An awesome day’s drive, from Cloverdale to Osoyoos!
Our plans for the Cactus jalopy show were slightly modified with a trip to see the Annual Car show at my old High School Centennial in Coquitlam. The parking lot is a fraction of the lot we had whn I was in High school when most 16 year olds were clamoring for drivers licences. But with the new age of 17, and the general malaise of the younger set to driving, we probably had more cars then a typical Wednesday during the school year.Â
The selection of cars was stellar. Lots of cars I had not seen before, and I got to see a few old school mates. Then home to get to sleep early because we had to get up with the sun to make the mad dash to Osoyoos. We got lucky and got a parking spot close to one end of the venue, and then slipped a large replacement signboard into he show where we stowed it at Terry Denomme’s Canadian Hot Rod tent. Terry has been publishing Canadian Hot Rods magazine since the early 2000’s and Bonestock also for a number of years. There were so many cars at the show that were magazine worthy!
One of the unusually cool cars was a 69 Chevelle with a brushed metal finish owned by Darren Graham who also owns Applewood Nissan. We have our Nissan Murano serviced at Applewood Nissan and will probably buy another from them as we love our Murano. We gassed up at My Lehman and drove up to Osoyoos and back to Chilliwhack, 650 km and there was still almost 180 km left in reserve. After filling up the reserved showed a range of 988km. One time when I still had the Carnut Corner column in the Province and Sun papers, I was given a Toyota Prius V wagon to drive to Car Week in California. On the way back I observed the speed limit and nursed 701 km out of her with only 10km in reserve.
I just check and although the Toyotas had a 45.22 litre tank that I almost completely emptied, the Murano took 55litres to drive 650 km I still had more than 16 litres in reserve. All this with a big V6 and lots of power and comfort including the big pano roof! Win for Nissan! But there not very many Nissans at the show. The show was filled, they were rumoured to stop taking registrations at the 650 mark, and filled with wicked cool cars almost all old American Iron. I watched someone admire Gert little British Beast and wonder what the heck it even was. I explained it was British and they wondered how hard it was to make it Left-hand drive. I told them that the Lower Mainland of BC was almost 50% British cars up until the early 60’s and they were blown away.
I got see Johnny Hot Rods car for the first time, and marvelled at our Man Les’ awesome power parking skills! Right beside Les was Roy Moznik and his wicked Pickup that was featured in Canadian Hot Rods last year. Down from that was the Mack Brothers 55 and Aime Gauthier’s Pick up that has just got back from a whirlwind tour of the Cars shows in California, Oregon and Washington.
There were so many cars of note that it would be unfair to mention some and not all…but that is what I am going to do!
 I was contacted by David Pederson, and old work mate from London Drugs when we both were selling Cameras there in the 80’s. He hooked me up with an old friend of his that was at the show with his 69 Charger that he has owned for decades. I was taking shots of Johnny Hot Rods led Sled and another fellow was admiring it, but kind of in my shot. So, per normal, I mention something about the car to get the dudes attention so he would see me and move out of the way. I said something like, “John sure builds some cool cars” and the guy says, Hi Cam it is me Ian Llewellyn” Wow, another blast from the past, Ian also sold cameras at London Drugs with Dave and myself.
After shooting the Charger, my wife Laura and I headed out to the Crowsnest winery in Cawston, which has a dog friendly policy of allowing dogs on their patio. Luckily they had that policy, because the food was amazing and they got our business because we almost always travel with Stella, our Labradoodle now!
We made it home and I started downloading the snaps from the show…..and there are lots!
