G.Hoffman

Here are some current photos of the Mann steam truck. It now resides in Kelowna BC. It was operating hauling gravel when I took these photos.

Hi again, how about a couple more photos. A few years ago I sold my big engine collection to a fellow on the Island. There was a car tour on the same weekend. With the 13 ton engine delivered we brought the 12 overland home on the truck. At the ferry terminal several people asked if the truck could handle the car. Made a neat picture anyway. Our big Rumely spent part of its life here in Prince George B.C. where it was parted out. It was shipped to PG in January 1944 to operate a sawmill. It is a 1911 36--120 horsepower plowing engine. It would plow with a 14 bottom gang plow at 1.9 miles per hour. In the field it weighs just over 25 tons and is the largest model offered by Rumely in 1912. and 13 only. Once the heavy sod was turned these big girls were obsolete. The photo was taken in Forest City Iowa with our two grandsons bringing it back from a day of plowing. We hauled it to 3 shows ending at the 25 th anniversary show of the Rumely club in Forest City Iowa. Sorry for contaminating the thread Peter. Cheers.

Hi Dave, Good to hear from you. I am now in competition with you in the 14 Cadillac catagory . Jim did a stellar job in restoring the 14 from a real junk pile. He had to quit driving due to health issues so we made a deal 2 years ago. How about a photo of your car? Cheers George.

How about a few more photos. We brought these out to blow the dust off of them. In front is the 1910 Russell now owned by our Daughter Sandra who Vern Chose to own the car back in 2010. Vern wanted to keep the car locally so we have it in the basement, heated so that the wood body won't crack. Behind it is our 1912 overland from Rolla B.C. just north of Dawson Creek. We bought it in 1959 for $125. plus shipping $75 via PGE. railway. Behind that is the 1924 Stutz, the barn find in 2011. Imported new in Vancouver with the wire wheels, Balloon tires and Hydraulic brakes. introduced for the 24 model year. Behind that is Doris's 1925 Packard from Spuzzum. Then in the end is the 26 "T" 4 door ex Jack Chidgy car from Seattle. Brought to Surrey in 1974. The steam tractor was sold new in Brooks Alberta. It is a 1913 Gaar Scott which we have had for over 40 years. It is all original and operates each summer.

How about a few photos. Here is a B.C. Icon. Getting ready to race the Royal Hudson in Surrey. Our young friend Andi was operating and looking down from the firemans side of the locy. In the background is the diesel pusher they had to help get them up the Surrey hill, a two and a half percent grade. Here they found that the diesel had died so the Hudson worked her heart out to drag the train with the dead diesel up the hill. When they stopped here they wondered why they nearly stalled on the hill. Photo #2 is John Reilly's 13 Cadillac. It was also sold new at Begg Motors and was bought by the Dunsmuir Coal Co and used as a company car at the Union Bay operation. It too was a $3,000 basket case when John bought it in the 70's. For years it was allowed to rot in Campbell River. # 3 is our 1924 Stutz coming out after being in a Coquitlam garage on blocks since 1951. It was bought new by a theater owner on Granville St. It was the first North American production car to have four wheel Hydraulic brakes.. And it sure does stop. Paul Bolam on the right in the green jacket. This was in 2011. Cheers

Nice to see the 11 McLaughlin Photo again. About 50 years ago I visited with Charley Bond in Clearwater to look at the car. It was a very nice original car in running order. It didn't look as nice as it does now as it originally was a Nickle and Black car. I didn't realize it originally came from Ashcroft. In the 50s George Wood brought a completely original but well worn 1922 Packard 7 pass touring out of Ashcroft. It belonged to a Caribou stage company since new. George wanted to trade me for my 1912 Overland at the time. I went over to Carson 's shop and he had the Packard running. It had been in a shed in Ashcroft since the depression. I have often wondered where it got to now. It could be in the Slim Jens Collection. The 11 is a very nice car. Keep polishing Gerry. Cheers. George.

Ken That is a great picture of Pauls first Napier. I thought it was an 11. The old original owner said his dad paid $9,200 for the car in Vancouver. Paul's gathering of the pieces of this car is great story. I will post it next week. Just as a tidbit of the story is the Radiator. Paul kept asking where the rad got to but couldn't get an answer. finally when Paul had most of the car together the old fellow took Paul into his bedroom and there was the rad mounted into the window with the Napier fan and an electric motor . He had it plumbed to the house water for air conditioning. Paul bought and installed a modern air conditioner for the rad. More later Cheers George.

Peter, That bent fender was not done by Doris or I . This happened in front of the stairs to the legislature in Victoria. I had just angle parked when a pair of old gentlemen named Pennman brothers driving their 1930 Cadillac limo drove into the fender. I was choked but really understood that these guys were in their 80s and shouldn't have been driving anyway. Someone was directing them to park so the whole affair was a screw up . The brothers ran a Taxi business in Victoria for years. I fixed it myself When I got home. Now for the rest of the story. In February 1958 I went out on a blind date with my friend Roy and his new girlfriend to meet a new babe. She was beautiful however I needed help on the T so I asked if she could sew. When she said yes and had a new sewing machine I got to like her even more. Her and I then set up in the shop to upholster the "T". After it was upholstered it was painted, trimmed and on the road for the 1960 May tour. In 1961 we were married and drove the T on our honeymoon to Penticton and back. On the 1960 may tour we met Annie and Art Urquart at Spuzzum and admired their 1925 Packard. They insisted we stay with them for a couple of days on our honeymoon. This started a lifetime friendship . They had no children so called us their kids. For years we joked that we spent our honeymoon in Spuzzum. The Packard is in the photo above and now resides in our basement. We drove the T with the original engine until it broke the crankshaft in 2007 . I replaced it with another old one only to break that one in 800 miles. We have just got it on the road again with a new modern crank installed by James Kitchener. It has been a great car for 65 years.and has 16,560 miles on the odometer. And my new girlfriend is still here after 65 years too. Our kids and us have 5 "T"s now. Cheers George.

Peter, that last photo is a nice one of the coupe probably taken on the Fernie tour in 2008. The one above that from the news paper was before the 1966 around the Provence tour. Since you have posted photos of our "T" I will go with it's story. It was bought new from the Ford dealer in Ladner. B.C. A young friend who I hung out with during high school lived in Ladner and knew that this Coupe was in a shed behind the Ladner Plumbing shop just a block from the old Ford dealer. The car looked fairly original however the wood had suffered from the weather . This was 1955 so the car was 31 years old then. The owner wanted $50 for it. My offer was $25 however we couldn't agree so that was it. During the following week I thought about the accessories the car had on it so went back the following Saturday and upped my offer to $30. So after a bit of moaning it was a deal. One item I noticed is that it had an original Ruxtel axle After we got it home on the end of a rope. we started it only to find out that the rods rattled something awful. At that time I had a nice 27 Chrysler and a nice original 27 Willys Knight so put the "T" away. In 57 I got serious and tore the car down for a total restoration. The old Ladner Ford dealer was by this time a hardware store. I found that the upper floor still had hundreds of T parts in bins with the original price tags on them. For the next 2 years I had a good stock of T parts to choose from . One day in about 1959 I went back to buy something and the old fellow announced that 2 fellows from Seattle had bought all the parts for $500 , loaded 2 pickups and the lot had gone. Prior to that I had bought a lot of pieces for fellow club members . Two new front wheel at $15 each went on Paul Bolams 08 Buick. There was a new complete rear end with a tag on for $75. Back to the restoration , I replaced nearly all of the body wood. 128 pieces in all. The metal was all sandblasted, painted inside then reattached to the wood frame. The engine had a minor overhaul using parts from the old store in Ladner. This was long before repo parts were available. The rest of the story to follow.

Great photos Peter, Yes you are correct the Dunbars had polished the paint off the hood, fenders and other places too. In 1959 I finished my "T" in a shop I had in Surrey. When we removed the T we brought the Diana in and spent most of the winter stripping all the paint off down to bare metal. In 1960 it received about 15 coats of Nitro Cellulose Lacquer in olive green and black which was the original color. Terry and I were just talking about how well this paint has lasted 60 years and looks as good as new still. The tires that came on the Diana were recapped by Mr Dunbar after the war and stored in his basement. He had a new set installed then but realized that maybe the 600x20 tires wouldn't be available in the future so saved the old recapped ones. And yes in the 70s I installed two on my "TT"truck which are on it today. That is 93 years ago when they were installed on the Diana. For those not familiar, The Diana was built by the Moon Motor Car Co. The Diana was their luxury model and was named so because Diana was the Goddess of the Moon in Greek mythology. The rad ornament is the Goddess standing with her bow and arrow. Here is the other 1959 Lacquer paint job completed just before the Diana.

8E45E I remember seeing that Tatra but I have no idea where they got to . George. Next up are the cars . Will start with the Spuzzum Packard. Here is a photo of it. It is a 1925 Model 333 7 passenger sedan with 23,000 miles. It belongs to my wife. The story tomorrow. Cheers.

Firstly, some one in a post above asked about Paul Bolam . Yes he is still with us however is in a home with health issues. Alzheimer has taken away his memory which is a shame for a man with his knowledge. Now to the Silver Brothers. We first got to know of them and their cars in the mid 50s. They were congenial guys and loved to visit to talk old cars. Al Johnson and I used to visit once in a while. The old house they lost for tax sale during the depression. The city then owned the property and rented to them for $10 per month until they died. I remember thinking wow that is cheap rent. However their father was prominent so the city gave them a break. The street that the old house was on is still named Silver Ave. A couple things really struck me. One was the size and the condition of the 13 Peerless in the basement.[ See the photo of it above.] It and the 31 Stutz Blackhawk were in the basement and didn't suffer when the garage collapsed .The other thing I was a bit shocked about was the inside of the house. They heated and cooked on an old wood stove that smoked for over 30 years. The kitchen had never been cleaned so the kitchen inside was as black as the inside of a cow. Even with a single bulb it was still black. The other thing that is stuck in my mind is that one of the two , I think Will, was deaf so used a tin horn in the ear as a hearing aid. When you spoke to him he inserted the horn in one ear then you shouted into it. He was the only person I ever saw using a Horn. The winter that the garage collapsed [ Jan 1965] My wife and I spent Christmas and January on the beach in Hawaii. At the little corner store on Lewers St they sold one day old Vancouver Sun news papers . We watched the paper as the daily snow accumulation grew to over 2 feet in Vancouver. I called my father to ask him to shovel off the roof's of the 3 houses we had. We arrived home a few days after the Club Members had rescued the Silver cars from the collapsed garage so I missed all of that. The day after we got home I looked out at my neighbours 2 car garage and it had collapsed onto my Model "T" and Al Johnson's Diana sedan. The two cars were under a collapsed roof with 2 feet of wet snow on top. Fortunately the two weren't badly damaged. We rented this garage for years at $5 per month.. The "T" is still with us and the Diana is still in the Johnson family. Wow this was 55 years ago. Cheers George.

Hi all. I was at the old Pringle place several times in the 50s and 60s . Twice with Paul and others . Old man Pringle was a Hermit with hair and beard over the shoulders. He was friendly once you got to know him so my wife and I used to visit a couple times a year. He had a huge yard with a sawmill and acres of junk. There was about a half dozen old cars in this collection. I rescued the remains of a 1913 Overland. The rad and one headlight are on my basement wall today as spares for my 12. The rad is the same as my 1912 only nickle plated in 1913. Paul and Rick Percy rescued a 1909 Cadillac fairly complete which I have lost track of now.. There was a nearly complete 1915 Franklin which is still owned by Dave Proctor. Paul bought it and fixed it up as a runner before selling it to Dave. The 1904 Fiat was a real basket case. It had been in Pringles yard for years and virtually fallen apart onto the ground. I don't recall it being burnt. When John finally talked the old man out of it the rad was missing. The old man had mounted it alongside a single cylinder hopper cooled irrigation pump in a creek away from his house. One day he found that the rad was gone and he was really pissed. Not long after this my wife and I arrived for a visit to be met with the old man toting a 12 gauge shotgun. At the time I confessed that I didn't have any idea who would steal it so the old man cooled down for a visit. Buck was well known for having sticky fingers so I phoned him when I got home and asked about the rad. His answer was typical of Buck saying "well he didn't need it anyway "When John got the Fiat to Seattle, Buck sold him the rad for I think $100. Buck never had any money so was always trying to generate cash. The story I recall of the Fiat is the owner of the Westwold Hotel built in the 1880s was well off by the turn of the century. In 1904 he and his wife attended the Paris Auto show where he purchased the Fiat. It was then shipped around the Horn and up to Westwold . The hotel was still there but abandoned in the early seventies. It was a huge 3 story wood structure. Here is a story that I got from one of the Pringle sons. John and his family traveled from Seattle and visited Weastwold for a holiday in the mid 70s. Val and John went over to the remains of the old hotel for a look around. One item that John was having a problem with during the restoration was the drive chains and sprockets were completely worn out. Chain drive cars had high wear rates in the mud and gravel of these early roads. In an old shed at the rear of the hotel was a pair of new chains still wrapped and hanging on the wall. These are oddball metric European chains. The sprockets were rebuilt and the new chains installed. You can see them in one of the above photos. I saw the Fiat several times after the restoration and it was a beautiful car. I believe it is still in the family. Cheers George.

In an earlier post it shows the beautifully restored 1930 Packard phaeton bought new by Chris's grandfather. What always amazed me was that the car was 9 years old when it was used to tour the Queen around. It obviously had been well kept . The first time I saw the car was when Art Falawka was painting it in his garage in March of 1958. In 1961 when Doris and I were married Art and Cathy chauffered us around in the Packard. It was a spectacular wedding car and certainly impressed our guests. We met Chris at the Crescent Beach Concourse in 2014 where he showed the car. We introduced ourselves and produced out wedding photos for a photo session. Here we are with our wedding album on the running board 53 years later. And once again in the rear seat. What a magnificent car. Cheers George.

Hi all and Peter, I just registered on this Forum and it is somewhat different from other sites I am familiar with. We have several cars that are originally local owned. Having been a founding member of the Vintage Car Club Of Canada in 1958 I have enjoyed reading some of the posts from the "old days". I am looking forward to answering some queries and posting some photos if I can figure out how. This Computer age is relatively new to me seeing my kids and grand kids are planning a virtual party for my 84 th birthday next weekend. Lets try a photo. Well with a little help from Peter here we have a photo of our 1908 model "S" Ford one of about 30 odd to have survived. I can be corrected on the 30 figure though. Cheers George.