Member: Jack Harmer

Car: 1968 Beaumont Custom

I've always had a fascination and appreciation for classic autos. As a typical Canadian youth of the late 60's early 70's I would go with my three older brothers on a late Friday night to a dark secluded edge of Thunder Bay Ontario and watch the "Cool Guys" flexing their muscle cars and challenging one another verbally. This would inevitably lead to two of them lining up their cars. The drop of a hand resulted in the very distinct smell of of burning rubber and sound of screaming tires as the two combatants put pedal to the metal and launched their finely tuned machines between the group of cheering spectators toward the bragging rights that were a quarter of a mile in the distance. I dreamed of owning one of these in the future. Sometimes life, family and responsibilities get in the way of youthful dreams.

In 1996 my fifteen year old son thought it would be a good idea to purchase a car that we could work on together. I thought this was a great idea and willingly helped my son with the purchase of his first car. I thought that fathers do sometimes try to live their dreams through their children!

The verbalized deal was that Dad would help him buy a car that was within his financial means and we, as a team, would do the necessary work on this first car to make it safe for the road and by the time he was of legal driving age this car would be his. We started looking for a suitable vehicle. I asked around everywhere I thought would lead to a possibility. One of the nurses at work had a friend that had 5 project cars in the works; he had just got married and was "asked" to get rid of all but two of these treasures. It sounded good so I phoned the gentleman up and asked if we could come over and have a look. We took the short drive to Moose Jaw. There were several cars for sale, however, the one we liked and worked out a deal on was a 1968 Beaumont 2 door hardtop. It had previously been owned by a race-happy young fellow that set it up for speed. He had gutted most of the interior and what was there was not true 1968, never mind Beaumont! He had removed the console and put a B & M slap stick in its place. Under the hood was a very tired 307 with headers. The body looked fairly decent and all the glass was intact. I had heard about Beaumonts before but had no knowledge of the Canadian factor behind it. We bought a temporary license and drove it back to Regina.

Enthusiasm from the younger half of our new partnership lasted roughly two weeks. I resigned myself to this fact and figured I would fix the car up enough just to make a few dollars profit in resale. The more I worked on the car, the more I realized I had not only a potentially nice car, but a piece of Canadian Automobile history. The more I researched the Beaumont, the more I appreciated that this was NOT a Canadian Chevelle, but a very distinct hybrid of its own. The challenge was to find all the original pieces.

I was about to find out that this was easier said than done. The year-specific nose piece and decent chrome headlight bezels were to name a few of the parts I would be looking for. Ebay is a wonderful shopping tool, particularly for hard to find items such as these, but it is not the same as shopping in person. The hardest thing was to get items in good condition. More than once I found a treasure that looked good in the pictures and bought them only to find pitting in the chrome that would not allow them to be rechromed. Meanwhile, eleven years and $22,000.00 later I have a close to finished project. I have replaced the tired 307 with a 327 high performance, kept the headers and added engine chrome. The car was painted a metallic blue. The rest is as stock as I can make it.

I have joined the Canadian Chevelle and Beaumont Club and the Collectors Car Club of Regina. I am having an absolute blast with Show and Shines and moderate success with my first Car Show. The Guys are great and when I am cruising around with the window down and the headers are purring, I get the same excited feeling I remember as a kid at those late night drag races.

They say some kids never grow up, they just get older with more expensive toys. I hope I never do!

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