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Why one chooses a kind of
vehicle in particular ! |
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In the '60s, I spent a lot of
time watching television, mostly American programs, and particularly The
Untouchables. I told myself, “One day, I’ll have an old
car.” In
April 1967, I got hold of a 1930 Ford roadster
pickup—and the passion for vintage cars was born in me. Since then, I have
gained a lot of experience in the world of restoration. Some-32
years later, I faced a new challenge in the restoration
of a six-wheel 1931 Chevrolet truck. It was a real project, I must
say. My wife looked at the wreckage and said, "Do you intend to rebuild
this thing?" Dismantling
the truck began at the end of September 1999, with the help of a good friend,
Guy Thibault, who is also an old-car collector, and under the supervision of my
brother, Raynald, who owns a small video-production enterprise and who
videotaped the entire operation. In one day, he must have shot three hours of
digital videotape. For a
year and a half, I kept asking myself what kind of boat I had
been drawn into. The project was too far along to be dropped; therefore, there
was no choice but to carry on. I really
thought the truck could be restored within a few months, but there was much more
work on this truck than there would have been on a car, mostly because of the
substantial amount of wood necessary and the fact that some of the wood pieces
are quite heavy. Also, my working space was rather small; in fact, most of the
woodwork was done on the second floor of a normal residential garage, while the
mechanical, electrical, and paint jobs were done in the garage itself I had to
design my own templates for every wood part and, as you probably know, wood is
not given away, so you must calculate quite a bit. For instance, the truck had
no roof, and the wood of the cabin was completely rotten, which was understandable
since the truck had been stored in a hangar in Oka, Québec, for more than 35
years. A
couple of years ago, I went to
Chute-à-Blondeau, Ontario, located between Carillon Provincial Park and
Hawkesbury on the Ottawa River, to investigate and find out more information
about the origin of the truck. On the side of the box we could still read,
"R. Little, Phone 606, R 41 Chute-à-Blondeau.” My wife
compared the search to "looking for a needle in a bundle of hay." "Let's
look first for the bundle of hay, and we’ll see after," was my reply. We only
had to question a few people to find information about the owner or owners of
the famous truck. Apparently, Percy Little was the owner for a number of years;
having transformed it into a tow truck, he used it for pulling old vehicles
onto his property, doing repairs in his garage, selling gas, and in wintertime,
as a snowplow. When I showed
around the pictures of the truck, people also told me that it had belonged to a
certain William St. Amand, the hotel owner in Chute-à-Blondeau, who would
deliver goods from Montréal to his village. On May
24, 1932, St. Amand went to the celebration of Dollard-des-Ormeaux in Carillon
with some-15 kids sitting in the box behind. As he was driving them back to
Chute-à-Blondeau, a large branch of an old oak tree fell on the passing truck,
crushing and hurting the kids, killing five of them. The accident
happened almost in front of Percy Little’s residence. Both
men owned a green 1931 Chevrolet truck, according to people in the town, but
there is no confirmation that they owned the same truck. However in a place
with less than 100 inhabitants, it s entirely likely. I was able
to meet two survivors of the above-mentioned tragedy. One of them was 14 years
old when the accident happened. She was sitting on a bench in the back of the
truck and saw the big branch fall and kill her young brother sitting next to
her. The woman, Mrs. Lachaîne, still had a newspaper clipping that gave details
of the accident. The truck was a dark green, which confirms the color I chose
during the restoration. I chose
to restore the vehicle in the form of a beer truck because there are not too
many in Québec and because Boswell Brewery was the first one to be established
in Québec. In all
of my searches in the automobile clubs and through the internet, this was the
only 1½-ton, six-wheel LT Independence model truck that I found. It's
a Canadian truck, which is somewhat different from one manufactured in the
United States, and was built in Walkerville in March or April 1931. The serial
number is 529399; the engine number is T 230393. This is
nearly a 1,000-hour restoration project stretched over a period of three years
at a rate of three days a week and, mind you, I was
still working as an insurance and financial agent. I took my
first real trip with the truck to an old-car exhibition in Lachute, Québec, in
September 2002. I won the first prize in the truck category.
Since then, I have twice driven the truck in Montreal's
St. Patrick's Day parade and been in a movie production, as well as other car
exhibitions. Probably the longest trip was from St. Eustache to Québec City and
back. An old
dream recently came true in June last year. I was
able to photograph and videotape my truck in front of the former Boswell
Brewery and driving in front of the Château Frontenac and in the narrow streets
of old Québec.
Text and photographs Andre Cloutier |
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