CAR SPARKS FOND MEMORIES
Couple eloped in similar vehicle
She was a minister’s daughter. He was considered to be from the wrong side of the tracks. They were in love. It’s an old story with a happy ending. Don and Lilah Warren celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary several months ago and the romance continues.
They were both 17 and living in Edmonton when they were essentially set up on a blind date. Unfortunately for Don, his date wasn’t Lilah. She was paired with another schoolmate. But they were drawn to each other, and despite Lilah moving away when her father accepted a ministry in Saskatchewan, love prevailed.
Her father would never agree to the marriage so they eloped. Their honeymoon was spent driving directly from exchanging vows in Edmonton to Kindersley, Sask., to tell her parents. They weren’t pleased but the knot had been tied and the marriage was quickly accepted.
The car at the centre of this was a dark green 1951 Monarch sedan that Don had purchased for $300. The young auto body technician had always loved cars. He bought, repaired and sold a lot of them, even before he was old enough to have a driver’s licence.
A move to the west coast in the late ’60s saw Don building a shop behind his Maple Ridge home so he could restore cars for other people. A half-a-century later, Rumbleseat Restorations in Mission is a highly respected shop doing ground-up rebuilds on classic and collectible vehicles.
Despite the dozens of classics passing through the couple’s skilled hands, the car that always came up in conversation was that elopement getaway car.
Don’s brother-in-law in lives in Alberta and was enlisted to be part of the search. He found what they were looking for in a row of early 1950s Ford cars stored at a farm outside Grand Prairie. The 1951 Monarch sport sedan was rough but restorable. The Warrens bought it and dragged it back to Vancouver.
But, as is often the case, restoring other people’s rides took precedence with the Monarch resting in the back of the shop for nearly 25 years. That was, until the Warrens 60th anniversary was looming on the horizon.
“Our goal was to have the car finished for our big anniversary,” Don says. “It didn’t happen that way but we were well along with the restoration.”
Monarch cars were built by Ford of Canada as badge-engineered Mercurys. While the Monarch shared the body and interior of the Mercury, it featured special ornamentation including royal shields, crowns and a leaping lion hood ornament. The introduction of Monarch cars in 1946 gave Ford a dual presence in communities: Ford dealers got the upscale Monarch to sell against Lincoln Mercury dealerships. Monarch cars were more attractive than the Mercury models and were a better seller.
Because Mercury cars were sold on both sides of the border, restoration parts are much more plentiful than Monarch-only parts. And so Don was required to make some of the parts for his Monarch restoration, including taillight housings.
As a result, the restoration has taken more time than anticipated. But the car is now running and features a new paint job in the correct dark metallic green — the same colour as Don’s original 1951 Monarch from 60 years ago.
The couple beams with pride as they pose in their anniversary attire beside their nearly-completed “new” 1951 Monarch sport sedan. The car brings back a flood of memories from a time when a man had to ask for a woman’s hand only after getting permission from her parents. Of course, eloping was an option.
The car also brought back some memories for Brian Stockowski of Atomic Plating in Mission, who was charged with renewing the considerable amount of chrome on the car.
Our goal was to have the car finished for our big anniversary. It didn’t happen that way but we were well along with the restoration.
“Where did you get that car and what colour was it?” he enthused upon the first sighting of the Monarch.
The Monarch was originally grey and Brian recognized it as having originally being the town taxi in Spirit River, Northwest Territories where he had once lived.
The venerable Monarch will continue to write its history with the proud couple that has brought it back to life. In doing so, they have rekindled memories of an enduring romance that centered around one very special car that started more than six decades ago.