BERRY FARMER HAS BUSHELFUL OF 1956 FORDS
Saskatchewan man restored a complete set of Ford of Canada’s Meteors and Monarchs
Barry Isaac’s first car was a peacock blue and colonial white 1956 Meteor Rideau hardtop. He was 18 years old and wanted the fancy two-year-old Canadian-built Ford product more than he wanted to go to university.
He borrowed the money and went to work building Nova Scotia’s first drive-in restaurant. That was in 1958 in Kingston, Nova Scotia, where his father was stationed on the Canadian Air Force base.
A construction career followed that saw Isaac building houses in Western Canada and California for 25 years before returning to where he was born — the family farm in Southey, an hour north of Regina — in the early 1990s.
A life-changing experience came when his wife, Barbara, decided to do something with Grandma’s preserved raspberries found in the basement, and the Last Mountain Saskatoon Berry Farm was born. In 30 years, the company has grown to process a million pounds of fruit a year, supplying grocery stores across Canada with jam.
Because there isn’t much farm work during the long Saskatchewan winter, Isaac bought a very rusty 1956 Meteor Rideau Crown Victoria to restore.
He and his son used the shop on the farm to completely restore the car. It took seven parts cars to build one. The spectacular peacock blue and colonial white Meteor Rideau Crown Victoria took first place and the People’s Choice Award at the Crown Victoria Association national meet in Branson, Mo.
Isaac then bought an equally rare 1956 Meteor Rideau Country Sedan. The restored Canadian-built station wagon took first place and People’s Choice awards at the Crown Victoria Association show in West Virginia. The subsequent restoration of his 1956 Meteor Rideau convertible earned first place and People’s Choice awards at Penticton’s Peach City Beach Cruise for the Mandarin Orange and Colonial White Sunliner.
Canadian Fords from the mid1950s are increasingly hard to find, so to complete his restorations, Isaac began scouring yards and bushes throughout the Prairie provinces for parts. He ended up with 20 parts cars. Today, the 7,200-square-foot showroom at the Last Mountain Berry Farm has a set of all four top-of-the-line 1956 Monarch Richelieu models and all seven body styles for the 1956 Meteor Rideau.
“After I got the Meteor Rideau hardtop, the Crown Victoria, a convertible and station wagon done, I had so many parts that I thought I might as well do the other three models,” he says.
He has also restored a full set of the Monarch Richelieu models produced by Ford of Canada in 1956: two- and four-door hardtops, a sports-roof sedan and a very rare convertible in Carousel Red and Raven Black.
“Americans love the Canadian-built 1956 Meteors because of the beautiful V grille and unique side chrome styling,” Isaac notes.
His showroom containing 35 restored collector vehicles is divided into Canadian and American sides. The Canadian showroom holds other special cars including the 1959 Lincoln Continental convertible that conveyed Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip through Vancouver’s streets on the Royal Tour that year and a 1958 Crown Imperial convertible that carried Princess Margaret through Victoria a year earlier.
He has also restored a 1926 McLaughlin Buick built in Oshawa. It was sold at the same dealership in Markinch, Sask., where Barry’s grandfather bought the identical car.
He has a special order gold coloured 1956 Continental Mark II originally owned by NASA moon landing planner David Reed.
His favourite is a 1958 Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner with the retractable steel roof. It’s identical to the special-order maroon Skyliner he bought in Nova Scotia at the age of 21.
His current winter project is the rarest-of-rare 1960 Edsel Ranger convertible. Only 76 were made before Ford pulled the plug on Edsel production in November 1959. And there is another 1956 Meteor Sunliner convertible waiting in the wings for restoration.
“It’s like the jam business; it just grew and grew,” Isaac says. Alyn Edwards is a classic car enthusiast and partner in Peak Communicators, a Vancouver-based public relations company.