InMotion
Your One Stop Collision Repair Facility
GREATER VICTORIA Advertising Feature
#2-2333 Government St.
250.380.3995 ICBC
c.a.r. shop VALET
Accredited Collision Repairs & Valet Service
perfectionscustompaint@shawcable.com
Locally Owned and Operated 20 Years in Business
• March 8, 2013
Events & Activities...
Classic vehicles become rolling billboards
MARCH 13 – The Vancouver Island Mustang Association meets at Jasmine’s Restaurant on the Old Island Highway, Colwood. Dinner at 6:30 p.m. with the meeting at 7:30 p.m. Everyone is welcome. MARCH 25 TO 30– Vancouver International Auto Show at the Vancouver Convention Centre. Western Canada’s largest auto show representing more than 30 distinct brands from the world’s leading manufacturers. FMI: VancouverInternationalAutoShow.com APRIL 2 – Vintage Car Club meets, St. Luke’s Church Hall, 7:30 p.m. FMI: victoria.vccc.com APRIL 18 TO 21 – Victoria Harbour Boat Show in the Inner Harbour. FMI: www.bcyba.com APRIL 27 – Season opener at Western Speedway, with Demo Cars/Trucks/ Bombers/Mini Figure 8/Drifting. FMI: www.westernspeedway.net
Send your driving, boating or biking-related events to
jblyth@telus.net
Miss Daisy is the name of the 1947 Chrysler New York-style taxi parked in front of Vancouver’s Joe Fortes Seafood and Chop House.
Victoria-area furniture maker Paul Fisher was driving to a suburban restaurant for dinner with his wife when he spotted a rusty truck in a driveway. “I always liked the curved ALYN EDWARDS shape of the 1950sCLASSIC style panel truck,” he RIDES says. He bought the truck, had it restored and put it to work. The burgundy and cream 1955 Ford half ton panel van is used several times a week to deliver furniture between his home workshop in Sooke and his store on Victoria’s downtown Fort Street. His wife, an accomplished artist, hand-lettered The English Cabinet Maker on the sides of the van. When the Ford panel van isn’t parked in front of the store, it’s delivering custom wine cabinets, armoires, bedroom sets, dining room tables and sideboards. Paul, who apprenticed in London, England as a cabinet maker, says the truck turns a lot of heads and draws a lot of people into the store. He admits that he could have bought a new van for the money he spent acquiring and restoring the 1955 Ford panel truck. “This vehicle is the most practical older character vehicle I could have bought and it has become my signature,” he says. “I’m not a typical old car person. I am a cabinet maker, that’s what I do. But the vehicle is very much a part of me and I’m hoping never to have to give it up.” In a similar vein, Vancouver’s Dayton Boots, circa 1946, has one of Vancouver’s best loved neon signs – Boots by Dayton - from that era above its East Hasting Street factory and store. It’s hard to miss this building with the company’s red 1940 Ford one ton pickup parked outside. Business partner Hall Risk uses the 73-year-old pickup truck every day to commute from his False Creek home. Dayton partner Stephen Encarnacao bought the pickup truck four years ago. It was originally the fire chief ’s truck in the Fraser Valley community of Langley. “When we drive the truck on
This 1955 Ford panel delivery truck draws attention to owner Paul Fisher’s English Cabinet Maker shop on Victoria’ Fort Street There is always a waiting taxi to give Vancouver’s Joe Fortes Seafood and Chop House that ‘40s look.
Hastings Street, people jump up and down, clap and cheer,” Stephen says. “This truck was already in use when Dayton Boots started business in 1946 and it represents what the brand stands for: quality and durability.” Across town, there is always a New York-style 1940s Yellow Cab waiting at the curb outside the Joe Fortes Seafood and Chop House on Thurlow Street just off Robson. The 1947 Chrysler Royal was purchased in Santa Barbara, California and retrofitted as a period-correct taxi. It may be the most photographed object in downtown Vancouver. The car is parked in front of the restaurant seven days a week and costs the restaurant $32 in daily parking meter fees. “There are millions of photographs of this car and our restaurant circulating all over the world and we get a million dollars in
advertising from it,” says restaurant general manager Scott Garrett. “The taxi is part of our Forties (Fortes) theme like our phone number: 604-6691940.” The popular restaurant spent $14,000 having the car mechanically rebuilt last year with a modern V8 engine, power steering and power disc brakes. It drives like a new car. The yellow taxi is used for monthly tours of all downtown hotels to brief concierges on the latest menu and feature dishes. “We also tour customers and dignitaries around the downtown area and they love it,” Scott Garrett explains. Adjacent to Vancouver’s Waterfront Station, there is a rotating classic car show outside the front doors of the Steamworks Brewing Company pub. Owner Eli Gershkovitch has a fleet of Continued on Pg. B3
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