Huge Canadian classic car collection heads to China
VANCOUVER — 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. For a number of years, he drove a 1936 Ford convertible to work at his General Motors dealership almost every day.
He became a car dealer on his own in 1957 and acquired his first collector car two years later — a Model T Ford purchased from a 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 — about 40 kilometres — to where I lived.
“Since then, I’ve always played with old cars and enjoyed every episode.”
Ratsoy bought his collector cars one at a time and originally housed his collection in a warehouse near his dealership. He eventually expanded to an acreage in Richmond.
The growing collection occupied two large buildings on his property. 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.
The beautifully restored vehicles include a preponderance of convertibles.
“Top goes down, price goes up,” Ratsoy would often say at the auctions where he bought some of his cars, adding, “It was the auctioneers’ favourite saying.”
His Ford collection includes 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 convertibles were manufactured in the 1960 model year, 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 Canadianbuilt yellow 1947 Monarch convertible.
The collection also includes a 1949 Lincoln Cosmopolitan convertible.
Plymouth and Dodge convertibles, beginning with a 1932 Plymouth and going right up to a stunning black 1948 Plymouth convertible, line one wall of the building.
A wood- bodied 1947 Chrysler Town & Country convertible that he bought in St. Louis from a collector, along with a 1931 Cadillac V12 phaeton, are among the 100 vehicles going to China.
Ratsoy’s collection ranges from 1906 to 1991, including a 1991 Buick Reatta with only 8,000 miles on the odometer.
“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 amid the collection he spent much of his life putting together.
He explains that his children aren’t willing or able to look after the collection and a series of health issues led to his decision to liquidate.
He has had several interested parties looking to purchase the collection, all from out of the country.
“I’ve had some negative comments about the sale,” he admits. “But no one here stepped up and wanted to buy them. I have no second thoughts.
“In some ways, it is sad that the collection did not stay locally, but it is going to a place where hopefully the cars will be enjoyed and appreciated.”