Vintage B. C. car collection heading to China
Jim Ratsoy spent three decades picking the best
A car dealer from China has purchased 100 classic cars and trucks from arguably the best and largest collection in the country.
Jim Ratsoy, a B. C. car dealer for nearly 50 years, spent the past three decades selecting the best vehicles in North America for his collection, which spans six decades of automobile production.
Ratsoy was a longtime Pontiac Buick dealer in Richmond, bought his first collector car in 1959 — a Model T Ford purchased from a local farmer in northern Alberta who had bought it new.
“We got it started and put air in the tires to drive it home,” he recalls. “The tires were rotten and didn’t last, so we drove it home on the rims ... ”
Ratsoy originally housed his collection in a warehouse near his dealership, eventually moving it to two large buildings on acreage in Richmond. One of the buildings, containing rows of beautifully restored classics, is ringed by a collection of memorabilia including signs, vintage gas station displays, pinball machines, jukeboxes, player pianos and music machines from early in the last century.
His Ford collection i ncludes many convertibles, beginning with a 1929 Model A phaeton and running through continuous years up to his fully optioned black 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner retractable convertible and 1960 Edsel Convertible. Only 76, 1960 convertibles were manufactured, the last year of production for Edsel.
He has a perfectly restored first year 1939 Mercury convertible lined up with Mercury convertibles in the subsequent years of 1940, 1941 and 1948 as well as a 1957 Mercury Monterey convertible. There are also two Mercury ‘ woody’ station wagons and a rare Canadian- built yellow 1947 Monarch convertible. The collection also includes a 1949 Lincoln Cosmopolitan convertible and a range of Plymouth and Dodge droptops from 1932 to 1948.
A wood- bodied 1947 Chrysler Town & Country convertible, along with a 1931 Cadillac V12 phaeton, are among the 100 vehicles going to China.
“It is simply time for them to go and there is nobody around here that is interested,” Ratsoy says, sitting in a century- old barber’s chair.
Ratsoy is keeping approximately 20 of the newer collector cars because they are easier for him to drive, and eventually sell. His longer- term plans are to pare his collection down to about four special convertibles he can use.
Of all the cars heading to China, he says the most notable is his massive 1958 Buick Limited convertible.
He admits he may buy some more cars in the future.
It’s in his DNA.