GREATER VICTORIA Advertising Feature
InMotion
Your community’s transportation station...
• March 15, 2013
Events & Activities... MARCH 25 TO 30 – The Vancouver International Auto Show is 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 14 – Old English Car Club, South Island Branch, hosts its eighth annual British Car Restoration Fair & Swap Meet at Heritage Acres. FMI: www.oecc.ca APRIL 18 TO 21 – Victoria Harbour Boat Show in the Inner Harbour. FMI: www.bcyba.com APRIL 20 – The Maritime Museum of BC’s annual Massive Marine Garage Sale, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m in the Pier A warehouse building at Ogden Point (the cruise ship terminal) on Dallas Road in Victoria. Admission is $5 and parking is free. To donate items or to buy a table to sell your own goods, contact Ann Jones at ajones@mmbc. bc.ca or 250-385-4222 ext 102.
Send your driving, boating or biking-related events to
jblyth@telus.net
k.d. lang with the 1964 Mercury Meteor she bought 30 years ago at the beginning of her singing career.
Iconic Canadian singer k.d. lang to sell car that helped launch her career 30 years ago Multi Juno and Grammy Awardwinning singer k.d. lang, who will be inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame April 21, is selling her beloved ALYN EDWARDS 1964 Mercury Meteor CLASSIC sedan with its unusual RIDES ‘breezeway’ electrically operated rear window. The car has been in dead storage in downtown Vancouver for the past 15 years as the singer, who now lives in Portland, Oregon, pursued her international singing career. She bought the car in Edmonton 30 years ago at the beginning of her singing career. “My Uncle Deed had a Mercury Meteor when I was a kid and I rode in the back seat,” she recalls. “It was black with a red interior and it had a roll-down rear window. To me, that car at that moment became the pinnacle of automotive coolness. I always loved that car and had a sentimental attachment to it.” In 1983, her neighbour had a visitor who was driving the same type of car and k.d. had to have it. “I went next door and asked to buy it. It was in good shape and it became my car,” she says. She paid $2,300 for the Mercury, had it repainted in the original aqua colour and drove it regularly through the Prairie provinces, into Montana and to Vancouver. “It rode like a dream. I drove the car to some gigs although I usually toured in a van with musicians,” k.d. recalls. “After a while, everyone in Edmonton knew it was me with that car.” At that time, k.d. had a little dog named Stinkerton. Motorists would do a double take when k.d. pulled up to a stop sign and the dog would go through the rolled-down rear window to do a quick turnaround on the rear deck before re-entering the car. She was on the highway driving from Edmonton to Red Deer one day when
k.d. lang bought this 1964 Mercury Meteor 30 years ago. It will be sold at the inaugural Vancouver Collector Car Show, Sale and Auction June 22 and 23.
she said to Stinkerton: “Look at those cows!” As she glanced in the rear view mirror, she was horrified to see her dog had gone through the rear window and was riding on the trunk. “I was doing 70 miles an hour. All I could do was slowly put on the brakes so the dog would come back into the car.” k.d. stopped using the car as her career required constant travelling and living away from her Vancouver home. “To be honest, I thought I had sold the car,” she says. “I had given someone instructions to sell it and that didn’t happen.” She has a strong emotional attachment to the near 50-year-old Mercury Meteor with the roll-down ‘breezeway’ rear window. “I love this car. It means a lot to me and it was a huge part of the beginning of my career. It has an AM radio and I used to put on country music or find a station
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that played Doris Day and Frank Sinatra. It sounded so good.” So why sell the car now? “I would keep it except, as a Buddhist, I now try not to hold on to things,” she says. “I would rather see someone take the car, drive it sometimes and enjoy that AM radio as I did.” She says the new owner doesn’t have to be a k.d. lang fan. “Just have a sense of humour and have fun with the car.” Her rare Mercury Meteor is in remarkably good shape since it was dry stored for so many years. After the car was removed from the warehouse in downtown Vancouver, Vern Bethel of False Creek Automotive completed repairs to ensure the car is safe and
88 Parts & Labour Reg. 98.88