HOME IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS WITH FAMILY TREASURE RESTORED
Jim Read would always tell his niece Susie Lauro that his treasured 1958 Pontiac Parisienne convertible would be hers one day.
Read and his wife Lillian would often attend family events in the convertible they bought new 62 years ago — three months before Lauro was born. The special car was also used for Lauro's sister's wedding, where four-year old Susie was the flower girl.
Read was a car guy through and through and did his homework while shopping for a convertible in the 1958 model year. He was a fleet manager for Tilden RentA-Car in Vancouver and knew all the dealers. That led him to place the order for the Pontiac at Bowell-McLean Motors on what was then Vancouver's downtown auto dealership row.
He kept every scrap of paper pertaining to the order, including interior colour swatches, the sales brochure, the tag that hung from the in-dash electric clock, the sales invoice showing he paid a whopping $4,200 for the convertible, and a letter from General Motors of Canada inviting wholesale buyers to pick their car up from the Oshawa factory for a $50 fee.
Styling for the 1958 Pontiac represented a one-year-only model based on the Chevrolet Impala, but with much fancier dashboards and interiors. There were only 759 Pontiac Parisienne convertibles built by General Motors of Canada and very few still exist. Top-line U.S. Pontiacs were Bonneville models and had larger bodies than the Chevrolet-based Canadian products.
“Aunt Lil would drive the convertible to her job at B.C. Tel in downtown Vancouver with people following her and always trying to buy the car,” Lauro's husband Pat recalled. “It was always garaged and kept covered. Jim and Lil loved that car.”
The long-standing promise made by Jim and Lil Read was honoured when Susie Lauro inherited her aunt and uncle's prized convertible.
“I have the feeling that Uncle Jim kept the car all these years for me,” Susie said.
Because the car had been in the family since new, Pat and Susie Lauro made the decision to commit the car to a complete restoration. They chose Jellybean Autocrafters, operated by brothers Kurt and Ewald Penner, to do the full “nut and bolt” renovation, which would take more than a year.
“The car was very rusty under the chrome line,” Kurt Penner said. He did much of the metal work and other skilled workers made every part of the car like new before reassembly. It was completed two weeks before Christmas.
All the people who worked on the car, including master upholsterer Don Whitfield, were on hand for the big reveal in the Jellybean shop. When the drape was pulled back, the 1958 Pontiac Parisienne convertible looked showroom new.
Lauro, who hadn't seen the car since it left their garage in very poor shape, gasped and was overwhelmed with emotion. The car that had been so important to her Uncle Jim and Aunt Lil was new again. The restoration seemed like an expression of the love they had for each other and their niece.
Lauro had suggested a lighter blue for the main colour than the original dark Fathom Blue and softer interior colours to match. The results took her breath away.
“This car will never leave our family,” Pat Lauro said. “It's a very special Christmas gift for our family.”
He will do the driving.
“I can't reach the pedals or see over the dash. I'm only four feet, 11 inches tall,” the diminutive Susie said with a smile.
She would like her family to see the car over the holiday season, although she is conscious that public health restrictions must prevail.
“It was my sister's wedding car,” she said.
“I know when she sees it, there will be tears.
“We will send photos,” she said.
Aunt Lil would drive the convertible to her job ... in downtown Vancouver with people following her and always trying to buy the car.