Destroying Deuces and local history in the 1950's....

Here's Ross(Pappy) Fowler in his model "A" Coupe before and after it was destroyed. In the wreck picture you can see the grandstand in the background. My historian friend Allan Yahn took the wreck photo. The car was so badly damaged that they couldn't take it away from the track that day, so Al went back the day after to take the photo. The third picture is the next car Pappy started racing, none other than a Deuce 3-window('32 Ford 3-window coupe). That steel body alone today would be worth 15 grand or so. Oh!...Pappy, why?? In those days, these coupes were just junk lying around...who would guess what would happen over the years to the vintage tin.

Here's one of Barry Kettering's jalopies. Its a '37 Ford Coupe. The picture on the left is taken at the CLE race track here in Thunder Bay(formerly Fort William) Ontario. The one on the right is taken in front of Bud's service(Bud Heidrick was Barry's sponsor at that time). Where Bud's Service was, today is Dave Knight Optical at 906 Victoria Ave.(the same service station building is still being used by Dave Knight). Across the street is the Safeway grocery store later to become Canadian Tire and is now the Sylvan Learning Centre and several other offices).

These photos show the '37 Ford smashed up(You can still see the Safeway store across the street which later became the Canadian Tire Store as previously mentioned), and to the right is Barry's new car, a '32 Ford 5-window coupe. Again, who was to know the value of these cars as the years went by. This coupe was pretty decent to start with and it once belonged to Bob Walker, who you can still see to this day driving around his cool vintage red model "A" pickup here in Thunder Bay.

What you see here is the same '32 Ford 5-window coupe totally destroyed parked at Burney's Taxi on 111 N. Brodie Street across from Wesley Church(111 N. Brodie St. does not exist today...it is where the bus turn around is on Brodie Street...and this property is designated for a new court house next year). The wreck photos were taken in September of 1956. The brick wall in the picture on the right was the Metropolitan Store's back wall, which is now a discount store today within Victoriaville Center.

These last two photos of Pappy Fowler's, and Barry Kettering's '32 Ford were taken along the fence behind Bud's Service on Victoria Ave., as mentioned above. The brick building behind is gone and was replaced by the Fort William Clinic. The street is McKellar and the row of houses on the other side of the street would now be the back of the businesses in Centennial Square.
DO YOU REMEMBER?...If you do you are at least as old as me!!!...LOL.
The '32 Ford wreck pictures, the fence pictures and the #10 wrecked pictures were taken back in the 1950's by my friend Allan Yahn with his Kodak box camera. Thanks for some of these photos from the Allan Yahn Collection. Thanks for looking and again click on pictures to enlarge.