My first classic car

Somewhere around age 55, a flock of new aches and pains descended upon me. My doctor told me it was old age. Thanks! According to him, there was nothing I could do except take Advil. With the benefit of hindsight, I'm pretty sure that's why I decided to buy a classic car and restore it. I figured if I couldn't fix my body, at least I could fix up a car. It was a way of fighting back at old age and the pull of gravity that works relentlessly to drag us down, shrink us and turn us to dust. Well, maybe gravity was going to get me, but it would have to put up a real fight to get my classic car. I decided that I was going to leave behind a nice, shiny, two-ton memorial made of steel, glass and chrome that would outlive me by at least a century.There was no question in my mind which car I would restore. Cadillac ruled the roads when I was kid. Sure, I'd owned Mercedes and BMWs in adulthood, and my wife even drives the big, kid haulin' Chevy Suburban. But nothing said luxury and success like the Cadillacs of the 1940s, '50s and '60s.

Hell, if it was good enough for Elvis, it was good enough for me. So I started looking for a Caddy. Because I use the Internet for research in my work, I started there. And, like a lot of classic car buffs, I ended up on eBay. I chose the 1958 for a lot of reasons. First, it was big! And it had fins. I wanted a Cadillac that could swim along the freeway like a big, scary Great White shark. I liked the 1958 Caddy better than the '57 because it had twin headlights on each side. And I liked it better than the '59 because I didn't like those Jetsons' rocket ship tail lights Cadillac added that year. To me, the 1958 Caddy was truly "Motordom's Masterpiece," big but not too big, garish but not too garish--perfect in design and style.

There were two 1958 Cadillacs for sale on the Internet that I liked. One was a Series 62 Coupe up in Canada and the other was a Sedan De Ville owned by Cadillac LaSalle Club (CLC)member Chris Bruno in San Francisco. I was worried about buying a car from Canada and getting it over the border to the Los Angeles area where I live. So I e-mailed Chris, made him an offer for his car and asked him to stop the auction. He agreed and I went off to a Father's Day barbecue at my in-laws, very pleased with myself and telling everybody about my plans to fly up to San Francisco and drive the big Sedan De Ville home. But, when I got home, Chris phoned me and told me he had not been able to stop the auction. A Norwegian had outbid me and paid immediately through Pay Pal, closing the deal. That was my first lesson in buying an old Cadillac -- never underestimate the Scandinavians.

They love 1958 Cadillacs, they move fast and they are willing to pay top dollar to get them.I went back to look at the Canadian Series 62 Coupe, but the seller had withdrawn it from the auction because he didn't get his reserve price. So, I e-mailed him, got his phone number and made him an offer. I didn't even go to Canada to look at the car before buying it because the seller had posted about 50 detailed pictures of the car on the Internet, including the engine and undercarriage, so I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting. Keep in mind, I'm also a guy who will "hit" on 19 in Blackjack, hoping to get a 2. But I got very lucky with this Series 62 Coupe.National PostWhat I found out almost six months after I bought the car was that the seller had purchased the car from its original owner 26 years earlier.

And the original owner lived in Victoria. That meant two things: First, I was the third owner of the car; second, the car spent all of its life on the Canadian West Coast where it rarely snows and salt isn't put on the roads. Other than a California car, Victoria or Vancouver cars usually endure far better than their eastern counterparts.Shipping a car from Canada is a major pain in the you-know-what! Most American transport companies don't want to deal with the paperwork required at the border.

I tried about six U.S. carriers and they all turned me down. Finally, I went after a Canadian company called TFX International, which transported the car to me in California in an enclosed carrier.When the car arrived in Malibu, the transport driver called me at home. He couldn't get his big rig down our street, so my son Harry and I drove up to a school where the driver had parked and we off-loaded the car there. I asked the driver what he thought of the car. "Starts up every time!" he said. So Harry and I drove the big 1958 Caddy the quarter mile home and parked it in the driveway.

The next day, some friends came over and I took pics of the car. It was what you'd call a 10-footer. But the interior was exceptionally nice -- the front and back seats were still covered with that factory plastic. And everything worked except the radio antenna and the clock. What else is new?I had done my homework while waiting for the car to arrive. In fact, I joined the Cadillac La Salle Club before I even got the car. CLC member Chris Bruno helped me a lot, advising on what to do with an old car to avoid big problems, such as flushing out all the liquid systems in the car -- gas, oil, water. Another CLC member, John Milliken, was also extremely helpful. He lived near me in California and I cold called him, asking him for help with painters, replaters and the whole team I'd need to take my car from a 10-footer to a "one-incher." John graciously spent a long time on the phone with me, giving me names and phone numbers. And I could tell he knew what he was talking about

The proof was that the following year, John's 1941 Caddy convertible won Best in Show (Pre-War) at the 2006 CLC Grand National in Anaheim. When talking to Chris and John, I really felt as if I was entering a new world. These guys who owned old Cadillacs seemed like a different breed than the show folks I normally worked with in the entertainment industry. They would spend time with you on the phone, generously giving free advice and bending over backward to give a new guy like me shortcuts they had learned from their restoration experiences. It was a nice feeling for me to walk into a friendly group like that.

source : autos.canada.com