Every day is Canada Day on Canadian Poncho! What better way to celebrate July 1 is to kick off the month with a 67 Beaumont as our feature car? Gerry Paquette owns this fine Beaumont Custom. There is an interesting rumor about how this car spent a lot of it's life. Gerry is still trying to verify if it is true. Gerry gives us the details:

This 1967 Beaumont Custom was purchased by Tom Harding from Trapp Motors Ltd in New Westminster BC. From the records that I have Mr Hardman drove the car for 157316 miles when there was an engine rebuilt done Nov of 1984 by Dave’s Auto Repair in Langley BC. The original engine was not rebuild able so Mr  Harding found a replacement 327 block ( I decoded it and it’s a 1969 big journal 327). Also in 1984 Mr Harding bought 2 new GM fenders but according to the records the body and complete paint job was done late Jan 1990 at 162204 miles by Sunshine Auto Body in Langley BC. This is still the same paint job today. Tom Harding kept a little book of records for all the work that was done on the car and according to his records the vinyl roof was replaced in 1992 but I do not have that invoice. 

The story that I have from Daryl was that the car sat in Mr Harding’s Rec Room for about 15 years which I would love to verify. Denise Gronlund, Tom Harding’s daughter according to the story had to knock a wall down to remove the car from the rec room. The phone number I had for Denise is no longer in service and I have googled it but to no avail.

Daryl’s story is that Denise Gronlund married her daughter in the car (the yellow pompom is still hanging from the mirror) and the newlyweds were moving to an island that did not require an automobile so she put it up for sale, but first offered it to Jay Leno, I do have that letter, but although he was aware of Beaumonts he didn’t have an interest in it at that time.

Daryl Auger, a former member, bought the car from Denise Gronlund but due to circumstances in Port Alberni he had to sell it.

I purchased the car from Daryl in Sept of 2006 and that is a quite a story in itself.

I already had a 1967 Beamont that I’d had for 3 years but it was time to redo it or buy something else. While I owned the blue 67 I had found a Beaumont site called Classic Canadian Beaumonts formerly Kens Klassic Kars that is no longer operational and from there I had purchased a couple of consoles from a Tom Curran out of Port, and after the Super Run 2006 in Red Deer, that’s when I decided to look or fix, Tom had put an ad on the site for Daryl saying that a friend of his was selling his 67 Beaumont and listed the options. I sent Tom an email telling him that I might be interested and if he gave me his buddy’s email address I would love to look at it. I sent Darryl an email and the next day Daryl sent me the story on the car with a bunch of pictures. I was hooked. My problem was I am in Red Deer and he’s in Port Alberni and Sept and Oct is a very busy time of the year for me. How was not the problem but when was I going to get out there to have a look before buying was the problem. I showed the pictures to one of our mechanics and when he found out it was in Port he told me that wasn’t a problem because he was going to the island the next week and he would go and inspect the car. If it was good he would bring it back for me. Garnett went and looked at the car, phoned me and told me it was a very nice car. My response was “I hope so because I already sent Daryl the money”! We rented a trailer out of Nanaimo and they loaded it up and Garnett brought it back to me. I am forever grateful to him for that!

The odometer reads 166295 when I purchased it from Daryl and now has 178000 + miles.

My quest to find Denise Gronlund shall continue so I can get the rest of the story.

My love for Beaumonts dates back to 1966 when I purchased a brand new 2dr custom 327 4sp bench seat car right off the truck. Being young and foolish I had to sell it and as life goes on... marriage kids etc! finally in 2003 I purchased the blue one. I am still looking for my original car of which I have the serial # and GM Documentation. If you can help me out in that venture I would really appreciate it.

Thank you,

Gerry Paquette

Red Deer AB