THE BARBER CAR....It was right here in our home town back in 1975....

This is one of those "do it now before you forget" posts.  The Barber Car in this very first photo was taken by yours truly here in Thunder Bay at a car show in the Coliseum building in 1975.  I was compelled to do this post after reading a most incredible book by "Hot Rod" writer Pat Ganahl called "Lost Hot Rods".  It is a must read for all you gearheads out there....thanks for the loan Dennis.
THE BARBER CAR.

As it looked at the CLE Coliseum in 1975 here in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

While it might be hard to keep a razor steady at 150 miles-per-hour, this vehicular barber shop is fully functional and capable of such neck-nicking speeds. The bizarre Barber Car is one of many curious and wildly expensive cars in the vault below the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.

The Vault, which stores around 150 vehicles that are in between exhibitions or just don't quite fit anywhere in the museum, was closed to the public since the museum opened in 1994 (although VIPs, along with someone who got in with an old Volvo key, got to see the subterranean auto treasure trove). It opened for the first time for tours in late 2012, and, due to high demand (people were lining up outside), the museum recently announced that these tours would be going on indefinitely. Along with the Barber Car is a Mercedes-Benz that belonged to Saddam Hussein, a bullet resistant car that was commissioned by the White House just a day after Pearl Harbor, President Clinton's golf cart, a 1925 Round Door Rolls-Royce recovered from a New Jersey junkyard, and a 1957 Jaguar owned by Steve McQueen.

The Barber Car was imagined in 1969 by car customizer Joe Bailon, who invented the popular Candy Apple Red paint and also designed the totally bizarre and fanciful Pink Panther Car.



This is how it looked in the Vault - I don't know what's with the one wheel in the rear!

 At the time, there was a custom car craze for wilder and wilder vehicles for car shows, and the Barber Car delivered with twin antique barber chairs positioned between two authentic barber poles that worked as turn signals, as well as a porcelain sink equipped with hot and cold water. The whole interior was upholstered in red velvet and even has a stereo, and installed up front is a 400 horsepower Corvette engine. Perhaps someone could use the Barber Car to stage a rollicking road trip version of Sweeney Todd?                                                                                                                                           

As shown in the Peterson Museum - California.



 

Did we build this kit?....Was one ever made?

 

Lovely in black and white ☺

 

This is how it looks in Pat Ganahl's book.

 Since I can't legally copy the whole story from Pat's book....be sure to pick it up and read it yourself...once more....It's called "Lost Hot Rods".....and I think even though it's pretty bizarre....it was pretty cool to see it right in our own home town back in the 1970's.  You've gotta love it!



RIGHT HERE IN OUR HOME TOWN - Dirk and Trudy Regter - 1915 Model T Ford World Tour for SOS Children's Villages......

Because of the lack of media coverage for this incredible event I feel the need to publish this local feel good story. 
Update:  ....Well.....with encouragement from Clarence Merko and myself the local newspaper "The Chronicle Journal" did a bang-up job in the Wednesday Aug. 28, 2013 paper....one week after their arrival.  Thanks to Greg Giddens at the CJ.

Dirk and Trudy Regter from Holland have taken upon themselves to tour the world in a 1915 Ford Model T Touring to raise funds for a wonderful cause, the SOS Children's Villages "a loving home for every child".
I had a "head's up" from George Rogers in Winnipeg that the tour would be passing through Thunder Bay from Thursday Aug 22 through Monday Aug 26.  I had called Clarence Merko and a few members of the Lakehead Antique Car Club and others locally to help with the welcome.  The car was at the local cruise night sponsored by Canadian Tire on this past Thursday evening, to the joy of everyone in attendance.
Here is a photo of Dirk and Trudy taken on Aug.22.

For some insight on what the SOS Children's Villages is all about, click on these 2 separate links then come back to see the rest of the photos and story.

http://www.soschildrensvillages.ca/Pages/default.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOS_Children's_Villages

 



 

This is the driver's side of Dirk's Ford Model T showing some equipment  used on the long journey.



By clicking on this to enlarge it, you can see in black where they have gone so far and in brown where they still have to travel.  They have already been all through the Mediterranean area and all the way through parts of central and South Africa, then had the car shipped to Houston Texas to start the western United States tour then up into Canada and so far to here in Thunder Bay, Ontario.  They will be continuing on to eastern Canada then down into the USA to Hershey Pennsylvania, on to the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit, then Chicago and points south....then Mexico, South America...back to New Zealand and Australia.............then you can follow the rest on the map. 

You can follow Dirk and Trudy on the Model T World Tour Website here http://www.tfordworldtour.org/

...and if you feel you'd like to make a donation to their cause you can do so on their website!!

 

This is a front and back copy of their business card.  Be sure to click on these and all the photos for enlargements.

The decals and medallions are from different clubs and organizations during their tour.

Here is Dirk placing a decal on his windshield from a local car club - the NOCC.

A front shot of the car.

One final thumbs up photo from Dirk and Trudy.

As you will see when you read the links above, this is an incredibly worthwhile endeavor and all the car guys and gals in Thunder Bay salute Dirk and Trudy for what they have accomplished and wish them well on the rest of their three year journey.  If you have time and if they are there, go say hello to Dirk and Trudy at the Trowbridge Falls Campground.  As far as I know they are leaving for the east on Monday morning, Aug 26, 2013. NOTE:  With a change of plans, Dirk, Trudy and their new crew Barry and Dennis will leave Monday Sept. 2, 2013 for Chicago and St. Louis, and hopefully return to Canada at a later date.

NOTE:
ONE FINAL ADDITION TO THIS POST AS FOLLOWS:

Dirk Regter's Model T is getting him in places. While touring in California Jay Leno hopped on board and had Dirk explain to him about the alterations he made to make the Model T a highly reliable world travelling machine. They had a great time when Jay gave the Model T Worldtour team a private tour in his well appointed Garage.  He owns almost anything and everything you can imagine on wheels. A slightly painful moment came up when Jay became really excited and made Dirk an offer on his high end Model T.  Dirk promptly said,  "Well a man can't own everything...."

Anytown Canada, Northern USA, or Fort William Ontario in the 1940's....

These wonderful winter photos could very well be from here in Thunder Bay(well one is).  The clarity of these pictures are incredible and a must share with anyone who enjoys vintage photography.  This week during Christmas and New Years day is always a time for myself and family to reflect on our past and be grateful for what we have in today's modern world, however, as you can see from these photographs that everyone was as happy as can be enjoying life on a day to day basis back when things were simpler and sometimes happier.

 

This house looks exactly like the one in the movie "A Christmas Story" only missing the 1937 Oldsmobile in the driveway and the Leg Lamp in the window.  The kids are having a great time sliding down the small hill.  This photo was taken in 1940.

Here we have a 1928/29 Ford Cabriolet with opera windows.  I have never seen a soft top with windows like this before.  Oval windows like this were mostly used in commercial vehicles such as roadster pickups.  This photo was taken in 1940.

Here is one more 1940 photograph which could have been taken in any small town Canada or Northern USA.  This is a wonderful picture of a young man on his bicycle with all the great 1930's cars along the street and all the store fronts decorated as they did in that era.  It almost looks like a movie set.

Here we have a January 1943 photo of a caboose man cave....wouldn't any guy love to have this on his property.  The girly photos etc. may have been allowed in those days but not now.  Times have sure changed on the railroad.  The end of the caboose era was about 1990 mainly due to the fact that rail cars had roller bearings by then and there was no need to watch for hot boxes(?) or worn bearings at that time(I hope i am fully correct on that data).

This last picture is a favourite of mine although the quality is poor.  It was taken near where I lived as a kid.  Looking at the picture the CNR engine (Circa 1950) is turning down a spur at the corner of Marks and Arthur Streets in Fort William.  The CNR spur turned east just behind the Kingsway Motel, headed down Arthur Street with a gradual turn north at Marks Street and headed down Vickers Street to reconnect to the Main Line, with a station just before the Fort William Gardens.
In the picture, a small elevator called the Davidson Elevator is just behind the train.  That property is now called West Arthur Place where the Spence Clinic is today.
MacDonald Equipment Co. on the right which faced Marks Street is now a portion of the parking lot for West Arthur Place.  Ray's Esso Service station which faced Arthur Street would be behind the picture taker.
For a little more data about this CNR spur click on this link http://hotrodsandjalopies.blogspot.ca/2009/10/old-canadian-national-railway-spur-in.html
....then reture to this post.

Thanks to our friends at www.shorpy.com for some of the great photos above....and as usual BE SURE TO CLICK ON ALL THE PHOTOS TO ENLARGE THEM.

CLE Racing tidbit and a Chinese Laundry......

This is a typical 1958 Photo of the CLE Racetrack pits in Fort William Ontario as seen from the Grandstand facing south/east.  In the center is the #19 Louis Tocheri car '32 Ford Coupe with his hauler vividly painted "Tocheri Brothers".  If you click on the photo to get a closer shot you will also see a pickup truck with "East End Service" painted on the side.  East End Service still exists to this day.  What you will see as you scroll down is a few photos showing you the exact location of this photo relative to the google earth photo today, using a few houses as locator's.

Note these three houses in this closer photo to see where they are today.

Here are the houses in the gold square above and also in the square below.  You can see that the pits and the track completely surrounded the present day golf dome.

The aerial photo shows Fort William Road, Northern Ave., the Coliseum building, the Golf dome, the Silver City Theatre, the Neebing River and the Fort William Road bridge crossing it.  From these photos you should be able to locate the spot where all the oil and grease still exists under the Golf dome parking lot.  Next:  A Port Arthur thought!

This is an incredible photo from the Thunder Bay Online web page showing a Chinese Laundry just to the south of the old News Chronicle building in Port Arthur Ontario.  This looks like a 1938 Pontiac or Oldsmobile coupe sitting proudly up front.  I wonder what the two chaps are talking about?  Just to the right of this building is the old News Chronicle(Port Arthur newspaper) building.

Click on these two pictures to enlarge them.  The photo on the left is the News Chronicle building showing an arrow in orange going down Arthur Street(now Red River Road) and turning right onto a very narrow Water Street.  CNR and CPR gave up quite a few tracks so that Water Street could be widened.  The black and white photo also shows the Pagota before it was moved further towards the lake and the majestic CNR station with a couple of steam engines huffing away in front of it.  The last photo on the right is the Ontario Government building that was built over the site of the News Chronicle building and is taken at pretty much the same place where the Chinese Laundry was.  I actually prefer the old buildings to the new Parthenon that the government built.  No thought to preserving anything in this city!!  Thanks to Thunder Bay online for use of the photo of the Chinese Laundry.

A Huge Then and Now at the Fairgrounds.........1955 to 2010

Here is some more interesting data about our CLE...The Canadian Lakehead Exhibition grounds.  The following two photos are before and after photos.  The first one was taken in 1955 and the second one was extracted from Google Earth and a relatively current photo of about 2010.

The changes are very dramatic, and the only two buildings shown in the photos that existed then and today are the CLE Coliseum shown in light blue in both photos, and the CLE Auditorium that is used mainly for Bingo games today.  The following is what the circled items used to be.

• The lime green shows the main part of the midway and was accessible by crossing the river by a walking bridge.
• The red shows where the walking bridge was.
• The dark blue in the centre of the picture is the Grandstand and entertainment stage.....this was also used as the judges stand for the stock car races.
• The pink rectangle in the lower centre was the "Welcome to Port Arthur" arch talked about in this blog before.
• The purple rectangle at the bottom was the "Super-Sonic car wash".  This building is still used today for a number of different businesses.
• The Street along the bottom of both pictures is May Street, and on the left side of the old photo, Memorial Ave starts just left/north of the river.  The trees along both sides of Memorial Ave., planted in memory of fallen soldiers during WWI and WWII have since been removed for street widening etc.  I would like to see the city re-plant those trees along Memorial Ave and re-dedicate Memorial Ave to what it was meant to be, a "memorial" to fallen soldiers of both wars!! 

In this new photo there are a number of geographical changes.  The largest being the widening of the river and also the re-routing of the river somewhat.  This was done to alleviate flooding problems from both the McIntyre and Neebing rivers to homes and business east of Fort William Road.  Another was the "Dorothy Dove" building roof shown with a white roof at the bottom right of the old picture, and the changes noted to the roof in the new picture shown in blue just to the right of the Yellow Auditorium building.  The race track, grandstand, and all the barns that fan out between the Coliseum and the Grandstand were all torn down to accommodate our new Golf Dome and Silver City Theatre both shown in the centre of the new photo.
My personal thought is that the CLE and midway should be moved to a better place, such as the Thunder Bay Agriplex or maybe Current River Park, since the grounds have been pretty much taken over by the movie theatre and the dome.
Click on the photos to enlarge...........JUST MORE FOOD FOR THOUGHT!!!  ...and an old picture showing how it was.

History of the North American Drive-in........by Steve Miller

Here is a project that I had planned for over a year now and just got all the articles together to go ahead. My good friend Steve Miller, writer, car aficionado, musician, model car builder, etc, etc., had written a number of articles for the now defunct "Canadian Classics and Performance" Magazine. He had made a number of local car enthusiasts famous by writing feature stories about them and their cars in the pages of the same magazine. He wrote toy car, car modeling, model tech articles, and many others all related to, or associated with our hobby.
One of my favourites that I think stood out the most was the photo and story series from 2003 on the "History of the North American Drive-In", which is featured here in its entirety on Hot Rods and Jalopies. Remember, North America does encompass Canada, and we all know that diners and drive-ins go hand in hand with rock and roll, girls, guys and hot rods.
Steve's writing career was too short lived as the magazine had ended, but the years he devoted to his articles and the time he spent showed that he was a writer to be reckoned with. Apples don't fall to far from the tree in Steve's family as his father Ron(whom I was privileged to meet) was an acclaimed chef and writer for many outdoors magazines including "The Outdoor Edge" and had also written a few cooking and outdoors books of his own.
Steve's knowledge in the car world came naturally too as he spent most of his teenage years wrenching, painting and handling custom body work at his grandfather's shop in Lafayette, Indiana....also where Steve was born. These talents continued into Canada in his younger years as he moved here to marry Jean, the love of his life.
I was drawn to Steve quite a few years back, by his acute knowledge of the custom and hot rod world especially the California car culture of the 1950's and 1960's, by his musical talents which I have learned tons from, and the best by his gift of gab, which helped add many hours kibitzing about our shared interests.
So, take your time, click twice if needed on each photo page to get it full screen size and read away....leave it and come back again and again until you have read it all. It's well worth it. Great job Steve.... and thanks, Dave. This fairly recent picture of Steve was taken during a mutual model car display at a local Model Railroad show!

Thanks again to Steve for his talents and friendship!

NEWS FLASH - Tom Kusznier of Thunder Bay(that's here) is the Grand Prize Winner of the National Sprint Car Museum's Sprint Car Raffle Dec 17/10....

Before this news is too old......you will have to click on this link to read the whole story and see the you tube video of the draw......CLICK HERE then come back ........ http://www.kniakrls.com/2010/12/thunder-bay-ontario-race-fan-wins-the-sprint-car-raffle/

Friend, Tom Kusznier won't have to finish his project as shown in the colour photo here(taken a few years ago), as he has won himself a state of the art ready to race sprint car. Click on the story above and be sure to see the video as proof.

Here is a picture of Tom(local gear head, hot rod builder, and car aficionado), taken way back in the 1960's while working on Tom Nesbitt's race car. CONGRATULATIONS TOM....WELL DESERVED!!!