Autonet.ca

A 1933 Packard Super Eight Convertible Victoria
that was sold at RM Auctions' Amelia Island event
on March 8 for $412,500 US. Photo by shooterz.biz.

These uncertain economic times – especially in the car industry – have reminded a lot of people of the global crisis that was the Great Depression.
After the stock markets crashed on Oct. 29, 1929 the world was plunged into a decade of financial woe that spelled ruin for many North Americans and unemployment, hunger and instability for millions more.
All the talk comparing now and then has reminded me of something too – a once famous but now forgotten advertisement from an automobile company. It appeared as a full page in Time magazine on Jan. 9, 1933, in the depths of the Depression.
No photo or drawing of an automobile was seen and it didn’t attempt to sell anything except hope.
Signed by Packard Motor Car Company president Alvan Macauley, the ad was headlined “The Family Invisible.” Here’s how it began:
“Two families will ride in each new motor car that is bought during the year 1933.
“One will be the family of the man who buys the car and the other, the family of the man who built the car – the family invisible.
“What do I mean?” Macauley asked.
“The motor car stands as a tribute to labour. Its raw materials … are worth but a few dollars until the hand of labour converts them into beauty and value.
“It would take a man skilled in 80 trades one full year to bring a Packard car from nature’s resources to showroom floor – a man with a wife and two or three children.
“There is a double satisfaction in buying any new car at this time. The man who buys one gets a value never before approached and he gives a fellow man a job – for one whole year if he buys a Cadillac, a Lincoln or a Packard.
“He rides the family invisible for months if he buys a Plymouth, a Chevrolet or a Ford.”
The ad then went on to discuss how much wealth was hidden away in America, removed from the nation’s financial institutions and being hoarded “without benefit of interest or return.”
And then it urged something remarkable – even more remarkable than its earlier encouragement to buy its competitors’ products.
It asked people to do something as simple as paint their homes.
“I believe that every unemployed family head could have work for two months in painting the buildings now going to rack and ruin through nature’s ravage,” Macauley said.
“Let’s consider the family invisible. Let’s invite it to ride in our new cars and to be the guests in our homes as we buy new furniture and the hundred and one things we need.
“The reluctance to spend is the greatest single obstacle to the return of better times,” he concluded.
Altruism, or merely a blatant appeal to consumerism? How you read it depends, I think, on how cynical you are.
But I believe Macauley’s words ring like a clear, crisp bell across the decades.
Remember them and the Canadian labour that produces automobiles in Ontario today. Men and women who worry about the future of their jobs in Windsor, Oakville, St. Catharines, Brampton, Ingersoll, Oshawa, Cambridge, Alliston, Woodstock and St. Thomas.
Just as then, by helping today’s family invisible you’ll also be helping yourself.

Write to Glen at glenwoodcock@canoemail.com

1956 Mercury convertible on the block at RM's Toronto auction.

The reach of RM Auctions has spread far from its home in tiny Blenheim, Ont., with huge collector car events now held yearly in places such as Monterey, Calif., Maranello, Italy, London, England and Amelia Island, Fla. But the company hasn’t forgotten its Ontario roots and each spring and fall it hosts the Classic Car auction of Toronto, in Mississauga’s International Centre at 6900 Airport Rd.
The fall event takes place Oct. 24-26 and has a number of advantages for Canadian buyers. Neither do you have to travel too far from home nor do you have to ship your purchase across international borders. And you also get to pay in Canadian dollars, a definite advantage since the Loonie has weakened vs. the U.S. greenback in recent weeks.
This auction has a good selection of vehicles from almost every era, from the plain, such as a recently restored 1941 Plymouth Custom and an original condition 1927 Model T two-door sedan, to the exotic represented by a 1976 Lamborghini Urraco P-250 coupe and a 1980 Ferrari 512 Berlinetta Boxer.
The auction catalogue’s cover car is a 1956 Mercury Montclair convertible that has spent almost its entire existence in Southern California. Finished in persimmon over white, with a matching interior, it has been driven less than 500 miles since a complete concours quality restoration.
It will be interesting to see if this car brings as much as its Canadian counterpart, a 1956 Monarch Richelieu convertible, that sold for $123,750 at RM’s last Toronto auction in April.
If you like Corvettes – so that means just about everybody – a number of excellent examples will be under the hammer including a 1966 427-cubic inch, 425-hp coupe, a 1957 convertible recently restored in Cascade green and Shoreline beige, a rare 1954 roadster, one of only 3,640 made, and a restored 1967 427/435 roadster with optional side exhaust. At the spring auction, a similar 1967 big block ’Vette sold for $162,250, the second highest price realized at the event and only $550 less than the 1997 Porsche 993 Twin-Turbo S coupe which brought the top dollar.
I’ve always been a huge fan of 1955-57 two-seat T-Birds and a number are on the block at the Toronto auction. One of those, offered at no reserve, is a freshly restored black on white 1956 model complete with Continental kit, but minus the trademark porthole-windowed hardtop.
There are even some one-off customizations including a 1951 Mercury coupe with just 22,000 original miles and an iconic 1932 Ford “Deuce Coupe.” In all, more than 400 vehicles will be offered over three days. Some personal favourites include:
* A V12-powered1946 Lincoln Continental, a true classic and one of only 201 built;
* A V12-powered 1974 Jaguar E-Type roadster;
* A V8-powered 1938 LaSalle convertible coupe.
A swap meet is always part of the T.O. auction and approximately 200 exhibitors are expected to be on site offering everything from automotive parts and accessories to literature and memorabilia.
Auction hours are 3-9 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 24, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturday, Oct 25 and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 26. A related auction of automobilia, including a Supertest gasoline pump from the 1930s, will take place from noon to 3 p.m. on Friday.
For more information – whether buying, selling, or just kicking tires – log on to www.rmauctions.com.

Write to Glen at glenwoodcock@canoemail.com

Roderick Sergiades and his 1947 DeSoto.

By his own admission, Roderick Sergiades is a Canadian chauvinist. Not only does this affect the kind of collector cars he buys, but it also has led to the launch of a new magazine .
“In the old car hobby, all we have is magazines from the U.S. and Britain,” Roderick says. “As a staunch nationalist, I thought we should have a Canadian magazine too.”
That belief led to the launch of Fastback, a quarterly publication which concentrates on stories about restored or original cars told from a Canadian perspective.
The first issue was printed in August and the second is due out in November.
The glossy magazine is packed with colour photographs and concentrates, as Roderick says, on “telling the story behind the story” – the how and why of how a particular car ended up in its present owner’s hands.
Roderick and wife Laura live in Port Hope. Ont. and own a collector car from every decade from the 1940s to the 1980s. The oldest is a 1947 DeSoto sedan that they’ve had for nine years. Now restored, the car is a scarce Canadian-made model that came from salt-free Manitoba. The newest is a 1988 Dodge 600 – built on an extended K-car platform – that’s Laura’s daily driver.
The car Roderick has owned the longest is a 1952 Pontiac Fleetleader Deluxe, a model built in Oshawa and sold only in Canada. It’s the first car he ever bought and the car he learned to drive on.
“A lot of Canadian-made Pontiacs back then were just glorified Chevrolets,” he says, “but this one has a real Pontiac drivetrain.”
Other cars in the Sergiades collection are a l983 Dodge Aries, a 1966 Valiant that is three days older than Roderick and a 1977 Mercury Cougar Villager – a rare station wagon with ersatz wood trim that’s in remarkable original condition.
Roderick has been in love with old cars “forever.” He says his earliest memory is of the old Land Rover his father owned and how, as a youngster, he’d throw a tantrum if they walked past the vehicle and didn’t go for a ride.
Roderick has calmed down considerably since then.
A graduate of Ryerson University’s journalism program, he’s had lots of experience publishing automotive magazines. He’s been the editor of The Reflector, the quarterly publication of the Antique and Classic Car Club of Canada, and for four or five years edited DeSoto Adventures for the international club devoted to that orphan marque.
Canadian-owned cars featured in the premier issue of Fastback were a 1965 Mustang convertible, a 1956 DeSoto Hemi and a 1955 Buick V8.
Some of the stories planned for the next issue are features on a 1940 Graham Sharknose and a 1975 original condition Chev Impala convertible, a brief history of Kaiser-Frazer in Canada and the first of a three-part series on Canadian-made Pontiac Acadians and Beaumonts. With taxes, a subscription is $24.95 and you can order online at www.fastback.ca.

Write to Glen at glenwoodcock@canoemail.com

A rare 1940 Graham Sharknose sedan.

This is the story of three brothers who didn’t take the money and run.
Joseph, Robert and Ray Graham were truck builders in the 1920s with a reputation for making rugged, workhorse vehicles at their plant in Evansville, Ind.
The brothers eventually sold 51% of their company to Dodge, where they all became company directors. Ray also was Dodge vice president and general manager, Joseph VP for manufacturing and Robert VP for sales. When Dodge became part of Walter P. Chrysler’s empire in 1926, an offer was made for the remaining 49% of Graham that the brothers didn’t refuse.
There was one condition, however – the Grahams had to stay out of the truck business.
But vehicle manufacturing was in their blood and so they turned to making cars instead, acquiring the assets of the troubled Paige-Detroit Motor Car Co. in 1927.
The brothers revitalized the Paige lineup, changed the name to Graham-Paige Motors and turned things around, selling more than 73,000 cars in 1929.
And then the stock market crashed.
Like so many other independent automakers, Graham-Paige saw its production nosedive as the Great Depression wore on: 33,560 cars in 1930; 12,967 in 1933. Although sales rose to 21,318 in 1937, the outlook still was grim.
In a desperate attempt to save their company the brothers commissioned stylist Amos Northup to come up with something radical for 1938. They called it the Spirit of Motion. Everyone else took one look and called it the Sharknose.
It was a complete disaster – a bigger flop than Chrysler’s Airflow of 1934-37 or Ford’s Edsel of 1958-60.
This summer, I finally got my first look at a Sharknose (other than in photographs). It was participating in the annual Pre-War Car tour hosted by Rick Morrison, president of the Great Pine Ridge Region of the Antique and Classic Car Club of Canada.
The car, a rare1940 sedan owned by Larry of Houlieff of Oshawa, looks better in retrospect than it did when it was new. Today, it is considered one of the ultimate examples of Art Deco design. Back then, it was simply ungainly.
With its raked baked nose, squared off headlamps and undercut front fenders, most consumers thought the Sharknose looked like a fish out of water.
Under the skin, the Sharknose was pretty conventional, powered by a 218 cubic-inch Continental L-head six that made 90 hp – 116 hp with the addition of a supercharger.
According to the Graham Owners Club International, a total of 5,020 Sharknoses were built for model year 1938 – all of them four door sedans. A combination coupe and a two-door sedan were added in an attempt to boost sales in 1939, but just 5,400 cars were built. Only the four-door sedan was assembled for 1940, with about 1,000 being made. They weren’t the last Grahams; that honour belonged to the 1940-41 Hollywood (see Time Machines archives from December, 2007 on Autonet.ca).
During World War II Graham-Paige had a number of profitable military contracts and in 1944 former Willys-Overland president Joseph W. Frazer bought control of the company. He announced plans to re-enter the automobile business after the war with a completely new car designed by the famed Howard “Dutch” Darrin. That car was badged as a Frazer, not a Graham, although the first 6,476 Frazers built by Kaiser-Frazer Corp. were listed as “products of Graham-Paige.” When Kaiser-Frazer acquired all of Graham-Paige’s automotive assets in 1946 the company turned to other ventures, eventually owning such valuable properties as Madison Square Garden in New York City and the New York Rangers.
Perhaps a more fitting NHL franchise would have been the San Jose Sharks.

Write to Glen at glenwoodcock@canoemail.com