Memorial Park in Keremeos turned into a vintage car parking lot on August 5 for the 11th running of Kars Under the “K”.
On what was possibly the hottest day of the year, car owners and vintage vehicle enthusiasts turned out by the hundreds to view this year’s assortment of show vehicles. Temperatures in the mid to upper 30s had participants seeking shade wherever they could find it. Free admission to the village pool was also welcomed, especially by the more youthful set.
The Lower Similkameen has more than its fair share of vintage automobile enthusiasts, from Cawston residents Ken and Corinne Helms’ vast collection of vintage rolling stock – his 1916 Dodge Brothers touring car was one of his collection on display on Sunday – to Wayne Parker of Cawston, who displayed his 1972 MGB, with a Chevy V8 shoehorned into the tiny foreign sports model.
Barry Clinton and Steve Hans of Cawston were also present, showing Barry’s 1926 Model 50 Chrysler.
Clinton has an interesting history to tell about the car – he’s owned it twice in his life.
“It had been up on blocks from 1947 to 1957, Clinton said, “when I was 17 years old. Mr. Jensen – a man who I delivered papers to owned it – I offered him $20 for it.”
Jensen eventually settled for $25, and Clinton bought the vehicle. Over the next few years, he moved to Manitoba, where he began a partial rebuild of the roadster. Clinton eventually moved back to B.C., working to build a business that grew to the point where he had no time to spend on the labourious job of rebuilding an 80 – plus years old automobile. At age 30, he sold the car, using the money to buy a house.
Several months ago, Clinton’s roomate was cruising the internet when he came across a 1926 Chrysler similar to Barry’s.
“Check this out,” he said to Barry, who scanned the web page photos of the car.
“Zoom in on the vacuum pump,” Clinton said. Sure enough, the car had telltale solder marks on the vacuum pump – identical to the ones he remembered on his Model 50.
Clinton checked the registration and serial numbers, eventually able to positively identify the car as the same one he had sold years before.
“We drove to Manitoba in the dead of winter and picked the car up in a U-haul trailer,” Clinton said. The car, which had originally cost him $25 dollars, had been sold the first time Clinton owned it, for $4,200; he paid “under $15,000” to purchase it the second time.
