Ken Coghlan's Cadillac....the Body Shop.....and Kam Motors #34, all from our home towns of Fort William and Port Arthur, Ontario.

No...this isn't a misprint. The brochure page below says the 1960 Cadillac Sixty Two Sedan...who knows why...who cares! This is what Ken Coghlan's Cadillac would have looked like in 1960 or at least before the damage that you will see in the following photos.
In Ken's own words: "In 1967, I was driving the Caddy on Phyllis St., crossing Empress Ave., and was hit by a dump truck.  The truck pushed me into a telephone pole on the corner in front of the store that used to be there and actually broke the telephone pole.  You can see where the pole went behind the driver's side tire.  I went out the door and two ladies in the store helped me, but I don't remember too much from that moment.  I do remember however, looking at the car and thinking that it had some damage."

Click on all the photos once or twice for enlargements.

Seeing these photos that Ken sent me, I could hardly believe that he walked away from the accident.  Thanks to Ken for sending these for us to post......Don't go away....There is MORE!  The next picture is a now shot of where Ken's accident occurred on the corner of Empress Ave. and Phyllis St.  Ken is a former resident of Port Arthur.

The next step with accidents such as this, is where to have it repaired.  Ken didn't tell me if and where the Caddy was repaired, but if it was, it probably would have been one of the two next body shops.  The first black and white is Port Arthur Motors used car lot and Body Repair shop(this building still exists today), and the next one is my father, John Cano's alma mater Kam Motors which was on Leith Street in Fort William.  Let's consider that it was actually repaired at Kam Motors.......well, for a better storyline anyway....thanks for being patient. ☺

  Yes, now here is my dad managing the Kam Motors Body Shop in 1967 in his typical Homburg Hat...and look at that....There is a brand new 1967 Oldsmobile Tornado behind him with some damage somewhere.   The bumper sticker below was issued in 1965 commemorating Kam's 50th Anniversary.

On the right is about a 1950 ad on a brochure showing how Kam Motors looked at the time and advertising Chevrolet, Oldsmobile and of course Cadillac.  

Below is a post card Kam would mail out back in 1939 showing how they could make your car NEW again.

A now picture - "DIAMOND TAXI"

The following pictures were all taken when my father was managing the body shop at Kam Motors for Hubert Badanai Sr. back in the early 1950's.

John Cano and Joe Canzi

In this picture - all we know are John Cano, Mike Tront, Dan Ozero(with goggles), Peter Petrick, and Joe Canzi.  I remember hanging around Kam after school at 10 to 13 years old in the mid to late '50's and all these guys were so good to me....I still remember most of them....and all are now gone to the big body shop in the sky....                 ☺

Well...what do you think came next.....a body shop was supposed to repair cars, not wreck them...

 I remember when Kam Motors body and paint shop were working on their first stock car....I was 10 years old.  The 1938 Chevy Coupe almost looked as nice as the one in this picture when they started modifying it.  It was late summer 1954 and no one had any idea yet that there would be a Chevrolet with a V8 on the horizon in 1955.

..........and this is what they did to it!  My father did all the body work, Canary(Onorio) Trevisan painted it, Archie Fowler did the mechanical work, and Bill Chepil drove it on and off for about 4 summers total....and oh yes, they wrecked a few of these before it was all over.  Don't forget to click on each pic to enlarge them.

The Main Drivers of the #34, 1938 Chevrolet were Bill Chepil and Canary Trevisan.  The following picture was taken at Russ Wanzuks museum only a few years before these two icons of the paint and body world of the day Mr. Mascarin and Mr. Canary(Onorio) Trevisan passed on.

The final addition to this post is this great write-up(from Barry Kettering's personal scrap book) that was in the Fort William Times Journal in 1957.  It also mentions Sammy Myronuk filling in for Canary because he was in the hospital and Sam also ended up in the hospital after this race day.  Sammy went on to race more races with his own cars, but sadly the lack lustre 1938 Chevy Coupe's days came to an end...It seems there was more bad luck than good luck, and the V8 Fords and V8 Chevrolets were leaving the old 6 cylinder Chevrolets behind in the dust.

Many thanks to Ken Coghlan for the Caddy photos, also to Archie Fowler for some of the #34 photos, to Rene Kettering for allowing me to copy Barry's scrapbook a few years ago.

I dedicate this post to my father John Cano for the great car years together and for all he taught me....I miss him very much.  Please return for more HR&J photos and stories of our city during the Hot Rod and Jalopy generation.

More Port Arthur and Fort William then's, now's and Tidbits....

This is one of my favourite photos from the early Port Arthur days.  It shows Port Arthur Motors used Car lot, a great Coca Cola painted ad sign and further down you can see the Paramount Theatre sign. The era would be early to mid 1940's in the winter and during the WWII years.

The same spot today across from the old Port Arthur Motors Garage and Show

Room which is now "Tony and Adams" restaurant and bar.

J. H. McLennan Lumber Co.
Below is a very old blotter(you remember blotters, don't you?....when you used a real ink straight pen, there would be excess ink still on the page and you would blot out the excess ink.....geez, I guess I'm really dating myself).....anyway a blotter from before dial phones when you would pick up your phone and tell the operator,"North 2157, please", and she would connect you without any dial....1930's.  The address for all of these J. H. McLennan Lumber ads is 80 North Cumberland Street

Operator assisted phone number here at "North 2157".

This is a dial phone era ad from a 1957
Fort William phone book.

Here's another ad from a 1962 phone book with DI(meaning

Diamond) in front of the number.  Diamond on your phone

is 34, hence the following year they dropped the DI and said

345-5453 in the phone books.

Well, here is a 1974 ad for the same address as McLennan Lumber at 80 N Cumberland street.  It's none other than the famed local Stan's Pizza.  The "Closed" building at the same address today still sports the "Stan's Pizza" sign.

Bobby Curtola

Here is a great photo of none other than Bobby Curtola being interviewed by CKPR 580 radio personality Larry Christie.  Larry was giving first spin to Bobby's new release "Hitchhiker"...coloured shot of the album below.

I hope you were one of the lucky ones who's seen Bobby locally and in person, backed up by our own Sensational Hot Rods rock and roll tribute band.  They always put on a great show together.  WOW...Bobby still entertaining today after all these years......Good Job Bobby!!

The Flamingo Club

There's always been a soft spot in my heart for the Flamingo Club Dine and Dance, as that's where our own wedding reception was held back in the late '60's.  It really was a nice place back then.....and before it was finally bought out and torn down had turned into a real dive......although a dive with great history.....The Flamingo was owned and operated by Scott Shields, who was a neighbour of my parents back in the Arthur Street days.

This is actually an enlarged matchbook cover from my own collection!

 The card to the left is a post card from about 1961 given to prospective clients to book for a wedding or any type of formal reception....It was quite an elegant place at one time.  The ad to the right shows none other the Neil Young and the Squires playing at The Flamingo Club - Tavern.  The address was 344 North May Street in Fort William.  The photo below shows the present day apartment building built on the same property.

Former Flamingo Club property at 344 N. May Street

 Talbot Street, Port Arthur
Always click on all the photos once or twice to enlarge them!!!
An Internet find shown below is a house on 344 Talbot Street in Port Arthur taken in the late 1910's or the early 1920's.  This is a then an now set showing the same house today which still has the same roof line after almost 100 years.

Canadian National Railway

This is my all time favourite photo of the Canadian National pier in Port Arthur which is of course today's Marina Park.........we've come a long way baby!!....since 1922.  The building at the bottom right is the CNR Baggage building which is still used today and extensively refurbished as the arts building.  The roof of the building at the bottom left is the old Canadian Pacific Railway station, long torn down to make room for present day "Water Street".

This is another similar post card photo to the one above showing the S. S. Noronic and
the S. S. Hamonic at the Port Arthur and CN Docks.

 Kam Motors again
Here's an advertising 1939 post card from Kam Motors during the period of time my father worked there before he ended up in the Canadian Army.  It shows what the Kam Motors body shop could do if you ended up in a collision.

How the Kam Motors building looks today!

East Victoria Avenue Fort William circa 1954

One more picture of our cruisin' strip and how well we remembered it in pre Victoriaville days....The St. Louis, The Embassy Grill, Bryans Limited, White's Drug Store, and many more...all you 50's and 60's cruisers will remember it all!!

Another Port Arthur Then and Now

 Both of these photos were taken on the south east corner of Park and Cumberland street in Port Arthur, Ontario...the first one is from the 1930's and the second one is from 2011.

Cumberland and Arthur(Red River Road) Port Arthur, Ontario

The following three photos are taken on the same corner of Cumberland and Arthur Street, now Red River Road.  The first and third photos are great local Street Car shots taken in the late 1930's and the middle one was taken in the late 1910's.  They all depict the busy street life back then near our waterfront....photos here are thanks to Thunder Bay Face book.

The streetcar is coming down the hill toward Cumberland Street and just passing
St. Paul Street.

This shot shows the complete Tomlinson Block in about 1918 Showing the F.

W. Woolworth block and the W. T. McEachern Drug Store on the north/west

corner.

This final shot of this post is a wonderful one of tandem streetcars coming down Arthur Street and just passing St. Paul  Street.  Circa late 1930's.

Thanks to all those who donated photos for this post.  They are all wonderful shots of our early days here in the Canadian Lakehead(Fort William and Port Arthur) ....Thunder Bay.