HAVING A CAR FOR ALL SEASONS
Retiree has kept all four cars he has owned in his lifetime, but it’s time for a change
Glen McDonald walks around his condominium parking lot pointing out the cars he owns. The Lander resident has four.
“I have a car for every purpose and I just haven’t had any reason to get rid of them,” the 77-yearold says.
Yes, he still has every car he has ever owned. One he bought new for summer driving; one for winter driving, one for a daily driver and another to tow his sailboat.
When McDonald was a 20-year-old telecommunications-switching technician, he bought the 1959 Triumph TR3. The sports car was delivered with all the options, including overdrive, wire wheels and a factory winter top. It cost $3,400 at Homewood Motors in Edmonton. It became his daily driver, winter and summer.
Until, that is, he slid off the highway near Edson, Alberta on a skiing trip and rolled the TR3 over in a ditch. The skis mounted on the rear ripped off the trunk lid and the winter top was destroyed. He limped the car back to Edmonton and decided to get a better car for winter.
“The Triumph wasn’t practical in minus-thirty weather. I had to plug it in to get it started and it had a demister instead of a heater,” McDonald says.
He spotted a very sharp coral and white 1958 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer on a car lot across from the high school he had attended. The car had been well cared for by Member of Parliament for Edmonton East Bill Shoreyko, who bought the car new when he was first elected to drive back and forth to Ottawa.
“It was a nice looking car and it had a great heater,” McDonald recalls, adding he paid $1,800 for the Dodge with its big fins and drove it off the lot.
The top-of-the-line Dodge was equipped with a 354 cubic inch engine, delivering 295 horsepower with a push-button threespeed automatic transmission.
From that point onward, his treasured Triumph was reserved for fair weather summer driving only.
Glen McDonald’s other passion is sailing the 33-foot sloop he built himself in the parking lot of the Edmonton Yacht Club. When his father wanted to sell his burly 1977 Chrysler New Yorker, he stepped up and bought the car to tow his sailboat.
His parents then bought a 1986 Mercury Marquis that Glen now uses as his daily driver. So why does he keep the cars? “It’s just that I really like these cars. I’m not into changing things. I try to look after what I have and keep them.”
He certainly does keep them. He has driven his 1959 Triumph TR3 141,078 kilometres since purchasing it new 57 years ago; his 1958 Dodge for 53 years and nearly 300,000 kilometres and the other cars for more than 25 years. He drives his sports car year round, much of the time with the top down. He says he still gets a thrill out of driving the car he has owned since he was a 20-yearold starting out in his career.
He hasn’t used the big Chrysler New Yorker since he last pulled his sailboat out of the water a couple of years ago.
And the vintage 1958 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer, with its fading coral and white paint, has been rusting away in the parking space where he parked it 20 years ago.
For Glen McDonald, at 77 years of age, it’s time to part with the Dodge, as he is not likely to get it restored under his guidance.
He’s looking for someone to put it back into new condition.
“I would like to pass it on to someone who would like this kind of car. I haven’t seen another one in years,” he says.
All he asks is that he gets a ride in the restored car.
Meanwhile, he will continue alternating through his other vehicles — each with its own purpose: summer sports car driving, hauling his boat and daily grocery getter.