It's a cool and cloudy Sunday but fans of the classic Deuce Coupe have not been deterred. Traffic trying to get down to the Empress where a gathering of the clans is taking place has been clogging Douglas Street all day. I sure wish I could get down there because I love old cars, but I'm stuck here at my job site. Lots of duded up deuce coupes going by...and is there any classic more appealing to us red neck types than a souped up Deuce Coupe? I don't think so. A lot of them were cruising around Saturday, too, and I managed to get a few pictures before my camera batteries gave up the ghost. Looks like I'm going to have to get new batteries and charger as these old nicads of mine don't want to take a charge anymore. Can't complain. I've had 'em for about ten years and recharged them hundreds of times.
This event, to commemorate the 75th birthday of the V8 Ford, is a little special. This is not the first time local organizer Al Clark has got a show together, but it's definitely the biggest. This year he had to cut off entries at 752, with 400 of them '32's. Participants were from as far away as California and New York.
It always perplexes me why people get into there cars and head straight to where they know a traffic jam will be, but they do. I always hated special events when I was a cab driver. If you can't get to your fare you can't make any money. But now I don't have to worry about that anymore--I just watch from on high, like the gods on Olympus.
Although I love old cars I'm a total dunce when it comes to mechanical stuff--so I passed on the opportunity I had of getting a '68 XKE in the early seventies, and I gave my '62 Spitfire back to the finance company when the bendix went. I had no idea what a bendix was, let alone a ring gear. But now I wish I had stuck with that little guy and had him safely under cover every winter waiting to be let out to play in the summer. But that was the year I ruined my life and a few others. The Spitfire is the least of my regrets, but if I'd spent more time on learning mechanics and less on partying things might have been different.
These guys who fix up their old cars have my respect and admiration. Wives and girl friends who grow impatient with their grease monkey men just remember--it keeps them out of mischief.
Victoria on Vancouver Island and the lower mainland are a lot less destructive of metal than most other Canadian locales. It seldom snows and so the streets and roads don't get that buildup of salty slush. And most car owners are quick to wash their vehicles following those few occasions. This means that quite often an old car in a fairly good state of preservation can be found in a barn somewhere. Even cars on the road continuously for thirty or forty years are not all that uncommon. When I lived in Vancouver's West end several years ago an old lady who must have been the original owner had a '30's era coupe which she tried to drive about once a month. I say tried to drive because she seemed to have a lot of difficulty getting it in and out of her parking space. I see an early '60's Dodge Dart convertible with what looks like the original paint is parked beside my construction site as I write. It looks a little shabby but perfectly serviceable. Probably got a slant 6 in it, one of the all time great motors. Somebody's project car. I wonder if it has push button transmission. Whatever happened to those, anyway?
I wonder if there is an equivalent to the Deuce Coupe today. Frankly, I can hardly tell one car from another anymore.
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