Autonet.ca

A Porsche Speedster replica make its way
to the auction block. It did not sell at $27,000.

You could see this one coming a mile away.
On Sept. 11, RM Auctions, which has been vigorously expanding its international presence, divested itself of the annual spring and fall Classic Car Auctions of Toronto, billed as Canada’s biggest.
“We’re streamlining the business by increasingly focusing our expertise on the investment-grade segment of the collector car market and exploring international growth opportunities,” said Rob Myers, RM’s chairman and founder.
Just a few weeks later, RM announced the addition of a new European sale on May 1, 2010. To be held during the same weekend as the 7th Grand Prix Historique de Monaco, the Sporting Classics of Monaco event will present “80 of the world’s finest motor cars to an elite assemblage of automotive enthusiasts and collectors.”
Guess Canadians aren’t elite or enthusiastic enough.
Or maybe that’s being unfair.
After all, RM is still proudly Canadian, still based in Blenheim, Ont., near Chatham, and still using homegrown craftsmen at its world-class restoration shops there.
The cold, hard fact is that one car at any of the RM’s high end European or American auctions can bring more money than all the vehicles sold in Toronto over three days.
Few – if any – cars from the “investment-grade segment” cross the block at the Toronto auctions.
So lest you think shedding the events that got RM started was unpatriotic, let me put it to you this way: if you had a true classic, such as a 1940 Packard Darrin convertible, where would you consign it? Would you send it to the Toronto sale – or to any auction in Canada, for that matter – or ship it to Monterey, Scottsdale or Amelia Island?
Thought so. I rest my case.
When RM announced it was leaving Toronto to concentrate on its growing European business, the spring and fall Classic Car Auctions returned to the sole ownership of Dan Spendick under a new company called Collector Car Productions.
And while it may not get the classic Duesenbergs or Shelby Cobras, the Toronto sale fills an important niche in the collector car scene in this country, giving sellers and buyers of high quality, medium-priced vehicles a place to hook up.
Spendick is no stranger to the Canadian vintage car scene, having operated the two Toronto sales on his own before partnering with RM 17 years ago.
Other than a change of name on the banners over the sale stage at Mississauga’s International Centre Oct. 23-25, there was no difference from the sale run under RM auspices last spring.


1956 Monarch Richelieu convertible sold for $60,500
including buyer's premium.

The top five sellers were a rare 1998 Bentley Continental “R” Coupe that went for $101,200 (including the buyer’s premium), followed by an original fuel injected 1961 Corvette convertible at $79,200. The other top sellers were a gorgeous 1954 Packard Caribbean convertible at $66,000, a national award winning 1956 Ford Thunderbird at $62,700 and a Canadian-built 1956 Monarch Richelieu convertible at $60,500
Unlike many of the auctions in the U.S. and abroad, most of the vehicles at Toronto have a reserve price. It takes a brave vendor in today’s market to do otherwise.
Sometimes, when bidding stalls, removing the reserve works – as it did for the 1961 second-place 1961 Corvette convertible, but not for the the fifth-place1956 Monarch ragtop.
“If we’d had some European buyers there it might have made a difference, but I saw no phone action at all,” the owner told me. “I lost a bit of money on the car but had a lot of fun all the same. I have no regrets … but if the auctioneer had held the hammer off the block for another minute?”
Final results for the Toronto sale can be found on Collector Car Productions’ website at www.ccpauctions.com or by calling 519-352-4575.
The company’s next scheduled event is the annual spring Classic Car Auction of Toronto to held April 9-11, 2010 at the International Centre.

Write to Glen at glenwoodcock@canoemail.com

Four-door 1958 Buick Limited convertible.

When John Watkins and his late father, Doug, drove a pair of 1958 convertibles to Buick’s 100th anniversary celebrations in Flint, Mich. in 2003, the cars appeared to be as alike as the proverbial peas in a pod.
At least if peas were painted Laurel Mist, rather than green.
But there was one big difference, which even many seasoned Buick owners failed to see at first glance.
Yes, both were 1958 Limited convertibles. Yes, both were powered by Buick’s famous 364-cubic inch “nailhead” V8.
But one of the convertibles had two doors, and the other had four.
If you read that last sentence and said, “But Buick never made a four-door convertible after World War II, you really know your GM history. In fact, Doug Watkins had spent 10 years building the car himself out of a Limited hardtop sedan.
It takes a close inspection to see that it’s not a factory job – a VERY close inspection.
Watkins wasn’t just a backyard tinkerer. He owned and operated a machine shop in Pickering, Ont. for many years and was adept at working with sheet metal.
He added extra bracing to the frame which his son says makes it stronger than anything the factory produced.
“Those doors are never going to sag in our lifetime,” John boasts.
The big ragtop “drives real nice,” he reports – but then it should. By the time the project was completed “in about ’93 or ’94,” the engine, automatic transmission and differential all had been completely rebuilt.


Factory continental kit also was added.

His father also crafted the red leather interior. John says the black convertible top was “a real engineering feat, which dad also had to make himself based on the mechanism, top bows and canvas from a two-door car.”
The 1958 Buicks, and their Oldsmobile counterparts, were among the most massive American cars of the 1950s, adorned with hundreds of pounds of chrome-plated steel.
But Doug Watkins made his four-door convertible even bigger by adding a factory continental kit, which made it exactly 20 feet long. Try fitting that in a garage in just about any 21st century subdivision.
John, who retired from the Canadian Air Force 20 years ago and now lives in Campbellford, inherited the car when his father died in 2007. He drives it about 500 miles per year.
John says the car’s paint is a 1959 Cadillac colour, but one of The Brooklin Collection’s latest models is a 1958 four-door Buick Roadmaster in – you guessed it – Laurel Mist.
I’m not enough of a Buick historian to know who’s right, John or Brooklin, but I do know this: whether full size or in 1/43rd scale, the colour perfectly suits the car – and the era.
If you’ve got a garage that can handle such a monster, it’s for sale and can be yours for $22,500. Email me if you’re interested, and I’ll hook you up.

Write to Glen at glenwoodcock@canoemail.com

Paul Linton with the bogus $35,000 cheque.
He intends to have it framed.

At first, Paul Linton was delighted with the email he got in response to his ad on craigslist for a car he wanted to sell.
Delighted – and amazed. Because the would-be buyer said he would send a cheque for $35,000 in Canadian funds to Linton’s home in Cobourg, Ont.
Not a bad deal, since Linton was only asking $30,000, or best offer, for his 1971 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow 4-door sedan.
However, Linton’s hard won business sense told him that “Nobody would send $35,000 to a total stranger for a car he’d never had appraised, or even seen. It just didn’t add up. “For all he knew,” says Linton, “there was no car and I could have been scamming him.”
A few days later the cheque arrived by Purolator, from Ontario, Calif, along with a covering letter.
Linton read the letter carefully, signed by one “Cole Bent,” and noticed that nowhere did it mention a car, referring only to “the item” offered for sale. The letter also explained that the extra $5,000 was so Linton could immediately wire that amount to Mr. Cole’s “shipper.”
And that’s when Linton really knew his sale had gone up in smoke.
“My name’s Tucker, not Sucker,” he says (although the success of schemes such as this prove there’s still one born every minute).
The RBC cheque, seemingly from the University of Calgary, had an indecipherable signature. Linton emailed his buyer, saying no funds would be sent anywhere until he had established the authenticity of the cheque.
He never heard from Mr. Cole again.
When a copy of the cheque was faxed to the university, Linton was told it was “Just about the same as theirs, but not quite.”
Unfortunately, Linton’s story is far from unique.
While Internet-based classified ad sites have made it easier to sell items such as vintage cars, often the “buyer” is only interested in scamming you.
How can legitimate sellers protect themselves? Simply by being ultra-cautious. When a deal seems too good to be true, it usually is.
Often, the English used by the “buyer” is poor, indicating this is perhaps one of the many online frauds perpetrated by offshore scammers – typically from Nigeria. And a cheque written for an amount greater than the asking price should always ring alarm bells.


Linton’s 1971 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow,
as it appeared on craigslist.

But legitimate purchasers also can be victims of fraud. Don’t ever send a deposit to someone you’ve never met and without seeing the item first. (An exception to this rule is when buying a car on eBay, where victims of fraud can be compensated.)
Here’s how craigslist advises those using its service to sidestep would-be scammers:
* Deal locally with folks you can meet in person. Follow this one simple rule and you will avoid 99% of the scam attempts on craigslist.
* Never wire funds via Western Union, Moneygram or any other wire service. Anyone who asks you to do so is a scammer.
* Fake cashier cheques and money order are common, and banks will cash them and hold you responsible when the fake is discovered weeks later.
* Craigslist is not involved in any transaction, and does not handle payments, guarantee transactions, provide escrow services, or offer “buyer protection” or “seller certification.”
* Never give out financial information (bank account number, social security number, eBay/PayPal info, etc.).
* Avoid deals involving shipping or escrow services and know that only a scammer will “guarantee” your transaction.
Anyway, Paul Linton’s right-hand drive 1971 Roller is still for sale, $30,000 or best offer. No scammers need reply.

Write to Glen at glenwoodcock@canoemail.com

All original 1934 Graham Model 69 four-door sedan.

Jim Plumb of Port Hope, Ont., has the kind of vehicle that more and more people in the old car hobby are beginning to appreciate – what Hemmings Classic Car calls a “Driveable Dream.”
There is a growing backlash in the old car community to overpriced, over-restored vehicles that have been made “better than the factory built them” by their proud owners. Often, these cars and trucks rarely turn a wheel unless they’re rolling on or off the enclosed trailer that brought them to the show field.
Jim isn’t that kind of guy. He cares little for trailer queens and thinks cars are meant to be driven and to be left as original as possible.
The pride of his collection is a 1934 Graham Model 69 4-door sedan that has the wonderful patina that only age can bring and which bears its scars with pride.
“People used to come up to me at car shows all the time and ask, ‘When are you gonna paint this thing?’” Jim recalled. “Now, more and more people are saying, “Thank you for keeping this so original.’”
And virtually everything on the car is just as it was when it rolled out of the Graham brothers’ Canadian assembly plant in Walkerville, Ont., just across the river from the main factory they’d acquired when Joseph, Robert and Ray purchased the Paige-Detroit Motor Car Co. in 1927.
The 75-year-old chrome plating is more than decent and the interior is in amazing original condition – a good thing, because reproducing its curled mohair fabric and elaborate patterned windlace would be next to impossible today.
The paint, however, is not exactly original. The story goes that the Graham was bought new off the floor at the 1934 Ottawa auto show by a lawyer from nearby Carleton Place. He liked everything about the car except its green paint, so had it sent back to the factory where it was repainted blue. So, while not the original paint, it still is a factory paint job.
And although it’s faded in spots, or worn from years of polishing, it still sports its factory pinstriping.
Jim had to put some new metal in the right front fender, but other than that all he’s had to do in 14 years of ownership was to install a reproduction head produced by the Graham Owners Club International. That was a matter of necessity because the aluminum head had become porous with age, allowing coolant to steam out through minuscule cracks and pinholes when the engine reached operating temperature.
Jim purchased the car from Doug Greer of Cobourg, Ont., a legendary restorer of Graham automobiles, who rebuilt the supercharger and installed radial tires.
(While not original equipment, I recommend radials on all old vehicles simply for the way they improve rolling and handling characteristics. And Jim’s 1934 rolls along very nicely at 50-55 mph on its Michelin blackwall tires.)
He believes the car has remained in such exceptional working condition because it has been “constantly driven to some extent” and never spent much time in storage.


Straight 8 has a copy of Duesenberg's supercharger.

The Model 69 was the top-of-the-line Graham for 1934 and was powered by the company’s own 4-litre straight 8 which used a ¾ scale copy of Duesenberg’s supercharger, allegedly giving it a top speed of 95 mph. It also was the last year for Graham’s own 8-cylinder engine; after that, only sixes were made.
The body, styled by Amos Northrup of Detroit’s Murray Body Corp., was one of the most copied of the 1930s. It was called the Blue Streak, and made its debut on 1932 Graham models.
The company made its last vehicle in 1940-41 when it built cars for Hupmobile using the old Cord 810 body dies. The Hupmobile Skylark and Graham Hollywood were virtually identical, but built only in limited quantities. Graham prospered during World War II and had plans to get back into auto production after the war under new president Joseph W. Frazer.
Frazer assumed control of the company in 1945, linked up with industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, and that Dutch Darrin-designed postwar Graham became the basis for the Frazer and Kaiser sedans built by the Kaiser-Frazer Corp. in Willow Run, Mich. in 1946.

Write to Glen at glenwoodcock@canoemail.com


Like the rest of the car, the spacious rear seat
still wears its factory-installed curled mohair upholstery.

Oshawa Mayor John Gray and his supercharged
1966 Corvair Corsa convertible.

There are two myths about the Chevrolet Corvair.
One is that it really was “Unsafe at any Speed” – the title of Ralph Nader’s sensationalized 1965 book about GM’s only rear-engine, rear-wheel drive car.
The other is that Nader’s criticisms are what killed the Corvair.
Not true, says Jim Diell, interim president of CORSA Ontario, a branch of the Corvair Society of America.
“Actually,” he says, “Nader helped keep the car alive for three more years. What really killed it was the success of the Mustang and Camaro.”
GM had never planned on building the car past 1966, but because of the bad publicity caused by the book didn’t dare end production when planned and make it look like Nader was right.
Nader’s complaints about the 1960-63 Corvair’s handling and its swing axle rear suspension and high roll centre had some legitimacy. But most mishaps were caused by driver error because people didn’t realize a rear-engine, rear-wheel drive car handled differently than the front-engine, rear drive vehicles they were used to, especially on slippery roads.
By 1964 an additional transverse leaf spring carried more of the rear weight in an effort to diminish roll stiffness and create more neutral handling. Spring rates were much softer front and rear, the roll centre had been lowered and all models had a front anti-roll bar and independent supsension. Unfortunately for the Corvair, more people read – and believed – Nader’s book than the numbers who voted for him in any of his failed bids to become U.S. president.


Oldest car at the party was this 1960 Corvair 500 coupe
owned by Greg Crowell.

Lost in all the negative publicity caused by Unsafe at any Speed was that by the time it was published in 1965 Corvair was arguably the best handling production car in the world. Also lost is that Corvair was very successful for Chevrolet, with annual production exceeding 200,000 units for many years. The great irony was that in 1971, two years after it went out of production, the Corvair’s design was cleared in a report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the U.S. federal agency created as a result of Nader’s consumer advocacy.
On Oct. 3, in a parking lot at General Motors of Canada’s Oshawa complex, CORSA Ontario held a party to mark the 50th anniversary of the Corvair rollout.
Club president Diell says the car was kept “very hush hush,” and although assembly began at the old Kaiser-Frazer plant in Willow Run, Mich., in the summer of 1959, it wasn’t unveiled to the public until Oct. 2. That November, production also began at GM Canada’s Oshawa assembly plant and lasted until 1966.
CORSA Ontario has 65 members and 20 of them brought their cars to the event.
The mayor of Oshawa, John Gray, even showed up – and not just to welcome everyone to his city. Gray is Corvair enthusiast, and has “always had at least one.”
His very first car was a Corvair,” he said, “and they’ve stuck to me like glue ever since.”
Although he owns an ultra rare 1966 Yenko Stinger, the mayor arrived at the party in his beautifully restored 1966 Corsa convertible, built in Oshawa and with the desirable 180-hp turbocharged flat six engine.
Gray says the car was “pretty rough” when he found it in Montreal. He farmed out the bodywork to Brad Hall of Brechin, who is “magical with a welding torch,” according to Diell. But Gray did the rest of the work himself, including the engine and suspension.
I guess it only makes sense that the mayor of Oshawa would be a car guy – even though he’s never worked at “The Motors.”
Of the 1,835,170 Corvairs produced, it’s estimated that 100,000 survive, all of them powered by variations of the flat six engine. Prices for the desirable 1965-69 convertibles are in the $10,000-$12,000 range, making Corvair an inexpensive way of getting into the old car hobby.

Write to Glen at glenwoodcock@canoemail.com