.

   What triggered these dark thoughts was the promo ads on the Speed channel for its live coverage of the Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale, Ariz. starting Jan. 17.

   Because of its inflated prices, I think this annual televised event has done more harm than good to the average collector/restorer of vintage vehicles.

   I’ve also been thinking a lot about a recent television documentary on how the fine art market has been transformed from one where knowledgeable collectors bought works for their intrinsic value to one where speculators now rule. Art is no longer bought for its beauty, but as something to be added to the wealthy investor’s portfolio. Not to be enjoyed for what it is, but for how much money it can bring a few years down the line.

   I think the same thing has happened in the world of old cars. The investors have taken over and prices have gone through the roof. For those people, the term “it’s a driver” has taken on a pejorative meaning. The vehicles bringing astronomical prices are restored to an almost flawless level and to drive one, other than on and off its trailer, would instantly destroy its investment value.

   But isn’t driving what cars are all about? Yes, they often can be considered works of art, but they’re also functional machines meant to be used.

   There’s been a welcome backlash to all this by a growing appreciation of survivors – cars and trucks that have stood the ravages of time and travel and wear each stone chip and parking lot bruise like a badge of honour.

   Maybe we’re becoming so used to high prices that we can’t see the forest for the trees – me included. Last year I wrote about a 1920 Detroit Electric that once had been owned by Margaret Haldane Gray, wife of the founder of Gray-Dort Motors in Chatham, Ont. It was sold at RM Auctions’ Hershey event in October for $44,000 – well below the pre-auction estimate of $80,000-$100,000. For this reason, I called it “a real bargain.”

   That prompted an email from Stan Uher, of Blenheim, Ont., known as “Mr. Gray-Dort” because it’s his expertise that keeps many of these landmark Canadian cars (1915-24) running and on the road.

   “Was it a real bargain,” Stan wrote, “or was it a realistic price for that car? I know that the Michigan fellow who commissioned the restoration probably had $80,000 invested in it, but you could also invest that much in a Manic GT or a Gray-Dort. But that doesn’t make it worth $80,000!”

   I wrote back that I thought the car’s provenance, being owned by such a prominent and pioneering Canadian automotive family, made it well worth the pre-sale estimate.

   But I’ve been giving that a lot of thought, and now I’m not so sure Stan isn’t right.

   Maybe the Detroit Electric would have been better off as a survivor – kept in the condition it was in when Mrs. Gray last drove it – the seat cushions a little worn from use, and dirt from Chatham’s streets still on its undercarriage.

   We’ve reached the point where many common cars such as 1955 Chevrolet 2-door hardtops are now priced beyond the means of most collectors.

   For instance, at last year’s Barrett-Jackson event in Orange County, Calif., a 1963 Volkswagen Samba Microbus sold for $217,800 – more than the $159,500 a 1964 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud brought at the same sale.

   The Website Westfalia.org says the bus was restored “to much-better-than-new condition … We can only wonder where and when it will pop up for auction again, since for that kind of coin we don’t imagine it will show up at any Magic Bus Extravaganzas.”

   Exactly. The new owners wouldn’t dare go camping in it, so what’s the point? The Samba has ceased to be a viable automobile, to be enjoyed for what it is, and has become just another item in an investment portfolio.

   I despair. The hobby I love is going to hell.

Videographer Mike Brown gets low angle shots of Glen’s

1971 Manic GT.

   One of the best car shows on television is something you can’t watch unless you subscribe to a high definition service from a company such as Bell or Rogers.
   Called Style in Steel, it airs Wednesdays on the HIFI channel and is a product of WhistleStop Productions in Picton, Ont. The show’s second season, produced by Rob Davidson, will be broadcast starting in the middle of this month. There are 12 half-hour episodes, each featuring three distinctive automobiles.
   Some of the cars, like my own 1971 Manic GT, are good stories in themselves. Selected as one of the world’s most obscure cars by jalopnik.com in 2010, the Canadian-made Manic seemed destined for success until investors pulled the plug in May, 1971 after just 160 cars had been built. My car, which has been a 3 1/2-year project, was one of the unfinished examples sold during bankruptcy proceedings.
   But many of this season’s shows are not just about the cars; they also tell the stories of the fascinating people who owned them.
   For instance, there’s a segment about the 1906 National Model E touring car once owned by Death Valley Scotty. He was a colourful con man, a former cowboy in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show, who for years bilked investors with a non-existent gold mine. Scotty’s “castle” is one of the main tourist attractions in California’s Death Valley National Park.
   Also featured is the 1929 Stearns-Knight cabriolet that once belonged to Col. Ned Green, son of Hetty Green, known as “the world’s stingiest woman.”  Although she dressed like a bag lady and lived like a pauper, she was also the world’s wealthiest woman, with a genius for making money on the stock market. When “the Witch of Wall Street” died in 1916, she left a fortune estimated at $100 million, which Ned spent lavishly, including a reported $1 million to General Electric to convert three cars, including Stearns-Knight, to a gas/electric hybrids.
   Then there’s the 1925 Roll-Royce Phantom built for Maharajah Umed Singh II of Kotar. Specially equipped for driving through the jungles of India, he used it to hunt tigers. Mounted on the car is a special large bore gun, designed to be fired from the back of an elephant.
   Canadian actor Don Francks also stars in one segment, along with his 1919 Champion-bodied Model T Ford race car. Whenever he drives it, Francks, who owns a stable of vintage racers, says “Death is my co-pilot.”
   Another car with a good story is Francis Jackson’s 1926 Chrysler coupe, which his father bought in 1947 and turned into the family farm’s utility truck. When Francis inherited it, he had Doug Greer of Cobourg, Ont. do the almost impossible restoration. The coupe, actually a Maxwell, with a Chrysler badge, has won many first place awards at the Antique and Classic Car Club of Canada’s annual Concours d’Elegance.
   On other upcoming episodes, Doug Greer gets to talk about one of the cars he has restored for himself – a rare and elegant 1934 Graham coupe – and Tom Matamo, designer of the original Mazda Miata, tells about the birth of an automotive icon.
   The first season of Style in Steel is available in two volumes at longtaildvd.com for $24.95. Click on “vehicles” in the menu. Check your TV listings for season two broadcast times.

Write to glenwoodcock@hotmail.ca

   Why is the Jordan Motor Car Co. so important in the history of the automobile?
   The Standard Catalogue of American Cars 1805-1942 said, “There had to be a Jordan if for no other reason that to allow Ned Jordan unfettered licence in the prose that he chose to extol it. And how the man could write – lyrically, romantically, emotionally.”
   Ned Jordan was a reporter and ad man turned automobile entrepreneur and he’s famous for revolutionizing the way cars were sold through one of the most famous ads in automotive history.
   The Jordan Motor Car Co. of Cleveland, Ohio was the first to sell the sizzle, not the steak, through evocative and colourful prose that didn’t quite border on purple. Words which, in that Great Gatsby era, glorified the joys of the open road.
   Maybe Jordan had to do it that way because his creations were criticized as being “assembled” cars, using off-the-shelf mechanicals wrapped in their own upscale bodies and interiors. But those bodies had style, with paint schemes such as Apache Red and Liberty Blue and colourful model names such as Playboy, Tomboy and Sport Marine. They needed ad campaigns to match. Ads that sold a lifestyle more than the car itself.
   The most famous of those first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in June, 1923. With the heading “Somewhere West of Laramie,” it showed a girl at the wheel of a Jordan Playboy, top down, her scarf flying in the wind, racing a cowboy mounted on his Appaloosa pony. Fred Cole’s loose, romantic watercolour was the perfect companion for Jordan’s text:
   “Somewhere west of Laramie, there’s a broncho-busting, steer-roping girl who knows what I’m talking about. She can tell what a sassy pony, that’s a cross between greased lightning and the spot where it hits, can do with eleven hundred pounds of steel and action when he’s going high, wide and handsome.
   “The truth is – the Jordan Playboy was built for her.
   “Built for the lass whose face is brown with the sun when day is done of revel and romp and race.
   “She loves the cross of the wild and the tame.
   “There’s a savour of links about that car – of laughter and lilt and light – a hint of old loves – and saddle and quirt. It’s a brawny thing – yet a graceful thing for the sweep o’ the avenue.
   “Step into the Playboy when the hour grows dull with things gone dead and stale.
   “Then start for the land of real living with the spirit of the lass who rides, lean and rangy, into the red horizon of a Wyoming twilight.”
   Jordan wasn’t the first automaker to direct some of its advertising at the newly liberated woman of the 1920s, but he was the first to portray women as adventurous, outdoorsy types deserving of something better than a modest closed car in which to go shopping or to the bridge club. Capable women who enjoyed the thrill of driving fast as much as any man did.
   My favourite Jordan ad is the one that accompanies this column. A watercolour sketch shows a lithe young woman, hair fashionably short, fishing for trout with the text: “Hip boots – flaming colors – a flying line and a flash of silver scales. The thrill of winning – the joy of living. And waiting at the mountain lodge, a clean cut little custom car waiting for the fascinating journey home.” Ironically, it’s an ad for the Little Custom luxury sedan that met with such consumer indifference in 1927 that it’s often blamed as the car that helped bring the company down.
   It wasn’t the first or the last luxury compact to be a huge flop.
   Founded in 1916, the Jordan Motor Car Co. hung on till 1931. With fewer than 50,000 cars built, it would be a mere footnote in the history of the motor car except for Somewhere West of Laramie’s importance and enduring appeal.

1898 Daimler is the world’s oldest truck to survive in original condition.

   Mercedes-Benz is not a name most North American old car hobbyists would associate with trucks. At least, not unless they know the German automaker owns Western Star and Freightliner – two names familiar to motorists in Canada and the U.S..
   But as I learned on a recent trip to Germany, and the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, trucks from Daimler AG not only dominate European highways, but they’ve been doing so longer than any other manufacturer of commercial vehicles.
   Our trip to Germany took us to Worth, where we saw powerful Actros cab-over tractors being built at the rate of 632 a day in 240 combinations of body style and engine.
   We also went to Dusseldorf where Sprinter vans are assembled in an innovative factory that couldn’t increase its footprint because of surrounding homes, so was expanded upward instead. It was fascinating watching Sprinters – the one Mercedes-Benz truck brand familiar to North Americans – riding up and down from one stage of assembly to the next on automated elevators.
   But for me, being an old car guy, the highlight of the trip was a visit to the Stuttgart museum which opened in 2006.
   There, trucks share the spotlight on equal footing with historic passenger cars and legendary silver-painted Mercedes-Benz racing machines.
   The museum is built as a giant spiral and, starting at the top, the first vehicles on display are a replica of Carl Benz’ Patent Motor Car of 1886 (the original is in a German state museum) and Gottlieb Daimler’s Motorized Carriage from the same year. The Benz three-wheeler is considered the first true automobile, with everything purpose built, while the Daimler, adapted from a horse-drawn carriage, was the first four-wheeler powered by a gasoline engine.
   From those landmark passenger cars it’s just a few steps to see some of the world’s oldest commercial vehicles. By today’s standards they are crude and if a trucker were forced to drive one today, exposed to the elements in such a noisy, rough-riding rig, he’d likely have grounds for a complaint to the ministry of labour.
   The first one you come to is one of the oldest surviving motorized trucks. It’s not the world’s first – Daimler delivered that one to England in 1896 – but is the oldest to survive in original condition. The 1898 Daimler features belt drive, a two-cylinder gasoline engine producing 5.6 hp, a top speed of 12 km/h and has a payload of 1,250 kg.
   Nearby is an 1899 Daimler motorized business vehicle – forerunner of the light duty pickup – with solid rubber tires and a hand crank protruding from its distinctive round radiator grille.
   The ravages of World War II did not allow a lot of German trucks to survive after 1945, so the museum offers a fascinating glimpse into a time past. On display you will find a 1912 Benz fire truck, a 1937 Mercedes-Benz 320 ambulance and a fascinating 1938 Mercedes-Benz mobile post office that also allowed rural folk access to a telephone.
   Postwar commercial vehicles include a 1959 Mercedes-Benz platform truck, called a “millipede” because of its two steered front axles, and my favourite – a streamlined 1955 Mercedes-Benz race car transporter with a 1955 300 SLR racing car aboard.
   For a virtual tour of the museum log on to http://www.mercedes-benz-classic.com/content/classic/mpc/mpc_classic_website/en/mpc_home/mbc/home/museum/visitor-information/virtual_tour.html .

1971 Manic GT is now operational.

   Last week I got an early Christmas present – the first drive in my 1971 Manic GT.
   It’s been more than three and a half years since we trailered the car from Chicoutimi, Que. to my friend Charlie Appleman’s shop in Port Hope, Ont.  When acquired, it was nothing more than an unfinished body sitting on a rolling platform. No engine, no windows, no heating or cooling, no wiring, no interior – but, best of all, no rust. (Although Manic’s fibreglass reinforced plastic bodies are indestructible, road salt ate away the floors and side rails within six or seven years.)
   The car was one of those left unfinished in the Granby, Que. factory when Les Automobiles Manic went bankrupt in May, 1971 – victim of an indifferent parts delivery system from Renault in France, which supplied platforms, drivetrains and other pieces from the R8 and R10.
   Brainchild of Montrealer Jacques About, the Manic GT was the last attempt to build a uniquely Canadian automobile.
   I had one for a few years – No. 105 of just 160 built – but sold it when I got married in 1975. As the new car neared completion my greatest fears were that I wouldn’t like driving it and wouldn’t fit as well as I did when I was young and lean.
   I needn’t have worried. Once I mastered the art of getting I and out without hitting my head, the one-piece bucket seat fit like the proverbial glove. You drive almost in a reclining position, legs slightly bent at the knee and arms straight out in the European sports car tradition.
   I first got to take it for a spin on the back roads near Charlie’s shop, where it was filmed for the second season of Style in Steel on Treasure HD. A few days later, I drove to Larry’s Auto Trim & Glass in Oshawa, where owner Larry Bowen and Mark Woodrow will install the factory headliner I picked up in Quebec and the correct black carpeting. They’ve already done the seats in a persimmon vinyl that exactly matches the interior trim bits salvaged from the parts car.
   I’m pleased to report the rear engine, rear-wheel drive Manic handles beautifully on the twisty back roads for which it was designed. Steering is light and direct, it corners flat and the 4-speed manual transmission shifts easily.
My car has a rebuilt engine donated from a rusted-out parts car. Tweaked by the Parisian firm Autobleu, it differs from the stock 1300-cc engine with a higher compression ratio, dual side-draft Weber carburetor, performance manifold and muffler. Its 105 hp is more than enough for a car weighing just 658 kg. It has a throaty roar that belies its small displacement, and sounds especially nice in third gear.
   One of the things Charlie and I tried to do was to finish the car just as the factory would have 40 years ago. But we figured it wouldn’t hurt if there were a few improvements. So Charlie added a layer of sound insulation between the engine compartment and gas tank, and even without carpeting and headliner the decibel level inside the cabin isn’t too bad. Once they’re installed, this ought to be the quietest Manic ever built.
   There still are some minor things to be done, like figuring out why the gas and water temperature gauges don’t work, but those will have to wait. We’ve pushed our luck as it is with the weather and when Larry’s done it’s time to put it away until spring.

1956 Lincoln Premiere – long, low and elegant.

   Some old cars have such a presence about them that you can’t help but notice, even when they’re surrounded by other gems on the show field.
Then again, it doesn’t hurt when they’re the size of a 1956 Lincoln.
   So it wasn’t hard to spot the car belonging to Mississauga’s James Davidson at the Antique and Classic Car Club of Canada’s 48th Concours d’Elegance in Port Hope, Ont. this past summer. It’s a ’56 Lincoln Premiere sedan and it’s 222.78 inches long.
   It’s a car James always wanted because, as a kid, he had such fond memories of the big Lincoln his grandfather owned.
   “He’d say, ‘Want to go to the hardware store?’ and I would ride next to him sitting on the centre armrest.” (I bet his mother never knew about that part.)
   “When I finally got one,” James says, “my first reaction was, ‘It shrunk!’”

Lincoln armrest is wide enough for a small boy to sit on.

   After about five years of looking, James found his car 10 years ago through an ad in Old Autos.
   He remembers that the paint “was pretty good” and the colour – Presidential Black – only adds to the car’s tremendous dignity. But the interior was another matter and three years ago James had it redone with fabric from a company in Oregon that matches the original Huntsman Red leather with black lattice-weave nylon inserts accented with silver thread.
   The 285-hp motor was “a complete rebuild.” James says the 368 cid V8 was used only in 1956 and ’57 Lincolns, but made a comeback in 1963 as a Ford truck engine because of its enormous 401 lb.-ft. of torque.
   With a 9.0:1 compression ratio and a quadruple downdraft carburetor, fuel economy is not anything to brag about. “But it just floats down the highway,” James says with a smile.
   His Lincoln was one of 317 cars built in the Wixom, Mich. assembly plant on June 6, 1956 and rides on a 126-inch wheelbase with an overall width of 79.88 inches.
   You can see why movies of the era often showed mobsters driving big Lincolns. The trunk is wide enough and deep enough to lay several bodies side by side.
   The all new Premiere was Lincoln’s top model in 1956 (Continental had become a separate nameplate) and was equipped with amenities such as power steering, air conditioning, power windows, 4-way power driver’s seat and Turbo-Drive automatic transmission that were wonders of luxury in their day, but now are standard equipment on most modern econoboxes.
    Other features, such as a Travel Tuner Town & Country AM radio and push-button lubrication, would only amuse today’s new car buyer.
   But back in 1956 buyers flocked to Lincoln-Mercury showrooms and scooped up just over 50,000 new cars – almost twice as many as were sold the previous year despite a base MSRP for the Premiere of $4,600 – some $500 more than a comparable 1955 model.
   And in case you were wondering how James’ car made out at the Concours, it got 91.9 points for a second place in its class. Proof, however, of how it stands out is the fact it won the Peer Choice trophy, as voted on by fellow competitors.
   As the ads proclaimed back then, it is “Unmistakably Lincoln.”

James Davidson details the engine bay of his ’56 Premiere.

1956 Ford Country Sedan, on the Maine seashore.

   On a recent media launch for the 2012 Mercedes-Benz C-Class sedans and coupes, we stayed at a fabulous new resort in Kennebunkport, Me. called Hidden Pond. Actually, it’s one of two resorts in the same vicinity under the same ownership and, to get guests back and forth, or to the beach, they use a 1956 Ford Country Sedan.
   Naturally, I was just as interested in the Ford as the new 2012 C-Class cars. It was painted red and white, with matching vinyl interior, and toted a surf board and a pair of vintage wooden beach chairs on its roof rack.
   A card on the dash read: “Hello, my name is Bessie. I am a 1956 Ford Country Sedan station wagon. Please be gentle with me … roll my windows slowly and kindly close the door gently. I love having my picture taken with our Hidden Pond guests. Your driver will be happy to shoot a few memories of our visit together. Happy trails – Bessie.”
   But I didn’t want my picture taken, I wanted to get behind the wheel. In a moment of weakness, Hidden Pond CEO Natalie Ward agreed to let me drive her pride and joy.
   Wagons became a separate Ford line in 1955 – 2-door versions were the Ranch Wagon and Custom Ranch Wagon and 4-door models the Country Squire and Country Sedan, which lacked the Country Squire’s faux wood side panels.
   I was especially interested because the 1955 and ’56 Fords were virtually identical and my first vehicle was a ’55 Meteor Niagara sedan – a car built and sold only in Canada and equivalent to a mid-range Ford Customline.
I thought driving Bessie might bring back memories of the Meteor, but I was wrong.
   For starters, my car had the brand new overhead valve V8 that had replaced Ford’s venerable flat-head V8. That engine displaced 272 cubic inches and made 173 hp. Bessie, however, has the optional 312 cubic inch Thunderbird V8 that generated 225 hp and 324 lb.-ft. of torque when mated to the optional Ford-O-Matic transmission.
   And that was another difference: my Meteor had the stock three-on-the tree manual shifter. Bessie also had optional power steering, which the Meteor did not.
    However, Bessie was not fitted with the optional Lifeguard safety package that was new that year and consisted of front lap belts, deep dish steering wheel breakaway rearview mirror and padded dash. Then again, few Fords did – it was a slow seller.
   The trip didn’t have the most auspicious of beginnings because the battery was dead and Bessie wouldn’t turn over. But one of the advantages of a ’56 Ford is that this was the first year for 12-volt electrical systems, so getting a boost from one of the resort’s service vehicles was no problem and carried no risk, as it might have with a 6-volt system.
   When Bessie did fire up, the Thunderbird engine ran a little rough at first, but all she needed was a good, long run – and I was happy to oblige. Despite the abundance of new Mercedes and other luxury cars around Kennebunkport, Bessie was the most distinctive car on the road.
   The steering wheel is oversized, so that you could manhandle your Ford in and out of parking spots. But with Bessie’s power steering it’s way too big. Typical of the era, her power steering has no feel and, with period correct bias-ply tires, Bessie wants to follow every dip in the road.
   I’d rather not have that kind of authentic 1950s driving experience and suggested that Bessie’s trails would be much happier with a set of wide whitewall radials. Still, it was lots of fun and I enjoyed our time together.   It’s not often you get the chance to drive someone else’s old auto.
   Incidentally, Bessie’s surf board isn’t just for show. Apparently there’s some great surf at Kennebunkport. Who knew?