Original 1975 ad for the 1976 Chevette.

   I got quite a lot of mail about the Chevette story a few weeks ago. Guess it’s because so many people once owned one of Chevrolet’s compact import fighters. The best letter was from Randy Lopushinsky of Thorhild, Alta. He wrote enough to fill the space for four Time Machines features, but with his approval here’s an abridged version.
   “I read your article in the Edmonton Sun about the Chevette and had quite a chuckle. It brought back some memories I thought I would share with you.” Randy wrote.
   “I’ve been a small engine mechanic by trade for most of my life but always tinkered with cars on the side. I bought cheap cars and made them great. My first car was a ’68 Chevelle Malibu I bought when I was just 16.
   “Around 2001 I was driving an ’80 Monte Carlo 2-door, 305. My then girlfriend, Kathy, didn’t drive. She never learned how. One day she tells me her mother’s neighbour has a Chevette for sale, dirt cheap. The engine was shot but the body was nice. A used motor was nothing for me to put in and I thought it might make a good starter car for Kathy.
   “One winter day, we went out to the west end of Edmonton to see it. We found it buried in snow. It was a red ’86 Chevette Scooter, 4-door. The body really was in great shape, but the owner told me the motor was shot. She wanted $400 for it.
   “I just laughed and told her she’d be lucky if someone pulled it out of there for scrap. When I said I wanted to try to start it, she repeated how the motor was “shot,” over and over again like I was stupid or something. I asked if she could just amuse me while I looked under the hood. It turned over by hand, so I hooked up booster cables to the Monte Carlo and cranked it over. It started right up and ran like a charm. The battery was shot, not the motor!
   “I actually felt sorry for the old woman and pondered charging her $25 for solving the problem with the car she said she loved so much. I thought I could get her a reconditioned battery for another $30 and she could keep her car. My heart did not want to take advantage of her. I looked at her while it ran and said, “There you go!” to which she promptly snapped back, “What are you going to do? Drive it around with booster cables?”

   “I could not believe she said that, shut the engine down and promptly made a deal to buy the car for $100. I gave her the cash and told her I’d be back to pick it up. The next day I got a ride there, put in a new battery and drove it home.
   It then received a thorough engine bay cleaning, right to the metal. It didn’t warm up all that well so I installed a carb kit, a new float, and a choke pull-off. I timed it and tinkered with the choke/fast idle settings until it started and warmed up like new. The plugs were fine so I just re-gapped and reinstalled them. I checked the tires, brakes, front end and all was well. I greased the front end and gave it a good hot oil change with filter. Next, I noticed how lame the dash lights were so I took out the instrument cluster, cleaned the dust from everything and replaced a couple of bulbs. The next night, I sat in it and smiled at how the dash lit up like a new car. I gave it a good cleaning, inside and out, popped in a strawberry air freshener. I was done. It ran like it should.
   Well, after driving it for a week, I realized no girlfriend was getting this. I just loved how cheap on fuel it was and handy in traffic. I actually sold my Monte Carlo, favouring the old Scooter. My friends and family marvelled as usual how I was driving a $150 car (purchase price plus repair costs) that looked like crap for style but ran like a Swiss watch. My daughters, whose husbands were buying them new Sunbirds and Sunfires, wished they owned the Chevette instead. Yes, it was a bit ugly but they sure liked the way it handled and parked, and they sure loved the price – $150 down, nothing per month.
   I drove that baby for over six years with no hassles whatsoever. Total repairs came to one set of brake pads. I drove that car, summer and winter, just loving it. To the end, that Chevette was more fun than any other car I ever owned!”

Write to Glen at glenwoodcock@hotmail.ca

This shot of the 1947 Ford pickup was posted with the original blog.

   You know that old saying, “If it looks too good to be true, it probably is?” Never has that been more evident than in this Internet age.
   In its short time span, the World Wide Web has played host to an astounding number of scams and hoaxes – some meant to defraud, others merely to entertain.
   Quite a number of these Internet hoaxes have centred on cars. And, thanks to Photoshop, there have been many attempts to astound us with images of oddball autos. Some, like the recent series showing the Smartcar outfitted with all kinds of sporty body kits, obviously are meant to amuse. Others, such as the 1965 Chevelle SS offered for sale on eBay as a much rarer 1965 Z16, was an alleged attempt to separate a fool from his money.
   Over the past little while a number of friends and acquaintances in the old car hobby have sent me a link to an Internet story about a 1947 Ford pickup from Whitby, Ont. that supposedly is so rare the Ford Motor Co. bought it for huge money.
   The story first was posted on www.hotrodonline.com in November, 2010 by a blogger from Whitby. I won’t name him to add to his embarrassment, but he goes by the handle madmike3434 and allegedly the truck belonged to his mailman, who convinced him the story was true.
   “These pictures show a 1947 ford 1/2 ton pickup truck from Whitby, Ontario, that was just sold to Ford Motor Company of Detroit for the sum of $800,000, plus a new Ford F-350 dually,” the blog began.
   “This truck, according to Ford records, is one of only 35 that was ordered and built in 1947 with factory installed McCulloch water cooled supercharger, special carburetor and special very low profile air cleaner for the McCulloch, due to hood height problem … Edmunds finned aluminum heads, Fenton cast iron headers, factory dual exhaust.
   “Other options originally installed on this truck: sliding rear window, installed outside sun visor, vacuum powered dash fan, factory compass, ashtray, smokers kit, locking steering column, dome light, inside sun visors, bumper mounted fog lights, some form of factory cruise control with knob & wire in dash.”
   Supposedly the mailman purchased the truck from a farmer who was the original owner, and who ordered it as equipped new in 1947.
   “What makes this truck so rare and valuable?” the blog continued. “As one of only 35 documented (as)‘originally built,’ it may be the only remaining numbers matching example that can be authenticated – and was by a team of Ford museum employees before the offer and the purchase was made.  Apparently there might be two other survivors that are in pieces, but (these) cannot, or have not, been authenticated.”
   As it turns out, that wasn’t all that couldn’t be authenticated.
   The heavily customized truck, while it does exist – and has been shown at Autofest in Oshawa, Ont. – could not have come this way from the factory, as many people have pointed out since the blog first was posted.
   The author claims he tried to contact Ford for verification, but received no reply to his repeated emails or phone calls.
   Really? This exposes another Internet problem: most bloggers are not experienced journalists and do not know how to fact check.
   I made one phone call to Ford of Canada and communications manager Christine Hollander settled the question.
   “We investigated the claim with our archives team and The Henry Ford Museum. According to both sources, the story is a hoax. There’s no validity to the claim,” she said. “Here’s a link to a discussion forum, where the author of the story says he was misled: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=538579.”
   So you can look it up. But even though the story has been exposed as a hoax, it seems to have taken on a life of its own, as is often the case.
   Years from now some people will believe the truck really was built this way and that the admission of the hoax is itself a hoax, covered up for whatever reason by the Ford Motor Co.
   This is the way conspiracy theories are born. To end with another old saying, “Bullshit baffles brains.”

Write to Glen at glenwoodcock@hotmail.ca

Part of the vast Dingman collection of vintage cars and automotive signs that will be sold by RM Auctions in June.

   I was having lunch at the home of a car club friend the other day, when his wife put into words something I’ve been meditating on lately.
   “Do you think,” she asked her husband, “that when we’re gone our sons will just drop a dumpster in the driveway and fill it up with all this stuff?”
   She was referring, of course, to my friend’s collection of old car “stuff.” I don’t think she was including his two vintage vehicles, only his vast collection of automotive memorabilia, books, brochures, advertising and scale models.
   And I got the impression that maybe she’d like him to start winnowing that “stuff” now, so she wouldn’t have to be burdened with how to dispose of it later.
   It’s a valid worry because, let’s face it, the majority of us in the old car hobby aren’t getting any younger.
   How will your survivors know the worth of something as specialized as, say, a collection of vintage Studebaker sales brochures, or of that trove of hubcaps?
   Should you leave instructions on how to sell it, or leave that up to the executors? Or should you start selling it off yourself while you can?
   I’ve been thinking about this because of a number of recent auctions where someone’s passion – so lovingly pursued over many decades – was dispersed in one or two afternoons. But most of us won’t be that lucky.
   These were huge collections, whose value already was well documented. If you’re anything like me, or my friend, we have only a general idea of what all our “stuff” may be worth.
   I suppose it would be easy if your collection was valued in the millions, then you could get a big auction house interested in cataloguing and selling it – the way RM Auctions and Sotheby’s recently did with the Milhous collection.
   It took brothers Bob and Paul Milhous more than 50 years to assemble their collection of vintage vehicles and mechanical musical instruments and RM less than two days to sell it. The mammoth auction, in Boca Raton, Fla. in February, brought in $38.3 million with 100% of the lots sold.
   Star of the sale was Bob’s Pebble Beach class-winning 1912 Oldsmobile Limited 5-Passenger Touring that set a record for the marque at $3.3 million. Brother Paul’s 1903 Ruth Style 38-B Fair Organ fetched $1.26 million.
   If you’re saying shucks, I wish I’d been there to bid on some of these things, never fear: RM is putting another vast collection of automobiles and related memorabilia on the block June 8-9 in Hampton, N.H.
   Included are nearly 50 meticulously restored vintage vehicles and more than 1,400 automotive signs acquired by investor and philanthropist Michael Dingman, a former director of the Ford Motor Company. Dingman will be 81 this September and began selling off his collection in 2006.
   So I’m sure June 8 will be a heart-wrenching day for him, as his treasures, so lovingly collected, head to new homes.
   At least he won’t have to fret about what his heirs might do with them – although I doubt anyone looking at the quality of his collection would ever think of putting a dumpster in the driveway.
   My advice is this: since you can’t take them with you, don’t worry, be happy and enjoy your toys as long as you can. After that, what happens to them is someone else’s problem.
   I wonder what Connie will do with my almost complete collection of Kaiser-Frazer ads and brochures. I know she won’t burn them because our new house doesn’t have a woodstove. So will it be bonus day for the guys on the recycling truck?
   To find out more about the Dingman sale, or to order a catalogue, go to www.rmauctions.com.

   Before she was old enough to drive, my younger daughter always said her first car was going to be a Chevette.
   I asked if she meant a Corvette, but no she said she wanted a Chevette.
   I then asked if she knew what a Chevette looked like, but she didn’t.
So I kept my eye out for Chevrolet’s little import fighter so I could show it to her. Now this was back in the late 1990s, so Chevettes no longer were all that numerous on our roads (the last one was built in 1987). But eventually I spotted one while in the car with my daughter and pointed it out to her.
   “Look over there,” I said. “That’s a Chevette.”
   “Ewww, yuck,” she said.
   “Still want one?”
   “No way.”
   “Then how did you get it in your head that you did?” I asked.
   “I liked the name,” she said.
   She liked the name.
   That’s a heckuva way to pick a vehicle. I wonder if the editors of Hemmings Classic Car liked the name too, because they included Chevette among their list of future collectables from the class of ’87.
   Hemmings chose 1987 because vehicles from that model year are 25 years old and eligible for membership in the Antique Automobile Club of America.  I used that story as the trigger to write my own piece on what might be collectible from the class of ’92, because that’s the year from which my club, the Antique and Classic Car Club of Canada, is now accepting vehicles.
   What brought all this back were some letters I received from readers after that story ran back in January.
   Sandra, who reads Time Machines on Autonet.ca, and regularly leaves comments, wrote: “Re: classic 1987 Chevette in Hemmings Classic Car. My husband instantly cancelled his subscription. He’s still fuming.”
   Jimmy, who saw the story in the London Free Press, has a 1985 Chevette that needs engine and body work and wanted my opinion on whether it was worth fixing.
   Well, whatever turns you on, Jimmy. It depends on how much you love your Chevette and whether you’re interested in getting your money back some day.
   Not that I especially want to pick on Chevettes, because everyone else does. They’re an easy hit for those bloggers who like to bore us with their choices for “10 worst cars of all time.” The Chevette is usually there, along with the AMC Pacer and Gremlin, Ford Pinto and Chevy Vega.
   It’s all so predictable. And I wonder how many of the people compiling these lists have ever driven any of the cars they pick on.
   The Chevette (and its Canadian cousin, the Pontiac Acadian) never really offended me. It was GM’s hurried attempt to come up with an import-fighting small car during the fuel crisis of the 1970s. Problem was, they never really improved much from the time the first one was built in 1975 until the last one was sold in 1987.
   Neither were they very economical to drive – especially on the highway with your foot jammed to the floor just to keep up with traffic.
   Power was from a 4-cylinder engine (maximum 60 hp) mated to a 4-speed stick or 3-speed automatic. It wasn’t the slowest car on the road, but there was no power reserve. Materials were cheap, the rear seat was cramped and it had rear-wheel drive when most of the foreign competition were front-drive.
   Chevettes never were luxurious, but there was an even more bare bones model called the Scooter that was stripped of all amenities, even the driver’s door armrest.
   But in the Chevette’s favour, it was easy to fix and may have been the last car that could be held together with duct tape and baling wire – much the way our granddaddies kept their Tin Lizzies on the road.
   To borrow a line that I read on the Internet, “This is the car that gives nostalgia a bad name.”
   I wouldn’t go that far, but would I ever restore one or consider it collectable? In my daughter’s words, “No way.”

Write to Glen at glenwoodcock@hotmail.ca

   Ross Wooldridge sure seems to like cars from 1966. Last week, you read the story of his 1966 Dodge Monaco. This week, here’s the lowdown on his ’66 Chrysler Town & Country wagon.
   Ross is a jazz musician from Brantford, Ont. – sought after as an arranger and for his abilities on both clarinet and piano. In 1997, the Galaxy Orchestra (the 17-piece big band Ross directs) was getting on a bus to drive from Toronto to a gig at Artpark in Lewiston, N.Y. Ross picked up the national issue of Old Car Trader to help pass the time.
   He had just starting browsing the listings when a half-page colour ad for a 1966 Chrysler Town & Country wagon caught his eye. It was in Regina, loaded with dual A/C, cruise, etc. For its first few years, the T&C had been the everyday family hauler, and then had settled into a comfortable existence as a summer car. The 80-year-old owner was selling because he didn’t want the kids fighting over it when he was gone.
   Ross liked what he heard, put down a deposit and sent his brother in-law over from Moose Jaw for a look. He reported back that the wagon was exactly as advertised and rust-free.
   So Ross bought it, sight unseen and had it shipped east by rail. When it arrived and went through Ontario’s used car certification program, all it need to pass was a light bulb.
   Ross still has the first pair of licence plates he’s ever owned and these now grace the big wagon and sum up the way it makes him feel – because the first three letters spell “JOY.”
   It’s an unusual vehicle, ordered by a Saskatchewan dealer as a demonstrator to show off Chrysler power options and accessories. It’s equipped with the first year 440 cubic inch TNT big block V8 that makes 365 hp and is coupled to a 3-speed Torqueflite automatic transmission. It lacks some usual Chrysler items such as power doors and windows, because the dealer had other cars on which to demonstrate these features.
   Instead, this T&C has cruise control, Sentinal lights, tilt/telescopic steering, a foot-operated Search Tuner radio and dual air conditioning. “The rear unit hangs from the roof and sorta blows down your neck,” says Ross, “and for the driver to see past it, the rearview mirror had to be mounted on the dashboard.”
   The numbers don’t match because somewhere along the line it got a replacement 440 while still under factory warranty.
“It’s no slouch,” says Ross, “but it’s definitely a full-size car. Still, it will hold its own in today’s traffic.”
   Ross has a Honda Fit for hauling all his music and gear around, so he isn’t too worried about the gas mileage the wagon delivers. “With my collector cars mileage isn’t really a concern,” he says. “And if it were, then I shouldn’t be driving them!
   “When people ask what the mileage is like on the Town & Country, I often joke that when it’s in need of a tuneup, running uphill and into a headwind, carrying nine passengers, with the A/C on, it gets about 9 miles per gallon. (Which is true.) However, when it’s got a fresh tuneup, going downhill with a tailwind, no A/C and no passengers – and in neutral to boot – it still gets about … 9 mpg.”
   Ross has made some improvements – disc brakes all around for better stopping power, and went to Finland to find the correct Mopar speedometer calibrated in km/h, not mph. He couldn’t find a cruise control dial in kilometres, so crafted his own custom unit.
   Of his two 1966 Mopars – the Dodge Monaco hardtop and the Town & Country – Ross says the big Chrysler is the one he’ll keep.
   “There are less than 2,000 wagons still around,” he says. “People love wagons and this one’s special. The Monaco is just another Monaco.”
   After a busy February gigging around Toronto as a sideman and with his own small jazz groups, Ross takes the Galaxy Orchestra into the Capitol Theatre in Port Hope, Ont. on March 10 for an evening of big band music made famous by Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw.
   The T&C’s big enough to take half the band – and their instruments. Try that is a 2-door Dodge.

Write to Glen at glenwoodcock@hotmail.ca