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Dan is well known for owning his 1959 Corvette for more than half a century and driving it 450,000 miles on trips all over North America. He keeps the car in top condition and it will never leave him. The Corvette means a lot to him because his mother was hoping he would buy an early two-seat Thunderbird – the car she always wanted. “I was serious about a light blue 1957 Thunderbird before I bought the Corvette,” Dan recalls. “The owner and I were one hundred dollars apart and no one would give way. I called back two days later to discover the car was sold.”

“I didn’t want the club to go into the dust bin,” he said about the dilemma, adding that he turned to technology for the answer. He got the club executive together on a Zoom teleconference call and messaged members to download the app and get ready to meet on the Internet. “Normally, we would be planning meetings, a barbecue, and driving events,” he says. “We have to obey the public health restrictions and can’t do any of that. But we can still get together on the Internet to keep in touch, share car stories and get technical help in repairing and restoring our cars.”

For Lewis Thaw and wife Ailaj, owners of a collection of two dozen classics, the pandemic caused their Vancouver-based auto parts business to quickly shift from a wholesale-focused business to one that served the retail market as well. “We find parts all over the U.S. from suppliers and friends for restoration shops and hobbyists,” Lewis Thaw says. “We bring the parts across the border and deliver them right to their door.” His business is up 20 per cent in the last year as the pandemic keeps the U.S.-Canadian border closed to all but essential and commercial travel. Both Thaw and Jan...

In 2011, he was working on a TV series with most of the locations he had to find in downtown Langley. One day while driving through the area, he spotted a 1978 Pontiac Firebird with a for sale sign on the windshield parked in front of a small house. “I burst out laughing. I couldn’t believe it,” he recalls. “I’ve been a crazy huge fan of the TV series Rockford Files and always loved Jim Rockford’s Pontiac Firebird Esprit. But, at no time, was I actively looking for one.” Actor James Garner played L.A.-based detective Jim Rockford in the series that ran from 1974 through 1980. He...

The 1966 Ford Thunderbird would mark the last convertible model produced until the two-passenger retro Thunderbirds came out in 2002. It was a remarkable car for its times, as the convertible top retracted into the rear compartment after the trunk automatically opened backwards to swallow the top. Once the trunk closed automatically, the car was a full convertible. It was wonderful technology for its era. Mike and Loretta Schmidt had wanted a special car when they tracked the ’66 convertible down in Penticton. After $20,000 changed hands 25 years ago, they decided to have some upgrades made...