by Bill Elder
It came and
went like a runaway locomotive. Last winter, the days were dragging
by, then suddenly it was 8 weeks away and the next thing that I knew,
Ray and Jo Ann Jones were pulling into my driveway. Commitments had
taken them to Chicago for May 28th, so rather then having
them return to Maryland and then back here in the same week, they
came to stay with Louise and I Monday evening. Tuesday, the four of
us spent a great day at the Henry Ford Museum. There are many
interesting exhibits to see and of course the great cars. I had read
in a magazine that they had a 300B on display, but it was not there.
However, I did see the ’63 Turbine car which was very high on
my priority list. Tuesday evening whirled by, with me alternating
between endless phone calls and watching the cable weather station.
The weather looked good.
Wednesday, Jo
Ann and Louise went shopping while Ray and I headed my 300D for Point
Pelee. I was anxious to see if we had any early arrivals and I
wanted to give the desk clerk some welcome letters for people coming
that evening. Back at home, the Riehls arrived around 7 P.M. and the
Rooks were not far behind them. Jim Krausmann and Frank Duralia also
dropped in. The evening was spent watching old meet tapes, answering
the phone and putting the goody-bags together. The last little job
was done and we were ready to go.
Thursday
morning dawned bright and sunny. Could this actually be the first
day of the meet? Once again, the D headed for Point Pelee. This
time though, it was at the head of a small caravan with Jones’
Hurst and Riehl’s F. At the hotel, we no sooner got checked in
and started setting up the hospitality room when people and cars
started arriving like clock work.
At 1 P.M. it
was time to saddle up and head back to Windsor for the Hiram Walker
tour. I actually felt bad for some people who had been on the road
for a couple of days just to get here. Their feet had barely touched
the ground and we were off and running again. Twelve cars caravanned
to Hiram Walker with Dave McMurren in his 67 300 convertible rounding
up stragglers at the rear. Everyone enjoyed the tour and I think
they were impressed by the tremendous size of the distillery vats as
well as the speed of the bottling lines. It’s amazing to see
bottle after bottle filled, capped and stamped. They wiz by in long
straight lines like soldiers going off to war. While the adults were
off taking the tour, Frank Duralia and I babysat Chris Frank and the
three Kenworthy children. It is a curious twist of Ontario Liquor
Laws that children could not go on the tour where whiskey was being
made, but they could join their parents in the beautiful reception
room, located on the banks of the Detroit River, where all our
favorite libations were being served. Lucky for Frank and I, we
didn’t have to miss that part! In fact, we beat most people
back to the Reception Center and we didn’t have to climb the 62
steps to the top of the distillery to get there. I might add that
Hiram Walker donated various items to us for door prizes, including
nine bottles of various liquors.
From Hiram
Walkers, it was only a 5-minute drive to our house where Louise, her
mother, her sisters and my parents had been working there tails off
to prepare dinner for the 70 or so people who came over. Some people
who had arrived too late for Hiram Walker’s came directly to
our house. At any rate, the kitchen crew scored an A plus for the
incredible meal that they put on.
I have heard
former meet hosts describe what a thrill it is to have a bunch of
300s parked in their driveway. Boy oh boy, can I vouch for that! My
K was parked in the garage with my D parked on a cement pad adjacent
to the driveway. My driveway is 150’ long and my neighbor’s
driveway is the same length and the two drives run parallel to each
other and are only separated by a few shrubs and a strip of grass.
Both driveways were filled bumper to bumper with 300s and one Hurst
and three C converts were left out in the cold, parked in the street.
Now, if I could have just got all of those people to leave their
keys and hop airplanes back home … Ha! Fat Chance! Speaking
of C converts, one of the cars parked on the street was Ken Mack’s
black beauty. This car is back from the dead after it was caught in
a garage fire during the winter of “88-89”. Ken deserves
a round of applause for the great restoration, he’s done to
this car for the second time.
Around 7
P.M., the troops moved over to the Roundhouse Mall which is the scene
of Windsor’s Thursday night cruise. We have a strong street
rod club here and numerous street machines, so when they all get
together, it is an impressive display. Of course, when you’ve
seen one small block Chev, you’ve seen them all but what a
night it was for our local contingency of Mopar freaks when a long
line of “real” cars thundered into the parking lot. We
knocked them dead in the aisles! By 9 P.M., most of our group had
left for the hotel. (Many of them hadn’t even been there yet
to check in). On our way out #3 Highway, about 10 minutes from the
Pelee Motor Inn, we came across a group of weary travellers pulled
over on the side of the road. Donnie and Linda Carr’s ’64
300 Silver Special was suffering from fuel pump problems. While Gil
Cunningham and Bob Crawford were installing Bob’s spare fuel
pump, Donnie told me that this was the third time the car had broken
down on this trip. The Carrs, in company with Roman Robaszewski, had
left Wednesday morning only to have their newly rebuilt transmission
blow 100 miles from home. This resulted in a tow job to an AAMCO
repair shop and an overnight stay. Thursday, coming over the
Ambassador Bridge, the fuel pump problems had set in resulting in
another tow job into Canada. The car eventually fired up again and
then quit on #3 Highway where we found them. By hand-priming Bob’s
old pump, the car fired up again and made it to the hotel. Don was
worried about his car so he elected to skip the Chrysler tours on
Friday in order to go out and buy a new fuel pump and install it.
Now that is a hard luck story and Donnie and Linda deserve a lot of
praise for their persistence and getting to the meet and we sure
enjoyed their company throughout the weekend. Back at the hotel, we
learned that Allan and Gloria Moon had lost an oil pump in their
Hurst on the Pennsylvania Turnpike but were making repairs and
pressing on. Except for some die-hard bench racing, day one was
over.
Friday
morning was bright and sunny. Someone had their signals crossed --
it was a national meet weekend and there wasn’t a cloud in the
sky. And to further confuse matters, everyone was up early –
even George Riehl. We were expected at Chrysler Corporation in
Highland Park, Michigan by 10 A.M. so promptly at 8:30 A.M. we were
rolling out of the parking lot. I was worried about caravanning 25
cars all the way through downtown Windsor, through the tunnel and out
onto I-75 North to Highland Park. Everyone had maps and written
instructions but chasing around unfamiliar freeways in Detroit is no
picnic. Sure enough, two cars missed the freeway, but luckily Frank
Duralia spotted them going astray and managed to round them up. I
really have to thank Frank and Dave McMurren for playing “Rawhide”
on all of these excursions. Mean-while, I was rolling down I-75 at
the head of the pack and out of nowhere there was a Hurst, right
beside me. Jim Krausmann was coming from his Ziebart shop in Detroit
to meet us at Highland Park, he came down the entrance ramp, onto the
freeway and found himself door handle to door handle with me. Talk
about incredible timing!
At Highland
Park, the red carpet was out and waiting for us. The road in front
of the Walter P. Chrysler building was reserved for our parking. We
were met by our hostess, Kelly Loswecki, the Corporate Director of
Chrysler Plymouth Public Relations. Kelly had arranged for the
Chrysler Millennium to be on display in the lobby. This is a concept
vehicle, featuring many futuristic safety devices, front and rear
radar, impact sensing warnings, air bags etc. So in the lobby, it
was all low-slung, low-coefficient of drag, high technology.
Outside the door, it was all tail-finned, low tech, plain old
beautiful brutality! What a contrast. Much to our disappointment,
there were no Vipers on hand. The two that do run were loaded onto
transportation on their way to Arizona for testing. We could have
saved Chrysler some money. We had a whole crew of eager would-be
test pilots who are used to handling mega horsepower machines. It
would have been no problem finding volunteers to run the wheels of
those little jewels. Back to reality!
Outside, our
cars were drawing loads of admiring executives. Among the older
people, you could see fond remembrances written on their faces; among
the younger, just plain amazement. One comment was “Did we
build cars like that?” I watched a guy make six or seven rapid
phone calls from the lobby phone. The conversations all went like
this. “Gerry, get your butt over here. There are 300s
everywhere!” Dial, dial, dial, ring “Roy, Roy get over
here, pronto! You’re not going to believe this!” and so
on. It was great. They gave us lunch vouchers for their main
cafeteria but I think we gave them much more. Maybe some of those
young designers will take us back to the future. How about a 1995
300M?
After a great
lunch, it was time to head back to Windsor for the mini-van plant
tour. About 20 minutes before our departure, a small group of our
cars left to find a gas station. Gasoline is roughly half the price
in the U.S. compared to Canada. Anyway, Don and Kathy Rook were
riding with Ken and Shirley Quick in their 300L and left for a gas
up. Tami Rook wanted to ride with Louise and I in the K with the top
down. We were rolling down I-75, heading towards customs when I
remembered to ask Tami if she had her birth certificate with her.
No, she didn’t, her mother had it. Oh oh, how were we going to
get through customs with an American teenager, with no I.D.? Well,
we were just going to have to wing it, tell the truth and hope like
hell that the Quicks and Rooks hadn’t already gone through
customs. We pulled up to the booth and a young guy was sitting
there, looking quite bored. All of a sudden, he looked around and
realized the entire plaza was filled with old Chryslers. He asked me
what was going on and we told him the whole scoop, where we had been
and where we were going. Tami was smiling like crazy and chatting
away to this guy. He took a long hard look at the car behind us and
asked, “IS THAT A HURST? IS THAT A HURST?” When he
realized it was the real thing, he couldn’t get rid of us fast
enough. He didn’t even ask us for I.D. He wanted to see that
Hurst, close up and personal and he didn’t have to ask us twice
to get going. Whew!
At the
Mini-van plant, we were greeted by Walt McCall who had arranged the
plant tour for us. Vern and Helen Graber were already at the plant,
waiting for us. They had just arrived from Ohio in their K coupe.
The Kenworthys were also there ahead of us, having skipped Highland
Park. Once again, we had preferential parking. Our cars were all
lined up in the VIP zone, right across the front of the building.
Crowds of Chrysler personnel were gathering to see the Brutes. At
this point one of the guides informed us that children were not
allowed on the tour. However, Mr. McCall stepped in and made a
strategic phone call and the children were allowed to go. I was glad
that they were not going to be disappointed two days in a row. There
were two 1991 Mini-vans being worked on in the “front end
“repair area and some of our members spotted them. Don Rook
told me later how much he enjoyed the tour and how friendly the
workers were to him. He asked one fellow what his job consisted of.
The guy showed him how he installed steering columns. Then, he
invited Don to do the job himself. Now to appreciate this story, you
have to understand that Don and mechanical jobs do not mix. Somebody
once told me that he was the only guy he knew who could cut himself
sorting wrenches. Asking Don to install a steering column would be
like asking Cleopatra to lay bricks. But, unbelievably, he did the
job! All I can say is if your buying a new mini-van, have a serious
look at the steering column. Yours maybe the one that turns left
when you turn the steering wheel right. Everyone had a good time and
had a look at a state-of-the-art assembly plant.
At 4 P.M. we
headed back to the hotel for dinner and the business meeting. The
hotel asked people to make dinner reservations and most people chose
6:30. This resulted in us swamping the kitchen staff and the business
meeting was delayed by more than an hour while everyone finished
eating. The Deputy Reeve (mayor) of Leamington was on hand to greet
us at the start of the meeting. He presented President George Riehl
with a Leamington baseball cap as a gesture of welcome. Leamington
is known as the Tomato Capital of Canada, so he also gave us a number
of small stick on, embroidered tomatoes as a small souvenir. It was
very nice for the gentleman to come out and thank us for holding our
meet in the Leamington area.
A number of
details were discussed at the meeting and the minutes are printed in
another section of this Club News. However, during the meeting,
George did make a special presentation to one of our club members.
This individual demonstrated to us his unbridled dedication to make a
national meet at all costs. His willingness to spend his time and
money to be with us and share the 300 spirit. Yes, neither sleet,
nor snow, nor hail, nor arriving on the wrong weekend could stop this
300er from attending. Is it any wonder that the club executive
decided to present Terry McTaggart with the coveted “Burnt
Piston Award”? Can you imagine his surprise when he rolled
into the Pelee Motor Inn parking lot and found a) no cars, b) no
people and c) hotel reservations for the following weekend! Oh well,
it could have been worse. He could have showed up the week AFTER the
meet. At any rate, we are glad that he chose to come back and join
us for the meet. The hospitality room stayed open until the last dog
was hung about 2:30 A.M. Thank goodness, we could sleep in tomorrow.
Saturday
morning. Where is the rain? We cannot have an official 300 meet
without it raining. There is some hope, there are some light clouds
drifting by. This morning is free except for those involved in the
Concours Standards meeting. All activities are centered around the
hospitality room and parking lot. I think this meet will forever be
known as the Hurst meet. There were 485 Hursts built and we had 6 of
them at the meet until I counted them in the parking lot – Now
there were 7! It’s a good thing that these meets only last 3
days or by Monday, there might have been 8! Otto Rosenbusch, his
daughter Techla and son-in-law Mike arrived with Otto’s
16,000-mile 1963 sport coupe and his newly acquired beautiful red
C300. Otto had arranged our Highland Park visit and also for
Chrysler to pay for our new, giant club logo signs. Everyone who
attended the meet were indebted to Otto for all his hard work on our
behalf. Another late arriving group was long time member, Mel
Gunnells, new member Earvin Johnson and their friend Orby. They came
in Earvin’s green 1959 Chrysler Imperial – a truly regal
car.
1 P.M. and
the group was caravanning to RM Restorations in Chatham. On 401, our
30-car caravan was joined by the Macks in their 300C convertible, and
Bob Badyna in his original white G coupe, both from the Detroit area.
We were greeted at RM by Rob Myers, the owner and founder and by
Mark Sherman, the Director of Restorations. Mark gave us a
fascinating tour, explaining details of both for sale cars and cars
under construction. We saw their entire shop and I believe that
anyone interested in having a body-off restoration done by a
professional shop, now has some idea of what is involved and the cost
of such a project. It was interesting for me to see some cars that
are just being finished and were just starting, when my K convert was
finished a year and a half ago. In particular, there was a ’54
Caddy convert that had no floor and huge holes in the fenders and
quarter panels, that is now a work of art. Of course, this is
2,600-man hours later. Outside, the wind was picking up and clouds
were rolling in. Most people scurried back to the hotel but some
opted for the scenic drive that I had outlined on maps.
Just a few
minutes before cocktail hour, it started to pour buckets. The meet
was official and I thought, well if it had to rain, this was perfect
timing. Everyone was safe and sound back at the hotel. Right?
Wrong! Mike Burke called George’s room to tell him that he was
down by the beach, down a back road, out of sight of the main
highway, a mile west of Dillon Road, he thought, and the C would not
start. He had walked a mile and a half just to get to a pay phone,
in the pouring rain. Luckily, we were able to contact a towing
company who were able to figure out where he was and they were
dispatched to retrieve him. Definitely a candidate for “Hard
Luck”.
The dinner
was great. The food was excellent and they just kept bringing it and
bringing it. The kitchen staff outdid themselves and even managed to
save some food for Mike and his friend Judd because they were going
to miss dinner. The awards went smoothly and Louise and I drew names
out of a hat for door prizes. Each club member was eligible to win a
prize and amazingly enough, everyone won something. In other words,
we had the exact number of door prizes that we needed, with none left
over. Now, I would like to report to you that this was the result of
clever planning, however, it was just dumb luck. The rest of the
night was spent dancing to the oldies and 300 talk, until exhaustion
overtook them. Some had a very early evening with thoughts of a long
drive home the next day.
Sunday
Morning. I got up at 7 A.M., in order to say goodbye to as many
people as possible. I ran into Donnie Carr, first thing. He told me
that he had tried to leave at 5, but the ’64 had quit again.
She just wasn’t getting fuel even though she had run perfectly
to Chatham the day before. The fuel pump push rod or the cam lobe
was at fault and not the pump. I called an old friend who lived
nearby and he had a spare fuel pump rod and an allen wrench to remove
the access plug. Back at the hotel, we quickly discovered that
Hercules had installed that access plug and no amount of leverage
could budge it. Finally, we stripped out the allen wrench. Now
want? Duane Debutts came to the rescue. He had an old electric pump
on his G that he used to prime the carburetors. The electric pump
was installed on Donnie’s 64 and it fired immediately. Yeah!
Meanwhile, another group had Mike Burke’s C convert running.
The diagnoses was a jumped timing chain. Mike opted to hitch a ride
home and come back the next day with a trailer for the C. The Carrs
set off down the road with Jerry and Gail Olson accompanying them
only to discover that the old electric pump could not deliver enough
fuel to keep the car running at highway speeds. Back to the parking
lot and Donnie, Jerry and I set off for the town of Kingsville where
I knew we could buy a brand-new electric pump. Finally, around 2
P.M. the Carrs were able to leave for home. They signalled us that
night at 11:30 to let us know that they had arrived home safely.
Well, that
was it. The fastest four days that I have ever spent. But it was
enjoyable! All of my plans came through exactly as I had hoped they
would. Even better then I had dreamed, when you consider the
Highland Park tour which was a last-minute addition. I truly felt
blessed! George asked me if we would do it again? You bet, but not
tomorrow. Thank you to everyone who came and supported us. I would
also like to acknowledge four club members who called us to express
their regrets that they could not attend, but wished us well: Bill
Spear, Rene Kroeger, Jerry Kocur and Don Warnaar.