Comox Valley resident Allen Edgar was surprised to see a car he owned about 65 years ago when he was flipping through the Record’s 2014 Comox Valley Heritage Calendar.
“I looked in there and I saw that on the July calendar was my car, the old car that I used to have many years ago,” says the 81-year-old, pointing out the 1928 Ford Cabriolet was the very first vehicle he bought.
“I got it from the guy that I worked for … in Courtenay Garage, and he sold it to me cheap, and I’m glad he did because … the engine was good and that’s about all there was good on it anymore. It had a lot of miles on it, but I was only 15 years old so I thought it was alright.”
The photo in the Record’s Heritage Calendar predates Edgar’s ownership as it was taken in 1930 and Edgar didn’t buy the car until the late 1940’s, much later in the vehicle’s life.
The car was a dark green convertible — the car’s name cabriolet means convertible in French — and Edgar says it was an uncommon model.
“It was a very interesting car in those days,” he says. “It was very rare. Even to see one was very rare. They never had another one in the Valley, I’m sure.”
But he also notes vehicles were much less common in general and the Valley had a population of only about 2,500 people at the time. Edgar worked at Courtenay Garage, which was a vehicle dealership and service station. When the previous owner of the Cabriolet brought it in to trade in for a newer vehicle, Edgar’s boss sold the car to Edgar for $50.
Edgar owned the car for just four or five months before selling it to someone else for the same price he had paid for it.
“I sold it to a guy … to drive the Headquarters Road because it was so — it wasn’t paved in those days and it was really, really washed out,” recalls Edgar. “Because these cars could do that (road), eh. The high wheels and the high freeboard would get them through where most cars wouldn’t do it.”
Edgar bought another vehicle and went on to a career as a vehicle technician with the Air Force. He never gave the Cabriolet much thought until he saw it in the calendar photo sitting parked on Cliffe Avenue in 1930.
“I wonder if that’s the old man that owned it right there in the doorway coming out of the furniture store,” Edgar says as he points at the photo. “It looks like it was him that owned it.”
To view the 2014 Comox Valley Heritage Calendar, visit www.comoxvalleyrecord.com and click on eEditions. For a free copy of the calendar, visit the Record at 765 McPhee Ave. in Courtenay.
writer@comoxvalleyrecord.com
